St Francis

Hurriedly posting this on 27.10.2018 as my son has just arrived in San Francisco with a mate for a few days of fun. He is staying at a smart downtown hotel there, a change from the cockroach-infested motel they were in somewhere north yesterday.
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We arrived in San Francisco after our lightning car tour of parts of California. Returned the hire car and got settled into our hotel. The iconic, luxury St Francis Hotel that was opened in 1904 and survived the large 1906 earthquake and resulting fire with almost no damage. The two, lower left, 12 storey towers are the original building, the similar double tower on the right, was built in 1913 and the 32 storey rear tower where our room was located, in 1972.

The luxury was thanks to my company back then called Xomed Surgical Products Inc of Jacksonville, Florida. A small private company dedicated to the manufacture of devices/products (not medicines) for the Ear Nose and Throat healthcare business. A company run by enthusiasts which had been through several financial crises but was in the top league of the world  ENT market. It has to be said ENT is a bit of a poor relation in the entire health care "family".

A recent reshuffle of the management but still with the enthusiasts on board was now set to put the company on a firm financial footing and take it public. This week was the annual highlight of the ENT year with the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) conference from 7th to 10th September, by far the most important such event and attracting large numbers of doctors from around the world. Naturally, the largest funding came from the ENT businesses trade show that was part of it.

Now I am no Doc and can barely spell "Aspirin", so why was I flown halfway around the world and lodged in such luxury for six nights? Quite simply because I was responsible for the accounts of the smallest Xomed business outside the USA, based on the outskirts of Munich in Germany. And the boss of the International Division used the presence of all his General Managers at the meeting to also get the finance people together and do the budgets for the coming year with the aim of taking Xomed to the New York stock market within two years. And in addition, my boss Tino (described elsewhere) and I were to be charged with setting the German business on "fire".

For the moment though, we had the weekend ahead of us and could start to enjoy the wonderful sights and sounds (and smells) of this fascinating city with all its Flower Power mystic of my youth days.