Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1539509
54 PCB007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2025 T H E C H E M I CA L C O N N ECT I O N people (most of them personal friends) joined the competition or took other jobs. I remember this because I was personally affected by the decision to shut down our Euro- pean facility. The situation embarrassed our corpo- rate masterminds, and we decided to demonstrate that we were willing to dispatch help anywhere in the world on short notice, thereby proving they were right in shutting down our German facility. I was told one morning that I needed to board a plane that evening for Vienna to help with a large customer's emergency. I was familiar with the cus- tomer and the problem and pointed out that two of our best field servicemen were already there who were familiar with the emergency and knew how to fix it. I still had to go to demonstrate our quick response. Nevertheless, I took an overnight flight to Vienna, was driven into the mountains to the customer's site, turned a knob to increase the etcher oscillation rate, waited a few hours to make sure everything was alright, and was driven back to the Vienna air- port that evening to catch a flight back to the U.S. That would have been okay, but for the half hour on the apron by the plane, arguing with airport secu- rity. The security protocol at the time was to line up the checked baggage next to the plane, have each passenger identify their bags as they came out to board, and wait until the passenger boarded before loading their bags. The security people could not believe I didn't have any checked bags, just my carry- on, and thought I didn't understand what was going on. I had to show them my ticket that proved I had just a 24-hour layover. I was not a happy camper by the time I got back to the States. Since then, we've never been able to reestablish this kind of presence, nor considered trying this in Asia. We knew if we tried, anyone we trained would soon quit and start their own company, using our designs to compete with us, and there was nothing we could do about it. So, we are stuck with a system of reps in both Asia and Europe. The Chemistry Was Right but the Communication Wasn't One of the joys of dealing with foreign reps and customers is language difficulties. We have to make sure we are all talking about the same thing. Several years ago, we had an Asian customer that wanted to run a dry film stripping test in our strip- per with their stripping chemistry. The stripping chemistry was semi-aqueous, meaning it contained butyl carbitol to increase the stripping speed and efficiency. It was not available from the U.S. sup- plier, requiring ship- ping from Asia. Our rep made the arrangements and asked how much we needed. The chem- istry came as a con- centrate to be made up at 10% by vol- ume. Our stripper had a 100-gallon sump, and we wanted enough for two make-ups, so we asked for enough to make 200 gallons of stripper solution. We expected four five-gallon containers of concen- trate, but got four 55-gallon drums instead. Somehow, the distinction between enough con- centrate to make up 200 gallons of working solution and just plain concentrate got lost. Two hundred and twenty gallons of concentrate were enough to last us for years, but we couldn't send it back, and the organic content of the semi-aqueous component would cause a problem in our waste treatment sys- tem if we tried to dispose of it in large doses. So, we decided to use it and, after four years, we are just now getting to the last drum. Even when we speak the same language, there can be problems, but I'm running out of column space again. The best I can do is offer some hard- earned wisdom: Offering a young lady a "lift" in England is okay, but offering her a "ride" is not. In summary, dealing with overseas customers is alw- ays an adventure, but even more so nowadays with the uncertainties of the new tariff proposals. PCB007 Don Ball is a process engineer at Chemcut. To read past columns or contact Ball, click here.