POSTED ON JANUARY 16, 2018 Waste is a design error Two 40 foot containers are put together to form one module of the new plant I first met Dietrich Tegtmeyer of Lanxess right at the beginning of this century – when Lanxess was still part of Bayer. I was working for ECCO based in Dongen […]
Rediscovering Portugal
POSTED ON NOVEMBER 12, 2015 Portugal with ICLT Over the last ten years I have become very identified with the University here, even although my involvement has always been part time and quite marginal. It is odd as it means I get identified as an “academic’ whereas all my career has been factory based and […]
Degree Ceremony and the new MSc
POSTED ON AUGUST 16, 2013 Degrees Apart In our business the essential skill for a tanner lies in managing what happens inside the factory. It is not just making great leather but being able to make the great same leather day in and day out. The cost of errors – unhappy customers with empty factories, […]
To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower
(First published by APLF, Hong Kong, in my Cool Hunting Column) One of the famous characters of the 20th century leather industry was Bert Childs, a hide and skin trader from Liverpool. His wife used to collect sand as she travelled around the world and after staying with them in the early nineteen eighties I […]