Oxford Instruments was represented by Jeff Fall, Dave Band and Julie Mardikian. Julie is the Oxford expert on ISO compliance and a lovely person and Jeff is the man at the helm at Oxford. The recent activities of GE will impact Oxford and Jeff presented a logical and well reasoned argument with respect to this decision. He was polite but he did not mince words. I am confident that because Jeff is a smart guy, he will find a solution.

(Later in this report I will talk about how IAMERS might help.)

I also met, for the second time, Miguel Dias with Tunemedix and his new colleague, Avelino Barroso.

Miguel is a very quiet and reserved person but he is also very experienced. I believe that he is one of the few independent players in Portugal and he has an impressive company.

I almost cannot believe it but he was generous enough to pay for everyone's dinner on Wednesday night!

I am starting to see a trend in Europe with more and more alternative service providers entering the market. They are all quality people like Miguel.

It is interesting because in the United States we had both brokers and alternative service providers but in Europe I see fewer brokers and more alternative service providers.

I briefly met Alireza Tavakoli from Promed Medical Parts. I did not get a long chance to visit with Alireza but I had a warm feeling and I am looking forward to our next meeting. I know that Alireza is involved in Philips parts and he is located in Germany.

We had a big contingent from the different OEMs. Barbara and I walked back from dinner on Thursday with Ann Ewing from Toshiba Medical Systems. I visited with Ann the night before about business and I was very impressed with her but on Thursday night, we had a chance to socialize. We walked back from dinner together and she even paid for my subway fare! What a nice lady, both brains and personality!

There were a lot of the OEMs represented at the event. I have to believe it is one of the few times that they can socialize with each other. I also have to believe that having a chance to visit like this is probably worth $30,000 or $40,000 to a major OEM. Just one little piece of information acquired at a meeting like the IAMERS could result in millions of dollars in sales. Frankly, I believe that they should pay more in dues because of the benefit that they accrue.

Heiko Schreml was there from Siemens joined by Fabian Stoeger and Philipp Saxer. I did not have a chance to visit with Heiko or Fabian but I did have a nice visit with Philipp and he seems like a very charming guy. Philipp has a very interesting well rounded background. I get the impression he is a logistics expert and before working for Siemens, he was involved in worldwide logistics for the parent company.

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