By Andrew Farr
November 8, 2010
Greetings from Singapore, this is Bernie Krzys – Publisher of Trenchless Technology magazine! I arrived in Singapore for the 2010 International No-Dig conference and was immediately hit with 88 F, humid weather. Not surprising since Singapore is almost on the equator. I set up our Trenchless Technology booth at the Suntec Exposition Center and got a huge assist from Akkerman’s Rob Tumbleson — being that he is taller than me, his height came in handy when I was position our magazine’s banner. Paul Harwood, Westrade Group of the UK, which is the show manager, walked me through the exhibition hall. Side Note: Paul just ran a half marathon in 1:42:00, but he’s such a young guy so this is no surprise about his great time.
Ran in to NASTT’s Chris Brahler (TT Technologies), Piero Salvo (Genivar) and Mike Willmetts. Chris has his wife Gena with him and Mike’s wife Widdy is here too.
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My wife Phyllis and I attended the Chairman’s Dinner tonight, where Dec Downey (Jason Consultants) bid farewell as ISTT’s chairman, handing the reins to Dr. Sam Ariaratnam of Arizona State University, who succeeds Dec as ISTT chairman. There were about 100 people at the dinner — all the ISTT chapter chairmen and other dignitaries. Three new ISTT chapters signed on just recently — China, Turkey, and Singapore. Columbia became a chapter in 2009. ISTT executive director John Hemphill commented that the Turkey chapter called “out of the clear blue” and said they were ready to join ISTT and wanted to meet in London with Dec to sign their charter. Dec followed through and now Turkey with its 40 members is a sanctioned ISTT chapter. The Chinese Chapter is here in strength and I must admit to doing a number of “Gan Bei!” toasts with them, which translated means “Bottoms Up!”
Notable North Americans attending the Singapore conference include: Mary Andringa and Doug Hundt from Vermeer, Jack Elliot and Mark Holley from Pure Technologies, Joe Barsoom, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Ray Sterling, retired Trenchless Technology Center executive director and former ISTT chairman, and Jason Lueke with Arizonta State University.
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Paul Harwood told me they had about 110 exhibitors, which is quite good considering that everyone attending has to take a flight to Singapore.
There are approximately 5 million people in Singapore with more than 500,000 guest workers on a relatively small island. Singapore is a city state, so it is a country within itself. The city is noted for huge shopping malls. And now, it is highly regarded for the International No-Dig.
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Stay tuned for more from Monday’s events!
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**Be sure to check back for Bernie’s daily blog entries either via the news link or under the TT Blog header at the top of www.trenchlesstechnology.com
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