[Hartley118]

I heard first thing on the local news of the big fire on Mill Road, never dreaming that it could be Gees. What a sad loss!

With having so many electronics companies around Cambridge, and with the rapid rate of technology progress, there seemed to be a constant flow of manufacturers' redundant stock available to H Gee & family. In some ways it seemed comparable to those joyous days of post-war ex-WD 'government surplus'.

Back in the 1970s, high interest rates meant that our 'bean counters' were keen to realise (and be seen to realise) every possible scrap of cash from redundant stock. That was after I had assured them that those old passive components were really impossible to design into the new generation of IC-based technolgy. So that prompted a massive drive by Production Control to clear out every possible redundant and potentially redundant component from the stores. Who was it sold to? Gees of course!

However, such was our 'silo-style' management that no account had then been taken of the component needs of other departments such as after-sales service, customised additions to existing products etc. As a result, our after-sales manager would from time to time take a trip down Mill Road to ferret around in Mrs Gee's stock to find those essential components crucial to completing a contract, and buy back what we'd just sold to her a few weeks previously. Gees had become an 'archive store' for the company.

I'm sure that this story was repeated in many electronics companies and is still continuing. What will happen now though?

Martin