News
December 2007
Planes, Trains and Tornados!
Rather a snappy title I know, but all will become apparent as you read on!
Artaius is committed in trying to visit our overseas clients and contacts as frequently in order to service their needs as much as possible. With our connections with the local regional development agency, East of England International (http://www.eei-online.com), the UK Trade and investment outposts in the British High Commissions world wide (https://www.uktradeinvest.gov.uk/), and our membership though our sister firm Wilder Coe (http://www.wildercoe.co.uk) with the International network of accounts we belong to, Integra, (http://www.integra-international.net), we are often asked by our contacts to present to potential companies from overseas locations looking to set up in the UK. Our client Relationship Director, Melanie Troiano, has just returned from such a trip and reports below on our activities in the US in October 2007:-
Houston, Texas – Monday/Tuesday 15th/16th October
After flying into Houston on Saturday 13th we enjoyed a rather relaxing Sunday (well it was my birthday after all!) We started our visit programme by following up with key contacts from previous US trips as well as visiting companies who were interested in starting new UK operations. Our main purpose for starting our visit in Houston was following an invitation from, Carl Glaw from one of our Integra member firms; GLO CPA LLP (http://www.glocpa.com/index.html), to speak at a keynote lunch entitled “Doing Business in the UK”. The event was held at the Houston club and was supported by the UK Trade and Investment Team based out of the British High Commission in Houston.
Washington DC, Wednesday/Thursday 17th/18th October
At this point in the trip my experience of US internal flights was fantastic – its like catching a bus! You arrive and check in electronically, and with 45 minutes to go you manage to get on an earlier flight, whizz though airport security and get into your seat ready for take off – brilliant, we arrived at our DC hotel in time for tea! Washington was particularly successful with some very good meetings with the UK Trade and Investment team based in the British Embassy regarding future projects that we could work together on as well as more companies looking to put a footprint into the UK for a trading base for Europe. It is exactly half way through our week at lunchtime on the Wednesday that things started to get rather interesting. It all started outside the British embassy in Washington – a rather ageing taxi diver, who took great pride in telling us about the time he picked up Ted Heath from the British Embassy, was hailed by myself so I do hold myself somewhat responsible for the next hour and a half cab ride! I am sure if this taxi driver were to invest in GPRS, a map and his own mobile telephone rather than using ours would have a much more productive day all round! To cut a rather long eventful story short, we were finally abandoned at a Gas Station somewhere in the suburbs of Washington and left for our client to find us some 30 minutes later – fortunately our client saw the funny side (and so did the Gas station attendants!)! It was around this time that the full blown cold and sore throat started! Thursday I experienced the Washington metro system – brilliant, clean, airy lots of space and people were actually polite – a far cry from the tube network of our great capital city! We managed to yet again get to the airport for transfer to Chicago early hoping to get onto an earlier flight. Alas, it was not to be - tornado’s over Indiana had grounded some flights and caused delays of 3 hours. Our flight was delayed even further by having a defective plane that was grounded at Chicago airport. This was all compounded by my credit card being put on stop following my T-mobile hot spot purchase (rather embarrassing whilst battling to buy refreshments along with several hundreds of other delayed passengers all trying to get to Chicago) Finally we were offered an alternative flight from Washington’s other airport, Dulles, and took off some 8 hours after our original check in. The flight was very bumpy as we flew above the tornados and was rather interesting trying to balance a cup of tea in extreme turbulence – Have you ever wondered what it is like to drink tea on a roller coaster? I now know and its not very easy I can assure you! However the view of the lightening from above the storm was quite a spectacle.
Chicago Friday 19th October
2am and I finally reached my pillow – 5 hours sleep and we would be checking out again and hitting the road for a final day of meetings. I have to say that Chicago is a fantastic city and has a rather helpful pharmacy right next door to the Wrigley Building where the British High Commission is based, which is quite handy when you have a full blown streaming cold – not very attractive for when you are meeting the UKT&I team, to explain the services of Artaius and how we can help them with their clients looking to set up in the UK, but whatever the pharmacist gave me certainly made me sleep all the way home on our red eye flight that evening!
Over all, a very successful trip with invites to go back to present at future events and certainly lots of follow up!
