Under New Management

[Bill Murray]

Regarding Alex's link, I truly enjoyed the one on Eindhoven.

Nothing to do with military history as such, but when I was posted to Sweden with Volvo in 1974, I was the International Training Manager for their Spare Parts Division.
When Volvo purchased DAF Cars, there was the inevitable "Reduction in Force" that had to take place.

I still to this day do not know why I got the task/job, but in any case, I was assigned to travel to Eindhoven many, many times to assess their spare parts operations and to make recommendations to Volvo management as to how to integrate the Volvo/Daf operations.

In spite of my favourable assessment of their spare parts operations as to efficiency, profitability etc., which was mirrored by my counterparts on the Sales and Marketing side, I eventually was given the task of personally giving redundancy notices to quite a few Dutchmen whose carrying out of their duties was beyond reproach in my opinion.

To return to the link, it was a "Painful Pleasure" to see again so many venues in that city that I spent rather a lot of time in in the mid 1970's on a mission I did not at all enjoy.

As a side note, through the visits and contacts I made, I got a lot of original materiel about DAF military vehicles. A bit of a pity as I felt sometimes like a Trojan Horse.

Bill