BoatBanter.com - Greg, speaking of following the money...

John H wrote:
On Fri, 6 Sep 2013 19:28:13 -0400, "Mr. Luddite" wrote:

"F.O.A.D." wrote in message
...

On 9/6/13 5:42 PM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
an amorphous hard carbon coating as well that protected and added
lubricity

Does Mrs. Luddite know you talk like that? :)

--------------------------

She probably typed the technical proposal. We didn't have computers
or word processors then so they were all written in longhand on legal
pads. I'd do the electrical. process and control sections and another
guy did the writing for the mechanical hardware. I'd utilize the
original "cut and paste" method for all the boilerplate sections.
Then they went to Mrs.E. and another typist and typed up on IBM
Selectric typewriters that had that rotating font ball.

That's when I got in the habit of getting up at about 2 am when Mrs.
E. and the mud rats (kids) were sleeping and I'd make a pot of coffee,
sit down at my desk and start writing. I could finish my part of a
40-50 page technical proposal by 8 or 9 am if it was similar to
something we had built before.

Here's a long winded story. Delete and skip if you're not interested
but it was quite a big deal for me back in 1990:

The longest proposal .... and the one that took the most time .... was
for a unique, large system for the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at
the University of Rochester. They had a huge program called "Omega"
funded by the DOE and the DOD for building a laser system consisting
of 60 beams that focused their energy onto a "target" the size of a
piece of rice. The "official" goal at the time was to produce energy
by nuclear fusion by compressing deuterium ... an abundant element
found in sea water with very high powered lasers. There were also
defense applications, allowing nuclear research without having to blow
stuff up.

I had just incorporated my company when this project came along. As
"newbies" in the industry, we typically got the scraps of contracts
that the big boys weren't interested in. The UofR request for
technical proposals and price quotations went out world-wide to all
the major manufacturers of custom vacuum deposition systems ... about
13 companies in total. We were not on the original bidder's list
because we were so small and unknown at the time. A friend in
another company called me and said his company was going to "no-bid"
the project and asked me if I wanted the technical specifications to
look at. I said, "sure" ... and then called the UofR purchasing
department to see if they would accept a proposal and quotation from
us. He welcomed all comers, and said yes.

I had absolutely no allusions that we would ever get the contract,
but I figured it was an opportunity to submit a strong technical
proposal, get our name out there, and maybe get on the bidder's list
for future, smaller contracts. With that in mind, I suggested to
Mrs. E. that she take the kids on a vacation to Disneyworld with some
friends and I spent over a week researching the requirements and
writing the best proposal I could.

It was submitted and I basically put it out of my mind and
concentrated on getting contracts that were more realistic for the
size of the company.
About 3 months later we received notice that a more detailed
specification was being forwarded to a small group of the original
bidders.
We had 48 hours to respond to it.

When I reviewed the new spec, I realized that they had now included
some specific process criteria that the successful bidder would be
obligated to achieve. Now I was getting a little nervous. I read
the requirements and felt that some were beyond current state of the
art and were probably not achievable.

After much thought, I called the assistant to the project leader at
the UofR and respectfully withdrew our bid. He thanked me for the
time and effort and said he'd forward my withdrawal to the program
leader.

A half hour later, the project leader called. He wanted to know why I
withdrew our bid. I explained that there were two parts of the
process (had to do with the uniformity of coating over a very large
optic) that I did not feel was possible to achieve. He wanted to
know why and we talked a bit about this.

He then told me that he knew they weren't achievable and that we were
the only company out of three that made the final "cut" that took
exception to that part of the spec. He *strongly* encouraged me to
send a revised proposal taking exceptions to any part of the spec that
I didn't feel comfortable with. He then told me that our price had
"plenty of room" for adjustment and told me to make sure I was
comfortable with it.

So, I did as he instructed ... took exceptions a couple of the
spec's requirements and added another $100k to the price for
"insurance". Two weeks later I received a call from one of the other
companies that had bid, offering congratulations. "About what?" I
asked. "You don't know? ... You won the UofR project".

I called the project leader and he confirmed it. He asked to keep it
quiet for a couple of days because they were contacting and thanking
all the other bidders before making a formal announcement.

That project was a huge success, both for us and the UofR and it put
my little company on the "map" so to speak. Good memories.

Great story, but I didn't see how union involvement helped in any way.

John (Gun Nut) H.
They unloaded the Chinese computers off of the truck for $75/hour.