A Lifetime in the Instrument Trade ~ David Wallis
David commenced his career in 1946 as an indentured apprentice with the microscope maker, Charles Baker with showrooms in High Holborn and a factory in Balham (Later in Purley Way, Croydon) The apprenticeship was sponsored by his father, to teach his son the instrument trade.
David spent the first five years in every department of the company, including the factory, this covered, Machining, Assembly, Inspection and the Sales Department, including Export. The latter part of the apprenticeship was spent in the showroom in High Holborn, spending time in every department, which included Surveying Instruments, Telescopes & Binoculars, Surgical Instruments, Drawing Office Equipment and Microscopes.
After serving two years in the RAF David joined a small family business of C. S. Pyser, distributing Wray Binoculars & Photographic Lenses also Britex Microscopes for education.
The rest is 65 years of history, from Salesman to Chairman of a multimillion pound group of instrument companies, which will be the feature of the presentation on the 11th November 2013.
David Wallis. Hon member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Fellow of the British Cartographic Society, Hon. Member of the Cartographic Society, Fellow and Hon. Member and Past President of the Photogrammetric & Remote Sensing Society, Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers. Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers, Fellow of the Charted Institute of Marketing.
Following the G2 Gas Cloud towards the Galactic Centre ~ David Pulley
A recent publication from the European Space Agency reports the tracking of a giant gas cloud around the supermassive black hole at at Galactic centre. This follows on from an earlier paper this year by the same authors..."Pericenter passage of the gas cloud G2 in the Galactic Center". We will look at the implications of these observations following their progress from 2002.