Today's Notables

My father and I went to Shanghai during the time that two articles were published in the newsletter. The purpose of our visit was to see Ross Co. China office. Ross currently has two Chinese ventures, one is called Nantong Ross and the other, Ross Wuxi. Nantong is on the opposite side of the Yangtze River from Shanghai. Like our previous visit, we arrived in Puton Airport and were met by Mr. Uemura and Mr. Tanomoto.

It was approximately 4 hours from the airport to Nantong, and since there is not public transportation, we had to use a taxi. After about 3 hours we arrived in the port city and after thinking we had finally arrived, I only found that we were at the end of a very long traffic jam. When I ask Mr. Tanomoto what had happened, he replied that we had only arrived to board the ferry. The jam was not moving at all so we got out of the taxi to see what was going on. There were over 100 vehicles lined up waiting and when I saw that I thought we might never get to our destination. We did not know how far the ferry had to go and how many vehicles could be carried at once. It seemed like it could take an eternity for 100 vehicles to get across.

In the end, we waited an hour and a half to finally board with another 45 minutes to get to the other side of the Yangtze. As soon as the ferry had turned around and we began crossing, I got a feeling of how wide the Yangtze was. After finally getting off the ferry, we had another 2 hours travel time. All tolled, it took 6 hours to get to our destination. I remember my father saying that in China like in the US, you can never depend on getting somewhere as planned.
Nantong Ross is a publically managed mixer manufacturer that has been in operation for over 30 years. It was established around the president, vice president and accountant at the time. Ross had invested 40% of the company's capital. Nantong Ross manufactures a pump blender, vertical mixer, motionless mixers, etc, for China domestic market and the US. Ross applies the finishing touches and sells the mixers in the US but Ross VP said it took considerable time and effort to get to this point.

Wuxi in Ross Wuxi means "mushaku" in Japanese, and it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ross. It contracts production for relatively large mixers. When I asked why they seemed like idle, Ross VP responded that they were still in the process of handling small orders that were all for the Chinese market.

I didn't have the time this visit to see other mixer manufacturers, but Mr. Uemura and Mr. Tanomoto did. They both said the quality of the finished products and the level of manufacturing technology was better than they had anticipated.