Trips to Hawaii always signaled a downturn was to come. This one started with the sales training, which I think was on a Sunday. Kevin Crofton had the stage for 3 hours convincing everyone that our linear cleaner was going to work. As he stepped off the stage, he turned to me and I quote, “Beat that Seto!” I have to admit that to date, it was by far the best presentation of clean ever, but in etch, we had our secret weapon. We worked with the video company and created a “preview” of the 2300 that was like a movie preview with scenes from Toy Story, Aliens, Fifth Element and others intermingled with video of the machine. I remember showing it and when it finished, you were all just staring at me, quiet (a rare thing during sales training), not quite sure you understood what had just happened so we had to show it again. I’ll see if I still have it and if it is possible to convert from VCR format. I’m married to a video guy so if it can be done…
Besides the heightened focus and intense arguments over the upcoming election (Bush/Gore), the most memorable part of this conference, was the amazingly inappropriate team building day. Who in their right mind would send out a bunch of highly competitive people into 15 foot waves on flimsy rafts that were hastily made out of inner tubes, some wood and some rope??? I think it was Dave Hemker and Stefano Mangano that were on the raft that completely broke apart after being hit by a monster wave.
This was also the conference where the drinking was quite high at night, even for Lam standards. Bill Spira disappeared with a bachelorette party. Some of Lam Japan were found in the elevator passed out. The venue complained about how the bar was being raided after it had been shut down. And many regional teams showed up to our “tie off” meetings in the morning in some state of disrepair.
Hoping others found more pictures from this event.