Woodstock 1969 - Forty Years Ago

We should have gone to Woodstock which is not far from Troy, N.Y. home of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where we go our Bachelors of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1968, but we flew back to spend the summer in Rome, Italy. Really missed the fantastic happening. But we followed it has much as possible from the news, videos and records.
In the Summer of 1969 Chumpol Na Lamlieng asked me to go down from Philadelphia, where I was studying for an MBA at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, to have an interview with him in Washington D.C. where he was working with the World Bank. I went down to D.C. and he drove a red MG midget convertible singing a Beatles song(It's Been a Hard Days Night) to pick me up for a meal at a Chinese restaurant. He said that he had been chosen by Bankers Trust of N.Y. to help set up an investment bank in Thailand. The first one. And he needed to recruit a core of Thai business graduate students to work for the company, to be called Thai Investment and Securities Co., Ltd. or TISCO. He asked if I would join immediately, but I said that I needed to finish my MBA first and then I would join which would be 1970. Thus I went to work for Bankers Trust as trainee at US $ 1,000 a month which was good money those times for over three months in New York City. I still kept the apartment in Philadelphia so I commuted every day by subway and train to NYC. I trained in underwriting, venture capital, fiduciary departments and at the Asia desk of the bank. Bakers Trust picked up the plane fare and the cargo for the trip to Bangkok. I stopped in London for a week to look at the Bankers Trust International operations there.

PeterD said in comments...
:-) You were one happy camper. I remember you got yourself a brown Italian leather briefcase, and thank you for the Tissot with the 24hr face. It was my wristwatch for the next 15 years. Dad, too, was really happy and proud. Was the golf club set at the same time? (nick on the Steinway)

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Thanks Peter for the memories. Yes the leather briefcase was because a business man had to have one, and I got it near Piazza di Spagna. The golf set, Wilson X31, was because Chumpol said I had to play golf because that was how to get business in Thailand.