by Edward Milford
29. September 2009 10:03
The European PV Conference in Hamburg last week led me to reminisce a bit (in the way that can be quite tiresome for newer people in the field). While there, I bumped into a number of old contacts; one, Bruce Cross, played an incidental but significant role in the history of the company, as it was 20 years ago in September 1989 that I went to my first European PV conference in Freiburg. There were probably 20 stands, and maybe 500 people there. (Compare that with 950 stands and visitor and conference participants in the many thousands in 2009.)
As a brand new independent publisher, I had gone to discuss a possible book project only to find the potential author I had been in touch with had just committed to a different publisher. However, it was during the networking reception that I bumped into Bruce Cross, now in charge of PV Systems, but then editing a small 32 page pamphlet called the ‘European Directory of Renewable Energy Suppliers and Services’ that had run out of Government funding and needed a commercial publisher.
We took it on and Bruce continued to edit it for a few years; it grew into a substantial publication, then we developed it into the ‘World Directory of Renewable Energy Suppliers and Services’, then into the magazine ‘Renewable Energy World’ which provided the platform from which we were able to merge with Earthscan and develop the book publishing before selling the magazine division to PennWell in 2006.
Twenty years later, we are both still going, having managed to survive the considerable ups and downs of the industry. It is clearly also interesting enough for us both to be still involved enough to meet up again at another European PV conference networking reception and share a beer .... I wonder if we will repeat it in 20 years time?
