by Dr. Iain Corness
A
newcomer to Pattaya, Keith Wilson is the managing director of WET, an
acronym for Water Engineered Technologies. He is a man who has lived in
some interesting places, has flown in private jets with the Lord Mayor of
London, but also spent 30 hours on a plane for a three hour flight in
Kazakhstan, while the pilot went airfield hopping, looking for fuel. He
also harbors the desire of sailing in the Round the World yacht race.
Keith is British, born in Hythe on the edge of the New
Forest. His father was an engineer in an Exxon oil refinery, which goes a
little way towards explaining some of Keith’s movements in life.
Scholastically he initially showed promise, “But
according to my mother, I was doing quite well till I discovered girls and
motorbikes.”
When his secondary schooling came to an end, there was
family discord. “They (his parents) wanted college, but I wanted a
motorcycle,” said Keith. Eventually a compromise was struck. Exxon got
Keith indentured as a pipe-fitter for the next four years, and Keith got
his Yamaha. By the way, there’s a lot more to pipe-fitting than a large
adjustable spanner and a three quarter inch BSP outlet. “It’s more
than just pipes, it’s geometry and much else as well. You have to be
able to build something in the workshop that will match up, flange for
flange, with the corresponding items in the plant,” said Keith.
After completing his apprenticeship he was then
employed at the same Exxon plant, but very quickly decided that
pipe-fitting was not a fitting profession for a young man with ambition.
An American company, SwageLok, was looking for young sales engineers and
he joined them in a fruitful association that was to last 15 years. During
that time, he rose to become sales manager and then was given the
opportunity to go to the Caspian Sea to join the oil and gas industry
there. “So I went to Azerbaijan, the third most corrupt country in the
world,” said Keith with a laugh.
After a couple of years, the company wanted him back in
the UK, but neither Keith nor his wife wanted to go back, despite the
rampant corruption. “It’s a fascinating country with beautiful
countryside. We liked the variety of the people and the places I got to
visit. It was the challenge more than anything else. We would make
appointments with people who didn’t expect you to turn up!” It was
during this time that he had the epic 30 hour plane trip in an old Russian
plane where he could hear the air being sucked through the doors. “I
really shouldn’t be on this plane,” he said to himself for 30 hours!
Having decided that he was staying, he took a position
as an international project manager, which ended up being a secondment to
Trade Partners UK, the British government advisory arm now called the
Trade and Investment unit. This happened because he was conversant with
the trials and tribulations in setting up companies in the country, and
was best equipped to assist others.
It was during this time that the Lord Mayor of London
came on a promotional tour to Uzbekistan, and as part of the tour, Keith
was ferried around in Mercedes limousines with black windows, complete
with police motorcycle escorts, while the traffic was held back to let the
motorcade come through on the way to the airports where private jets were
waiting. “It was an interesting episode,” said Keith, explaining in a
small way just where some of the UK taxpayers’ moneys go. He also got to
meet HRH Prince Andrew, who came across as a very polished and capable
public figure.
His stay in Azerbaijan went on to become six years.
“A lot of things happened in those six years. As projects kicked in,
more people arrived.” He also found that he needed to carry his British
government business card to counter the ceaseless traffic police
harassment, who apparently are even ‘diligent’ than they are here. It
was apparently nothing to be stopped four times on the way to work. And
that was over a 12 km distance! “Driving to work one day I was stopped
as usual by the police and I started to lose it. I began to shout and that
was the time to move on.”
Keith can draw a direct comparison between Azerbaijan
and Thailand. “Nothing was easy. Here there is a procedure to do things,
like setting up a company, for example. Over there, it became very
frustrating in the end.”
Having decided that their time there was finished, they
looked at where they should go next, as going back to the UK was not
really an option for people who were now firmly fixed in life as ex-pats.
They had a friend who had a property in Pattaya whom they had visited for
holidays a few times, and he suggested they come over and just relax for a
while. Like the concept of a ‘gap year’, or a sabbatical, Keith and
Samantha decided, “We would take a little break,” said Keith.
When the chairman of Water Engineered Technologies
heard they were going to Thailand he suggested that Keith and his wife set
up a new distributorship here. “The gap year didn’t happen,” said
Keith with a laugh.
However, there was more to keep them here than just the
new business venture. “We are active people,” said Keith. “We enjoy
life and living. There’s much more to do here, with golf, sailing and
horse riding, for example.”
Those three examples are all some of Keith’s hobbies,
as well as rugby football, which he played when younger, but now
spectates.
But there is still the unfinished aim – the Round the
World Yacht Race. The boats take 12 amateur crew and the voyage takes 10
months, but I get the feeling that the new water business here will keep
him off the water for a while yet!
