Heitman

Friday Our last day of the residency of getting packed prior to our departure for the morning. Our last two visits consisted of GE and Micro-labs But before we could get to either, we got to experience a true Indian traffic jam. It took us about 2.5 hrs to go less than 20 miles. From GE we were off to Micro-labs who served us Jainism food. The part of GE we visited was GE Aviation as two of the students work there in the USA. At GE they are big on digital solutions for aviation and being able to effectively use data. The compound has been in Bangalore since it began in 1999. It is a global research center - facility for 300 ppl, aviation 700, P&E, transportation, health care The main competitor is Rolls Royce. ... read more

Third Day of Residency This was probably the most interesting day of the entire trip. This day we were heading to a town (by Indian standards, city by American standards) outside of Bangalore called Mysore. There is large, beautiful palace there we were going to tour. After the tour, we had lunch and then were off to a rural village to see where some of the Selco solar panels are being utilized today. It was about a three hour bus ride to Mysore. We made a stop halfway through to get coffee and take a bathroom break. However, in the bathroom stalls, there was no paper. We had to get the paper handed to us by the lady who looked like she was there to clean the bathroom. When I came out to wash my hands, ... read more

Global Residency in India Monday morning was the first day of our residency. The morning began fairly early with breakfast at the hotel. There was an assortment of different foods – Western, Indian and everything in between. While I wasn’t sick, my stomach was beginning to gurgle, so I stuck to a more conservative breakfast. Although my favorite thing was the papaya. I also had some watermelon juice and BACON!!!! Seriously! They had BACON! This was probably the most pleasant surprise one could find in India for breakfast – BACON!!!! Yum! We all piled into the bus and were off to the first company - Mytrah. Mytrah is a wind energy company that has an office in Bangalore, India. They work off of independence power producer wind farms. Many of the obstacles that Mytrah faces deals ... read more

On Saturday, I woke up very early. I decided to get some of my clothes laundered, so I didn’t need to unpack anything further for Sunday. After getting ready, I made my way to the lobby to meet the driver for my tour. It turned out that because I was hungry and would not be there when breakfast opened up, the front desk manager decided to have the head chef make me a special breakfast anyway. He also had them get together some snacks for my day trip. And all the additional services combined did not cost more than $20 USD A driver came to bring me to another hotel where I would meet up with the other people from other hotels who would join the group. It ended up that the rest of the group ... read more

My first flight was Chicago to Heathrow in London. Luckily, Given my stopover was almost 15 hours, I went through customs to leave the airport and get into the city. I topped up my oyster card, hopped on the Piccadilly line and rode into the city center. I walked around some – oh, how I can just walk in London all day long. The itinerary for the day included meeting with one of my friends, Isaby, from Parliament. He now works for the Tax Payer Alliance in London. He was really busy working on getting press releases and things together for the day as the MP’s in Parliament announced that day that they would be increasing their own pay – not something that Tax-Payers like to hear. I mainly stayed around Westminster. Prior to meeting with ... read more