Sometimes you get lucky. It was 95F or so, humid as heck, and we had hundreds of people coming for an Arizona Technology Council and PADT Open House combined event. The good news is one of our long time tenants had just move out to a smaller space across the lake so we had there former bullpen area open and, most importantly, air conditioned. Cancel the tents, break out the vacuums
Everything came together and we had a great event. Around 300 guests checked in, and suspect a few more sneak in and out before we could grab their contact information.
The evening started with drinks and food and a lot of networking. Eight participants in the AZTC partner program were there to talk about the programs and discounts they offer council members. The Falcon robotics team from Carl Hayden High School was also able to come and show off two of their robots.
After some brief talking by Steven Zylstra, the AZTC President, and Eric Miller, one of PADT’s owners (me), everyone got back to some serious networking and Mexican food eating before the tours of PADT’s facility began at 6:00.
The best part of the networking was watching PADT’s customers, vendors, and friends mingle and get to know each other. Connections were being made all over the room. Even PADT’s telepresence robot made an appearance and wondered around the room.
During the tours, PADT employees shows off their work (well, the stuff we can show) in Simulation, Product Development, and Rapid Prototyping. As expected, the 3D Printers were the big hit but we heard back from many attendees that they found the talk on Simulation very interesting. Us old FEA guys like to get some attention.
In the end we found that we had a problem. With 30 some PADT employees in attendance, all with smart phones in their pockets, we only took one pictures. the bottom line was that we were all having such a good time interacting with people that we forgot to snap some shots. Fortunately, Russ Olinsky, one of the guests, was kind enough to send us a picture from the tour. (If you have any pictures you can share, please email me (eric.miller@padtinc.com)).
Things wrapped up around 9:00, with most people gone at 8:00. We hope that all of you who came enjoyed it as much as we did.
We hope to see all of you, and those who could not make it, at our 20th anniversary bash in the spring!
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