Happy Birthday Michael
www.MyPE.co.za:
As
one gets older you begin to realise that what you parents told you all
those years ago actually is true.
My younger brother, Michael celebrates his birthday today 24 February.
Happy Birthday Boet!
We have been through thick and thin together – the early death of our
Father had devastating consequences on our family and neccesitated our
early maturation – bye, bye childhood. We had the greatest fun learning
that life wasn’t all a bed of roses and that not everyone actually had
our best interests at heart, not even supposed close family! Life
became our university as we climbed each hill only to see another one
beckoning.
Thrust into the position of ‘surrogate father’ to our two sisters and
‘tower of strength’ to our Mother we fumbled our way through life and
survived. Along the way our sisters scattered to the far corners of the
earth.
Michael has been one constant in my life – tolerant of my black sheep
tendencies and always willing to offer a hand when needed. A perfect
foil to my more, shall we say, flamboyant and excitable tendencies.
Like all good families we have had our differences which we
conveniently forget.
Along the way we established an electrical contracting business,
Straton Electrical and an alarm monitoring, installation and armed
response business, since sold in 1999. Michael continued with the
electrical contracting and I
dabble in the internet realm.
I sat down this morning and wondered just exactly what I could give
Michael for his birthday – just what do you give someone that you have
a shared 40 years of experience with?
My best gift to him would be to wish him all the best and STRONGLY
RECOMMEND that you give Straton
Electrical a call should you need any
electrical work done.
Michael has extensive experience in a number of sectors, one of which
is the telecommunications sector where he provides reticulation and
lightning protection to a major cellphone company. The Nelson Mandela
Bay 2010 Stadium also benefited from Michael’s expertise as he
installed the C-Bus lighting system for the stadium. In all the years
that we worked together Michael always impressed me with his honesty
and extremely fair approach to pricing – sometimes he would drive me
mad when he refused to charge higher prices, especially when competing
against others he would not compromise on quality.
Kinda reminds me of my Late Father – the electrical apprentices were
dead scared of him as he had an infuriating habit of walking into a new
installation and without even appearing to look would point out
everything that was slightly skew and insist that it be done over again
- no matter the cost. Maybe that is where we get our mantra about
excellence from?
Contact Michael at Straton Electrical
if you want to deal with a
consummate professional.
Port Elizabeth Budget Accommodation
Go to:MyPE.co.za
