business profile
polishing and thin film coatings is still rare, even today, and has underpinned everything Gooch and Housego has done since.’
Between 1985 and 1995, Gooch and Housego grew from being largely a domestic supplier of precision optics to the UK to being a global supplier of acousto-optics (the latter represented more than two thirds of revenue by 1995, from a standing start 10 years earlier).
Les Housego retired in the early 90s, having sold his shares to Archie Gooch, and in 1997 the company floated on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange. The Gooch family remains a shareholder, although they have no other involvement in the business today. In 1995, Gooch and Housego made its first acquisition, Optronic Laboratories, based in Orlando, Florida, giving it its first foothold in the US. Jones himself had risen to the position of technical director in the 1980s – and, by the time that first acquisition came around, had become managing director. One of the company’s major competitors at the time was Crystal Technology, and for a period, it looked like being the next acquisition to be completed. For a variety of reasons, it didn’t happen, but in early 2011, some 14 years later, Gooch and Housego announced the acquisition of Crystal Technology. The pattern of acquisitions was set though, and Cleveland Crystals was purchased in 1999, adding crystal growth to Gooch and Housego’s portfolio of products and services. At around this time, Jones actually left Gooch and Housego, partly down to an increasingly tough working relationship with Archie Gooch, who was still involved in the company, despite being well into his 80s. Also, though, Jones wanted other challenges, motivated in part by wanting to learn about the business aspects of technology companies, including the acquisition process. ‘I worked for a small UK-based
www.electrooptics.com
venture capital company that was focused on hi-tech businesses,’ he says. ‘Through a strange set of circumstances, I found myself being persuaded back to Gooch and Housego some three years later by Archie himself. In a strange way, I saw my time there as unfinished business, and my interim experiences made me feel that I had an opportunity to exploit
as yet untapped potential within the company.’
His objective as chief executive officer was to give the company some direction. ‘My challenge was to decide on the destination and plot the course to get there,’ says Jones. ‘I identified a couple of areas of opportunity in particular, namely aerospace and defence, as well as life sciences. We were to tackle
these in addition to our existing industrial markets, where we had continued to enjoy success. ‘We also wanted to move up the value chain from just being a components supplier, by adding electronics, software and so on at the sub-assembly level.’ Since then, Jones has been putting those strategic objectives in to action, and the principal method
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Photomultipliers from ET Enterprises and ADIT Electron Tubes
Need to detect light down to single photon level? Need dark counts as low as a few cps without cooling? Need a detection area of up to 200cm2 or more?
If the answer is yes to any of these questions, then ET Enterprises, and sister company ADIT Electron Tubes in the US, may have the answer with their range of photomultipliers and associated electronics and hardware.
Photomultipliers have always offered significant performance advantages over other types of low-level light detection devices and this is as true today as ever before. But what has changed is that photomultipliers are now much easier to use due to the wide range of ready-to-use associated electronics and HV supplies, and modular analogue and photon counting systems, in many cases operating from low voltage.
Examples of how we can make using photomultipliers easier:
.. ..
.
Sockets and voltage dividers for almost any photomultiplier type and application Magnetic shields
Modular signal processing electronics, analogue or digital
HV power supplies, including bench-top and compact, and low power integral HV bases Light-tight housings incorporating different combinations of all of the above
And, of course, we can also supply the photomultipliers for your application. Not only can we offer our very wide range, including alternatives to many Photonis types, we will soon be able to offer some popular Burle types, having recently acquired the Burle photomultiplier production plant.
Contact us to learn more about these easy-to-use, highly sensitive light detectors, or try the parameterised search facility on our website.
ET Enterprises Limited, Riverside Way, Uxbridge, UB8 2YF, UK Phone: +44 (0)1895 200880 Fax: +44 (0)1895 270873
sales@et-enterprises.com www.et-enterprises.com
ADIT Electron Tubes, 300 Crane Street, Sweetwater, Texas 79556, USA Phone: (325) 235 1418 Fax: (325) 235 2872
sales@electrontubes.com www.electrontubes.com
catch the light MAY 2011 l electro optics 9
LASER WORLD of PHOTONICS Munich,
Booth B2.422
Visit us at
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