032 INTERVIEW


“Lighting and fashion are very similar, you always needed to have new designs. We were growing rapidly and everyone was making money.”


But in his early days Peter was anything but an innovator. Martin Professional started off by producing a version of Studio Due’s Moonflower at a much lower price (developing the Supermoon), while Peter’s father, Knud Johansen, kept the smoke machine production high. Then came the Roboscan family, designed by Finn Kallestrup, Peter’s R&D Manager for more than 25 years. Once again this was derivative of the scanners of the time but what the products may have lacked in terms of an innovative featureset they more than compensated for in an industrialised process that Peter and Finn had developed up in their Frederikshavn production facility. Everything was brought in house - CNC milling, robotic processes and they were placing huge orders for micro-stepper motors, the new technology that had replaced the earlier servo motors. An aggressive sales force then took over and Peter delivered products to market via an expanded distributor network that Martin supported with easy credit terms. Soon the company was announcing its 10,000th Roboscan and later its 100,000th, with models like the 218 and 812 becoming industry standard scanners. “That first phase was a very innovative period and the industrialisation process from a basic lighting company to a completely organised automated factory was fantastic,” he reflected. “At that time I could walk on water, and it took the competition a long time to realise what was happening.” He employed Japanese production techniques, split workers into small cells with team leaders, incentivised them financially and isolated the R&D department from production, imposing heavy targets to ensure a regular flow of new products to the market. “Lighting and fashion are very similar, you always needed to have new designs. We were growing rapidly and everyone was making money.” In the next wave they became even bolder, challenging the moving yoke stronghold of Vari-Lite by producing the ubiquitous MAC 600, which remains an industry benchmark. “We were the first to take on Vari-Lite. In fact I went back to Fredrikshavn two years ago to show my father the factory and [Martin Pro] was still producing [the MAC 600].” A key turning point in the early ‘90s was the migration (and validation) of scanners from disco club ceilings to rock ‘n’ roll touring, earning Martin Pro a series of awards. “It was extremely important for Martin to move into concert touring as this took us to the next level. I was always looking at how to expand the market with the same version of the products. However, some were terrible. My attempts at digital photographic lights for example were a disaster.” In many ways the tipping point for Peter followed his decision to float on the Danish Stock Exchange in 1995, as he strayed ever higher into the rarified oxygen. It was inevitable that he would eventually fly too close to the sun. “It was a huge mistake,” he admited. “But when someone says you can have a few hundred million and you will remain the owner what do you say? To have all the cash we could dream of would enable us to outgrow the competition and help finance our 100 or so distributors by offering good credit terms. “I continued to run the company the way I normally run it but this was not appreciated by the guys in suits. The merchant bank said we needed to streamline. So we hired in a lot of ‘highly qualified’ people and after one and a half years of flotation I lost track of where we were. I knew about every detail of the company before and now I was getting my information at weekly board meetings. I felt we were going in a complete wrong direction and wanted to turn it back to what it was.” But that, of course, was impossible, and following some financial improprieties he was asked to step down. “It was a very sad day. I signed a consultancy agreement that ultimately put me in a 10 year non-compete situation. I didn’t care if I never returned to lighting as financially I could have done what I wanted.” And that’s precisely what he did.


LIFE AFTER LIGHTING Peter always knew that his core skills were out of sync with the corporate world. “I’m not democratic or diplomatic. My biggest skill is that I’ve never been afraid and I have a lot of confidence. I learnt that if you know something is a good idea, don’t then go and ask people or they will shut it down. I have a mentality in that I can see where something will go.” After Martin he formed Nitram (‘Martin’ spelt backwards). Despite having no knowledge of dental technology, Peter could see that by converting smoke machine technology, he could develop a product to clean, lubricate and sterilise dental handpieces and turbines in a single working process. Peter remained with the company for five years before selling to a Siemens subsidiary for six million euro. Two years later when he formed Dencam, the biggest manufacturer of large scale milling and plugs for the wind turbine industry, that too became a worldwide market leader, before being sold by Peter in 2007. At the same time he had been running Royal Denship, making luxury yachts. His next move was to set up Lantic Systems providing integrated control, alarm and entertainment systems for mega yachts and for private homes. He continued to manufacture luxury yacht accessories from his factory in Thailand via his company Camcom, which provides manufacturing tooling components for the


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