ATA- Albury - the 'Receiver' days:
I tend to be naive in a non-technical manner.
When Lindsay walked into the laboratory that day in 1984 and said, incredulously, "They've put a bloody receiver in!' I didn't know what or why this was happening.
Only Lindsay knew the truth, possibly.
The factory was rife with fear and rumour and the majority volunteered for a month's layoff without pay to help out. Most were not rehired.
The 'Receiver' downsized to around 50 people and envisaged a quick liquidation.
Some of the staff remembered HERE:
THEY were wrong. Spares orders supported the downsizement.
Lindsay was trying to raise the $2.4 million to recover and all sorts of deviousness was apparent from the non-engineering staff.
I managed to save some of the laboratory staff from the sack and finally realised the lab staff had been 'set-up' by some of the management in their own search for survival.
Many little, "I",s were working overtime!
The General Manager, Frank Burke, who had left some years earlier, turned up heading a financier-Government consortium to 'save' the place. It went wonky.
People 'phoned me asking all sorts of questions about things I knew nothing about.
Eventually Lindsay turned up outside my house and I went out to be barraged by similar questions. I told him I knew nothing about what he was asking and I truthfully didn't.
We moved from the company house to Ettamogah where we leased 4 acres and took up dog boarding, and breeding German shepherds, ("Lengcurt" prefix: 1, 2) and wondered.
Eventually the Receiver forced the issue and ATA 'assets' were bought by a school 'friend' of Lindsay, one John Kennelly and a shelf-company, Belvis, became the trading name.
I didn't know Kennelly. He was alleged to be 'worth' $USA40M and had allegedly loaned Lindsay money allegedly @ '27%' interest. Lindsay had seen me talking with him and warned, "Watch him, he'll own the company if I'm not careful."
But I was 'only' technical, so, 'wondered.'
Lindsay lost the lot.
As he said to me, expletively, "...........and cut me off at the knees!!"
In retrospect, had he downsized to the level the Receiver did, he maybe could have traded out of the problem. He said he didn't want to lose the people he had gathered and trained over the years of his life.
But there were more things going on than one realised, it seems.
| The Start | UK Office | Albury Factory |
| Post Iran days | Receiver Cometh | Belvis days |
| HUB days | DART days | ADI days |
| NEW days | The PEOPLE | EXIT |
| The History of ATA |