PREFACE

The early history of SOLA and the development to a significant worldwide enterprise is very well presented in Rob Linn’s book Breaking the Mold, published in 2000. A feature of SOLA has always been its success in carrying out basic research and developing it into manufacturing processes, developing increasingly efficient methods of manufacture, and introducing novel products to the world market. With such a multitude of important activities, it is not surprising that many fantastic achievements have rather been overlooked, or have happened since 2000 up to the time of change of control to CZV.

One person who has been very close to these technical developments for some 32 years and who is still partly involved in the current period of CZV is Bob Sothman. He felt strongly that it would be wrong if these achievements were forgotten – so strongly that he has worked very hard for months to persuade many of those involved to document their experiences so that some gaps could be filled, and some of the later history – good or bad – could be put on the record. His work deserves great praise from many of us who have not lost our pride in the true SOLA culture and achievements.

Format

Because there have been so many valuable contributions from SOLA people all over the world and encompassing many disciplines, a very large and costly book to present all these different aspects of SOLA’s history would be required.

It has been decided to produce a website summarizing the key events with links to the many papers. These vary from important technical papers mainly from R&D programs to personal reports on large developments such as the building of the manufacturing plant in China. These accounts are views expressed by the people involved. They have not been edited and may occasionally conflict with others. We consider many to be too valuable to be left unrecorded.

Note that the words “mold” and “mould” are used interchangeably in this website.