Page 58: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (September 2000)

Left: Never-before-seen solutions tor a magradome, which is designed to cover a ship's sun deck; Above: The

Fastship — Tillberg Design's rendering of a futuristic cruise ship.

Circle 239 on Reader Service Card (Continued from page 10) had with the various European ship- yards over the years. Johannsson is a gifted asset to the firm because of his technical background and experience in dealing with shipyard engineers — a tal- ent that, according to both Tillbergs is a necessity. "It's an important part of our jobs to have good relationships/operations with the yards," Tomas Tillberg interjected.

This is most likely the reason for the locale of Tillberg's European offices, since the four major cruise ship yards are based in Finland, Italy, France and

Germany — allowing Tillberg to split the work between his London and Viken outlets, which also provide a fairly easy airplane commutation on occasions when Robert must join his son at the

Florida office. With the Tillberg style having grown in Europe, the American operation was not far behind. According to Tomas, the company opened its Flori- da operation in 1999 with 1.5 floors, and recently purchased an additional floor to accommodate the hiring of additional designers.

Tomas, as well as Robert, felt that the need for a U.S.-based operation was imminent not merely because most of the major playing cruise lines are head- quartered in South Florida, but also many U.S-based suppliers are now entering into the cruise shipping game — mostly due to the recent boom of

U.S.-based cruise shipbuilding. Tomas felt the best way to reach these new potential clients would be to establish ties that were closer to them. U.S.-based suppliers may one day even become so competitive in the cruise-shipping arena that they will outnumber the already- established European manufacturers. "The resources and possibilities are astounding for cruise companies,"

Tomas said. "They (cruise lines) will want to stay with American suppliers."

In fact, some of the European based companies have followed Tillberg

Design's strategy by establishing U.S.- based offices of their own. One example is Brinton — a U.K.-based carpet man- ufacturer, which purchased a full carpet mill in the Southeastern U.S. for carpet production, undoubtedly to be closer to the cruise ship owners and the U.S.- based shipyards — many of which are located in the Southern part of the U.S.

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