BIRD Flaps Its Wings

— $1 EQUALS 29880 NIS (shekels) - Close Price 2/28195 —

Former executive director reflects on what the foundation has
meant to the U.S. and Israeli high-tech industries.

The Haft & Haft, Strauss, Laz-
er (HHSL) certified public ac-
countants (CPA) firm of Israel
announced it has signed an
agreement to be a member of
Ne.xia International, one of the
largest international CPA firms
in the world.

ALLISON KAPLAN SOMBER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

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I/

d Mlaysky gets angry
when he hears that it is
impossible to do honest
business with Israelis be-
cause they lie, cheat, squeeze,
manipulate, cut corners, never
listen and always insist on do-
ing things their way.
"It infuriates me when I hear
these kinds of comments," he
says. "But, unfortunately, they
are mostly generated by other
Israelis, so there's not much you
can do about it."
If this was the actual nature
of the entire Israeli business
world, the north London native
says, he would not, as the former
executive director of the BIRD
Foundation, have wasted 13
years matchmaking Israeli high-
tech companies with American
partners.
The BIRD Foundation subsi-
dizes and invests in the creation
of strategic partnerships be-
tween Israeli and American
high-tech firms. Many of today's
Israeli high-tech companies are
spin-offs or subsidiaries of those
nurtured by BIRD.
If the Israeli high-tech com-
panies which have been
matched with American firms
had been incompetent or cor-
rupt, Mr. Mlaysky says, the sec-
tor would not have established
itself as the most vital compo-
nent of Israel's economy in the
way it has over the past few
years.
"There's nothing magical
about technology that makes
people honest," Mr. Mlaysky
says in his typically blunt man-
ner. "It's just that you can't fool
anybody. You can rent somebody
a building in Tel Aviv and it can
turn out the plumbing doesn't
work.
"But you cannot export med-
ical instruments, or a telephone
system, or a software package
and expect to bluff the end user
because the end user is someone
who has access to American
products, Japanese products,
European products.
"There is heavy competition
out there. So this holds all the
practitioners in Israel to stan-
dards which they must be capa-
ble of adhering to."Whether
they'd like to cheat or not, that's
far too deep for me tounder-
stand. The fact they behave

properly in this market is clear
— just look what's happening."
Mr. Mlaysky demonstrates
"what's happening" by gestur-
ing in the direction of the win-
dow of his office, which overlooks
Herzliya's bustling industrial
area.
Dominating the neighborhood
is a cluster of giant gleaming
glass and chrome structures —
some finished, some still under
construction — containing more
luxury office space devoted to
high-tech enterprises than any-
where else in the country.
"If you want to manufacture
high-tech products and sell them
abroad, they've got to work," Mr.
Mlaysky says. "The laws of
physics are the same in Israel as
they are in other parts of the
world. The laws of economics
may not be, but the laws of
physics and engineering and
thermodynamics apply univer-
sally.
"If Scitex, or ECI, or one of the
other hundreds of Israeli com-
panies abroad sell a product, it's
got to work. It's got to be price-
and performance-competitive,
it's got to have quality control, it
must be upgraded when needs
demand it, and it must be re-
sponsive to the trends in the in-
dustry.
"The extent to which Israel
has succeeded in doing it is a
clear testimony to the merit and
capability of the assets in the
country. There is a high-class
layer in Israel that has grown
enormously in recent years —
top-notch, high-tech people who
adhere to international stan-
dards of product performance,
quality control, and business
ethics."
Today, Mr. Mlaysky is presi-
dent of the Gemini Fund, a $26
million venture capital fund es-
tablished in 1993 that special-
izes in investing in and
developing high-tech companies.
Despite his poor Hebrew, he
finds a common language with
Israeli companies. His straight-
forward manner, dry sense of
humor, and distinctly un-British
friendliness help. He also has
firsthand experience in starting
small.
Mr. Mlaysky grew up in north
London. An early aptitude for
science made him gravitate to-

ward a doctorate in physical
chemistry from the University
of London in 1953. His first ca-
reer, as a scientist, began in a
laboratory, where he grew crys-
tals into semi-conductors. "I
grew the first silicon crystal out-
side the United States. It looked
like a mutated carrot with a
pox," he says.
At the time, Britain was
strong on science, but weak on
its application to the real world.
So in 1956, Mlaysky crossed the
Atlantic to the United States,
eventually landing in a research
laboratory called Tyco on the
belt of high-tech firms on Route
128 just north of Boston.
The small laboratory was in-
volved in developing new photo-
voltaic technology. It became a
company in 1960, and it even-
tually "went public on a flier," as
Mlaysky puts it.
The small group of scientists
subsequently found themselves
drowning in capital. With the
money, the management began
acquiring other companies.
By that time, Mr. Mlaysky
had realized that while he was
"clumsy in a laboratory," he was
"good at stimulating people," and
he began spending his time deal-
ing with paper rather than test
tubes.
He moved up in the company
filling a number of jobs, includ-
ing executive vice president and
senior vice president for research
and development.
In the meantime, after ac-
quiring 25 companies, Tyco went
on the New York Stock Ex-
change, where it is listed today,
with revenues of billions of dol-
lars.
After a reorganization of the
company, in which the president
and chief operating officer left,
Mr. Mlaysky held the position
for a year.
Afterward, when Tyco formed
a joint venture with the Mobil
Corporation, Mr. Mlaysky
moved over and became execu-
tive vice president of Mobil Tyco
Solar Energy Corporation.
In 1976, his life took a radical
turn. It began, he recalls, with a
barely intelligible phone call: "It
sounded like someone under-
water offering me an all-ex-
pense-paid trip to Israel."

BIRD PAGE 42

Boston-based tycoon Sheldon to gain control of Bmik Leumi
Adelson has informed the Is following Edmond Safra's de-
rael Treasury of his intentions vision to pull out of the tender.

Israel Chemicals has an-
nounced that a joint subsidiary
of Fertilizers and Chemicals
and Dead Sea Bromine has
contracted with U.S.-based

Olin Corporation to purchase a
production facility in West Vir-
ginia for $50 million. The fac-
tory produces chemicals used
in water purification.

The supply of housing under
construction in Israel shot up
10.6 percent to 72,500 units in
the last quarter of 1994 as
housing starts took offand com-
pletions fell, the Central Bu
reau of Statistics reported.
The number of units under
construction at the end of last
year reached the levels of the
third quarter of 1992, when the
government froze public con-

struction.
Private sector units under
construction reached a record
52,900 in the last quarter of
1994, more than double the
number of units at the end of
1989, when the immigration
wave from the Soviet Union be-
gan.
Housing starts jumped 17
percent last year to 43,300
units from 37,000 in 1993.

U.S. firm Siemens will provide
Israel with a new central na-
tionwide inspecdon system for
electrical overload. The Israel
Electric Corporation an-
nounced the $12.675 million
contract.
The system will allow inde-
pendent energy suppliers to be
linked to the power grid, and

also hook-ups between Israel
and neighboring countries.
The equipment changeover
includes new computer hard-
ware and software at all re-
gional and national inspection
centers and simulation train-
ing systems. The system is ex-
pecthd to be up and running in
1997.

Immigrant unemployment in
Israel dropped to 13.2 percent
last year from 19.4 percent in
1993, but was nearly 70 percent
higher than the national aver-
age of 7.8 percent, the Central
Bureau of Statistics reported.
The number of employed im

migrants jumped 27.7 percent
to an average of 198,000, corn-
pared with 155,000 in 1993.
Correspondingly, unemploy-
ment fell 21 percent to 30,000
immigrants, compared to
38,000 in 1993.

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