– Hello and good evening, everybody, or good morning. Depends a little bit on where in the world you are. And this time we are doing an old Skype a little bit late here Denmark, because I had a busy day, but I, nevertheless, really look forward to this one. I’m going to greet a very shiny woman in a moment, and you will understand exactly why. So please welcome Ellen Manning who is responsible for marketing with Eagle Systems out of New Jersey in the US. So welcome to the show, Ellen.

– Thank you, Morten and very nice to see you again. It’s been a while.

– It’s been a while, and it’s also so great to see you. And as I said just before we turned on the camera, it’s actually the first time ever we allow to have two old Skype from the same company. And I will explain in a moment why I think it could be interesting. But before we do that, for those who have haven’t seen the one we did with Mike, can you explain a little bit, what is Eagle Systems? What is it? Why should people know about you guys?

– Oh, I would be surprised if not everybody knows us, but we are a manufacturer of foiling equipment, hot and cold, but right now, the cold foiling equipment is the new hot in the world of printing it. What it does is it applies foil to the printed matter. And then, the printer takes it over and sort of does things like this.

– Wow.

– Make it glitter or put color on it or anything that you wanna do. It’s the new, it’s the wow factor on packaging.

– How did you get your head into a printing press ?

– Well, that’s interesting.

– No, I was kidding because of your wig, right? Because I thought it was that you got your head into some kind of press, but this is, but this is–

– No, I didn’t. Actually, the very first time I put one on, I just did it as a joke. We were at Drupa and I said when you’re in marketing, you need to make yourself stand out. Something has to stand out so people walk away and remember, “Oh, that crazy person from this company,” or whatever. So it became a thing where now I wear it at every show. And when I walk through the halls, people go, “Eagle’s in the house!” So they all know who I am and . He goes, “They know you more than they know me.” And he’s been in the industry for like 50 years.

– I was just about to say that I can’t recognize you with hair on, but that can sound a little bit dodgy in these days, right?

– It’s fine, I’ll take that.

– It was absolutely nothing gender political or anything like that. I promise you that it was just a stupid Scandinavian joke.

– That’s right. So take that–

– Whatever you say is gonna make people remember me. So I am not, that’s fine.

– That’s great. So I understand that with the cold foil that is like the new thing that makes things look really stunning and great in packaging, of course. But I also saw that, because I got some print samples from your guy Thomas in the UK where he sent over some magazines where you actually. Because I think that for people that don’t really understand it, the main difference or not main, maybe not the main difference, but one of the advantages with the cold foil is basically that you apply a foil and then you print on top of it, right?

– Correct.

– Is that the main difference?

– Yes. 95% of the printers who use cold foiling use a silver foil, and they will apply the foil, and then they will change the color of the foil by using ink on top of it. So you really only need one color, and that’s what makes it a great product to have. It can really make the packaging stand out and pizazz and make people want to touch it. And what they always say is if somebody picks up a package, if they have it in their hand, they’re gonna buy it.

– Especially, if it’s women, right? I know from my wife.

– Yep.

– She has a lot of glittering things anyway.

– I think packaging makes any product look outstanding. And I think since that is the first introduction to what’s inside, it’s very important that the package stand out. I’m sure a lot of people buy a particular product because they know that product, but the packaging adds to it. They see that first. So that’s a good thing.

– I actually think that that is supported by a lot of surveys from a lot of different research institutes that packaging that stands out, regardless of how it stands out, actually has an higher impact when it comes to the customer sales, right?

– Yes, yes. Take yourself, for instance. You’ve been in an airport, correct?

– Oh, yes.

– Okay, many times. So in the airport, they have all of these racks with magazines on them. You could have 50 different magazines. To me, they all look alike. They’re all just printed with ink on the cover. And you walk by until you find the one that you normally buy, but all of a sudden, one of them has foil on the cover, and your eye is immediately drawn to that. “Oh, this looks interesting.” You take it off the rack. “Well, I’ll buy it, I’ll read it.”

– So basically, to put it short, Eagle Systems is basically a company that deliver the hardware to make sure that printing companies can achieve that wow effect on behalf of their customers, right?

– Right, we actually design each machine to fit the typical press it’s going on. All of the press manufacturers have different formats with their presses, and we engineer each machine to be different that fits that particular press.

– I know that it’s, of course, sad, but in the market, there is more than you in the market that do similar things. Where do you stand out in relation to any competition that you might have?

– I think we are number one. I don’t even think. I know we’re number one for two reasons. Number one, Michael has been in the foil business all his life. And starting in the hot foil, he made a lot of friends in the industry, but he understands foil, and he understands the applications and what works and what does not. So when he switched over to cold foil, it was a no brainer. I have to tell you, this year, we have sold a lot of equipment. I was surprised because of the COVID and the lockdown, but everybody wants to get back into things and they want that glitter and that shine. And we’ve been busy since day one.

– One thing of that is a little, I’m a curious about was, ’cause I’ve been also doing magazines in the past, and Inkish may soon come with starting a magazine also. But one of the things I have I noticed when I was in the, working for a commercial printer was that there’s fashion trends also in paper and print. Sometimes it’s coated paper, sometimes it’s uncoated, sometimes it’s glossy and things like that. Do you think there’s kind of a fashion trend into the usage of foils?

– Well, at one point you could only print on a coated stock, but due to many of our companies that do a lot of uncoated, Michael designed the first application to do foiling on uncoated. And we actually introduced that at Drupa in 2016, and it created a huge stir in the marketplace.

– I think I may have expressed myself wrongly and apologize for my bad English. But I was just thinking that, when I spoke about it, I was more thinking that sometimes you want it to have a raw look, and you absolutely don’t want to have any glitter whatsoever. And some other times you want it to be as glittery as possible. And I was just thinking do you see, since Eagle Systems has been in operation for many, many years, so do you see that sometimes there’s a big demand for glittery, and then there’s a lesser demand for it? Or is it very even in your perspective?

– I think trends change every year.

– Every year?

– Every year, so maybe one year it’s very glittery, and the next year it’s just very high gloss or muted. If you keep doing the same thing over and over and over, after a while it becomes–

– Flattened out some kind of thing?

– Flattened out. I think that every printer’s trying to change up their products, and last year I saw a huge amount of glitter. And I thought that was very interesting. And a lot of it was on top of the cold foil. So I thought it was very, very interesting.

– And that is actually good, because I think that one of the things that we have been talking to a lot of people during these, over the Skype interviews has been that the fact is that the printing industry, in my opinion, sometimes needs to step up from being a cheap product to being a high value product. Because if your volumes go down, you need to make something that differentiates and really pays off for the end customers, right? And I think that the foiling business is, also from an environmental perspective, not too bad in relation to actually create this wow effect that can increase the brand owner sales and, at the same time, still be a reasonable good from an environmental perspective, as well, right?

– Well, the cold foil application is really environmentally friendly, because there’s no plastic on there. So that is a very good thing in this constantly changing world of environment and what is better for the environment. It’s an interesting product. Actually, you made me think of something. There was a, a test done two or three years ago by a university in The States. I think Michael even talked to you about it, where they put these glasses on people. I don’t know if you remember that.

– No, no, no.

– And the glasses had, the glasses had cameras right here.

– So that was like eye tracking things?

– So they can walk around a supermarket or a store, and the people could follow what they were looking at. They put the same products side-by-side, but the packaging was different in each one, and nine times out of 10, they picked up the one that had foil on it. So that was a trend as to say why foil is important in packaging, because it makes it stand out, and it makes the buyer grab it.

– And let’s say that if you’re a printer looking at this this old Skype, and they are interested in getting into this, is the entrance point from a financial perspective very high? I’m not asking for any prices, but I’m just curious is it accessible to most printers, or is it something that is really for the few?

– Well, let’s put it this way. You buy a printing press. That’s not cheap.

– No, that’s true.

– And you want it to do certain things, right? And then, you want to put foil on it. And it’s something that will pay you back over a short period of time, because we have seen, many of our customers have actually paid off our equipment in sometimes a year, sometimes in a job.

– Wow.

– Can you imagine paying off our equipment in a job. That’s not to say we’re cheap. We are not cheap.

– No, no, no, no, no, no. I can see that you’re not cheap.

– That’s good, I like that. But of course, we realize that there are mega corporations that could afford anything. And then, there’s a more mom-and-pop type shop that wanna get into this. And we work with different companies on different levels and just try to help them get into this as much as possible. Once they get our product and start using it, they see the benefits, and they are getting paid back quickly. And that’s what it’s about. It’s ROI, return on investment.

– Definitely. Ellen, as you are working with the marketing side of Eagle Systems, I’m just wondering, because of course, you have positioned yourself so you have all the samples in the back. That’s okay. And I also saw that nice printed sample you have.

– That’s marketing, you know?

– Yeah, but I was just wondering, so when you do your marketing, is that directed to the converters and the PSPs, or is it also directed to the brand owners so you kind of created demand for the products? Or how do you actually to do this?

– Both. I have met many brand owners, and I love sending them samples of what boxes look like typically done with our product. A lot of them have moved their product into that field, but it is the printer who actually runs the show and are working by the demands of the brand. So if I can get the brand online, the brand goes to the printer and says, “I want it done this way,” that’s the way it works really well.

– And that was exactly why I was asking. Because I think that I can tell you a story. I think you will not even believe me when I say it. There is a printing company I have visited. Not a converter in packaging but a commercial printing company. And they got like new sales management. And the sales management told all the salespeople that every time a request for quote come in from a customer where they ask for special kind of paper like more expensive paper, they were so afraid of losing the job that they actually said that, “Now, you always give an offer on our house paper along with the specialized paper.” I thought it was so bad, because that basically, that basically means that the printing company is not confident enough in the quality and what they deliver. That’s also one of the reasons I’m asking about how you’re approaching your marketing, because I think you’re totally right if you have the, the brand owners demanding these kind of services and products and that quality that you can deliver. That will, of course, have a drip-off effect on demand for your machines, right?

– Right, right. When Michael goes in and does a presentation to accompany, he shows them the value of putting foil, let’s say, on one spot on a package. But if they do so well with that, all of a sudden, they want it everywhere.

– Yeah .

– Which ups it. It’s all a matter of how you price it, and it’s all the way you sell it. And keep that in mind.

– So if you look at Eagle Systems and where you are heading in the market, one thing is that there’s a demand in the market for having things that stand out. Are you also as a company looking into other direction of that value chain or are you focusing foils and that’s it?

– When you say other directions, explain.

– I was thinking like, for example, if you look at some of the digital enhancement machines, in the same machine they have both varnish and foils, for example, digital foils. So I was just thinking, since you are in what I call the beautification of print industry, I was thinking maybe you were also looking into extending your business in other directions. Or have you decided to stay a hundred percent focused on the foil side?

– Well, Michael being an amazing engineer, can actually produce anything mechanically. We have been approached to build different types of machinery, which I can’t get into.

– No, no, no, no, no, no.

– Everything is always on the table. Everything is always open. If we could do it, then we can. But I have to admit that we are really good at what we do in the foiling business. And as that foiling business changes, we change with it. And I don’t know if we would ever get involved in the digital aspect. We are really more for offset, but never say never.

– No, no. I was not so curious whether it was in the digital domain. I was more thinking that since, if you look at most, I think that some of the discussions you have in the industry in general these days from vendor side is how much of a vendor’s potential you can own as a vendor. Because if you sell your equipment, and it’s a very high quality and just lasts forever, it can take a long time before you have a replacement.

– Right. It’s funny you brought that up, because our equipment does last forever. Michael has machines out there that have never needed service in 30 years.

– Wow.

– I find it to be so unusual. That’s hot foil. He always felt he needed to build something that didn’t need service and he did. The cold foil is a little bit more intricate than the hot foil. But again, we build an extremely solid machine with the best possible products in it. But we’re always keeping our eye open for other things that come along. Anybody that knows him, knows his capabilities will come to him when they have an idea of creating something different. Can you do it?

– And he would, of course, say, “Yes, we can.”

– He will say he’ll look at it and try it.

– I thought it was a funny joke here, but okay, I’m sorry. That is Americans. You can’t be funny about anything that a past president used as a campaign, right ? Sorry, that was just a joke . Ellen, when I introduced you, I said I wanted to tell you why I wanted to have you on as the first time a second one from the same company. ‘Cause you could always argue that, if you had five different divisions, that might be the reason why you want to talk to five different people, right? You have just established that you are very good at foils, and actually your equipment lasts forever. So I don’t think there’s any reason to talk. But, see, there is a but. And that is one of the thing, it’s not so often that we get the opportunity to talk to marketing people in front of a camera, ’cause marketing people often tend to be behind the camera. I know that it doesn’t really apply to you when you are in a trade show, but often you’re position. I think also when we started talking about doing the interview with Mike, it was also that that you, I can’t remember if we spoke or Mike reached out to me, but I assume that at some point you decided whether you should be on camera or he should be on camera.

– Right.

– What was–

– I felt that he definitely has more knowledge, because he is the creator and builder of the equipment, that there would be a lot of people out there who would be interested in listening to what he had to say, because they’re thinking about getting into the cold foil market. And it’s about what do I need to do to prepare to be in the cold foil market? And is it for my applications? He’s the one who has most of those answers.

– When Thomas and I spoke about having you on camera, why was that something that you wanted?

– Well, I love any minute that I can speak about what we do, because I think we are the best. To me, it’s always been an exciting. I don’t know if you knew how I got involved in this industry that I have to tell you this story.

– I’m not a hundred percent sure. As I recall and remember, it’s 64 times ago I spoke to Mike. So I think he mentioned, but please do it again. I want to hear it again.

– Michael and I were seeing each other, and he had a discussion with me that he was going off to do a trade show in Germany. And I said, “Have a good time.” And he goes, “No, I want you to come.” And I said, “And what am I going to do there?” And he goes, “Well, I want you to run my booth.” I went, “What do you do?” I, honestly, did not really understand what he did. So he explained the whole thing to me. I went and I remember walking into Drupa from the upstairs through one of the tunnels where you overlook the hall. And I walked in and I went, “Oh, my God, look at this place, it’s awesome.” And he said, “This is only one hall.” We walked down, and we walk into his booth, and I’m looking around, and I’m going, “What’s that?” And he goes, “Oh, that’s a rotogravure.” And I went, “Oh, and what’s that?” “That’s a printing press for this.” “And what’s that, and what’s that?” I went, “Oh, my God!” And then, it dawned on me and I looked everywhere, and I said, “Everything in this world is printed.” Everywhere you look. There’s print on signs, there’s print on floors, there’s print on carpeting, there’s print on wallpaper. Everything is printed. And I just said, “I have to get involved, I love this!”

– I like that story a lot. And it’s kind of funny, because some of the people that worked for me, they had the same, maybe not with the Drupa thing, but they were like, “Nah, print is newspapers and yellow pages and it’s a dying industry.” And then, I said to them, “Look at the furniture from IKEA. That’s essentially printed. Look at the clothes you’re wearing, the furnitures you’re sitting on, the floors, everything. I think that is actually one of the reasons why the industry sometimes put ourself in the back seat instead of the front seat, because a lot of people outside our industry, even marketing people, don’t realize that the impact of the printing industry is so extreme.

– Huge! Huge, huge. I used to say to people when I describe print, “Picture yourself in a supermarket and everything is wrapped in brown paper. Now, you’re walking down an aisle. Well, what are you buying? Are you buying cereal? Are you buying flour? In a can, what’s in it? Is it tomato paste or is it cherries?” I said, “Print is what makes the world visible.” Without it, besides being boring, we wouldn’t have anything.

– No, and it’s funny because… I’m wondering if, of course, you would have still felt the same thing about going to Drupa, and see all the machines and get that understanding. But as a novice, when you get to Drupa, and you saw this thing and immediately got this understanding, I think that Eagle Systems is not the worst place to be, because basically you do exactly what you said now. You tear off the brown paper and make sure that things shine. That must be funny to be part of a company where you are so expressive in the communication of a packaging, for example.

– We are in the blink. We are making you see us. And really, I love it. I just think it’s a wonderful field to be in. Actually, I love the entire printing field. I just think it’s amazing.

– Me too. Ellen, one thing I can’t help think of is that I think that I have been in so many webinars in the past month because of the COVID-19. Funny enough that it’s because of the COVID-19, because I thought the communication’s, always a need for it, right? But that aside, I was just thinking that it’s kind of fun, because for example, this afternoon I was participating in a webinar where the conclusion was that this was tremendously impacted by the COVID, of course, or the demand is decreasing for something. But I was also kind of a little surprised that some people in the industry, they keep kind of feeling that there’s no return for the printing industry. And I think that–

– Disagree.

– Yeah. The reason I want to talk to you about this is because I think that one thing is that there’s a drop in demand right now. And you said that you didn’t experience it with the machine, so therefore there must also be some customers demanding it eventually anyway, right? But I was just thinking, I hope you understand what I’m trying to say. I’m just wondering how can we, because we’re communication people, both of us, how can we help and support the industry and the brand owners to actually start the demand and kickstart things again, so we can get back on track? Do you have any ideas about that?

– How can we help them?

– For example, for example–

– I saw a very big uptick recently in books. They said at one point books were gonna be strictly on your tablet, and that’s the end publishing. Wrong.

– That didn’t happen.

– And people are reading books. And now, more and more books are being printed, and I see more publishing houses are hiring. To me, that’s an excellent sign that printing is very out there in the public’s eye.

– That’s a good example, and I think that is something. The reason why I was asking was because I think that, I think it’s important that we talk print up and we don’t talk it down, right? And I think that if everybody in the industry could just post something on Facebook saying that print is alive, and this is what we have just seen or done. I don’t know if you’ve seen that, but I saw that on WhatTheyThink. I think that Eric Vessels is doing his, I think he calls them the We Can kind of journey where he browses the internet, and then he find interesting print samples or printing techniques and just show them. Not related to WhatTheyThink, but he just brings it to the world. I think that’s a wonderful idea actually.

– I also listen to my customers, and we ask them the question, “How are you doing? How’s your company doing?” And I would say most of the responses we’ve gotten is, “We’re so busy that we can’t breathe.” I love hearing that!

– Yeah, I can imagine it.

– It makes me feel good. Which tells me that people are out there buying again, and people are out there going into stores and taking things off the shelf. Like you said, wallpaper or whatever. It’s happening, things are happening.

– So whatever we say and whatever feeling that some printers may have, the demand is coming back, and there is a good future for the people in the printing industry who dares to take the chances, who dares to invest, who dares to be positive and market the products and services. Is that kind of the conclusion on this one?

– Yes, I believe that not only will it come back, but I believe that, again, it will change because change is always good. Change creates the need for more. “I want that, oh, that’s old, I want that. That’s the new thing now.” So yeah, I believe that. And I think there’s a lot of people out there that are coming up with amazing ideas. I look forward to it. I think it’s gonna be great.

– So from a purely Eagle Systems perspective, and that must be from above, right?

– The foil industry, right?

– Yeah, I was just wondering, what is your own prospects? Or do you have like a positive outlook and good thoughts for how you can still continue to develop positively as a company?

– I have to say that we have been busier this year than we have been in a very long time. Not that in a very long time, but this year moreso than a lot of the other times. It’s only getting more and more and more. As people are buying, there’s a lot of new presses being bought. And as they’re buying new presses, they are actually buying our equipment to add to it. They’re buying UV. They’re buying everything.

– So what you’re saying is basically that people are stepping up to a future with the even nicer looking packaging?

– Absolutely. Absolutely.

– That is simply nice to hear, right ? One of the things that I also am very happy with, because when I did the interview with Mike, or the old Skype with Mike, which is, I always, I never see them as an interview. I see them more as a chitchat that just happens to be recorded. But when I did that, I didn’t know him in person. I really found that he’s, first of all, dedicated and passionate about what he do. But then, he was also telling me that he listens so much to all these old Skype interviews. From a marketing perspective, don’t you think these are too long?

– What you do?

– Yeah, yeah.

– I don’t think they’re too long. They seemed to be extremely interesting. I’ve learned a lot about different companies by the people that you have interviewed. It gives me a better insight where my direction needs to be,

– Oh, really?

– and where it shouldn’t be. It’s always good to know what everybody else is doing and how they think. I like what you’re doing, Morten. I think you’re doing a great job. I think you’re educating, you’re educating our industry. They, listening to a lot of the things that you do, it helps them.

– Thank you very much. I was not even asking for this one, but I was curious about the lengths, because one of the things I often heard in the beginning when we started Inkish, and we wanted it to be in depth, we wanted people to understand and be educated, a lot of people said, “No, you can’t have these long things. Nobody is watching them.” I can tell you that during the pandemic, we have got more than 15,000 new viewers just watching the old Skype films. That’s so anti two minutes Facebook videos, right ?

– Well, what did you have at least five or 10,000 watching the Eagle Systems one that Michael did?

– It was actually quite a few on that one. It was one of the ones that I saw. One of the things I liked also about your approach was that, when you got it, you put it on your website, you started to promote, because I felt that you understood that, “Okay, this storytelling perspective might support our storytelling perspective, so that can also bring business.” And that was also why I thought it was quite interesting to make a second interview, because, to be honest, I think Mike was one of the first, maybe number three or something like that, four maybe. So I got way more experience also in understanding not to guide in a specific direction but to try to understand the motivations why people want to attend. We have made very, I would say this old Skype thing we have done, films, for example, with Peter Sommer from Elanders that was very, very harsh in a way on Heidelberg. Then we have done very, very, okay. Then, we have done very smooth, simple films where we had interviewed marketing people about how to communicate and these kind of things. So I think that what we wanted the old Skype to be as part of our delivery to the learning process due to the COVID-19 was that, actually, now people have time to listen. And as you say, I think that people understand the value of time, right?

– Yes. They’ve taken a rest. They’ve come back and allowed themselves the time to educate themselves. And what better way to do it than to listen to a lot of these things and the different people that you interviewed. I think it was really very worthwhile. Sometimes people don’t have the time.

– That’s a problem with books.

– You can actually change your way of thinking about a lot of things. I think that was a great thing to do. And I would like some of the other things that you might coming up with. You never know, you’re very creative.

– Oh, yeah, yeah. One of the things that I think we can talk about, we’ll maybe not mention the company right now, but we have also made an agreement that we’re going to make films from some of your customers, where we actually can make something that looks better than the webcam quality, right? So we really can show the capabilities of what you’re doing, because one thing is the commercial perspective of it, but it is also from an artistic perspective, just beautiful what you offer, right?

– So right, you are so right. You know what I get the biggest kick out of it? I love to visit our customers. A lot of times, I go with Michael and to see the excitement in their eyes of what they created. They can’t wait to show me the different packages. “Look at this, Ellen, look at this.” And then, I slip it under my jacket as I walk out the front door, because I have to have those pieces. They’re so beautiful. They’re excited. They didn’t think that they could do this, and look how it changed what their customer was. Now, their customer wants to buy more of this and more of that and makes me feel good. It’s exciting to me to see that excitement in their eyes.

– I understand. We are on the last minute here. One thing that I think I forgot to ask Mike about, and now I have the chance to ask you is are you delivering your solutions globally? Or are you mainly a European and American company? Or how do you see yourself in that perspective?

– Oh, we’ve always delivered globally. We have machines all over the world. We have machines in Spain, in Poland, in Russia, in Germany, in Argentina or in Brazil, Mexico. We have machines everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.

– Have you got the opportunity to also go abroad and see some of these installations with Mike?

– Yep, I was in England. I saw that installation. I was in Barcelona.

– Yeah, Barcelona’s so nice.

– And actually, I have to say, I truly, truly missed Drupa this year, because that show gave me an opportunity to meet all the different people and get an idea of where their marketplace is. Because I listen. I listen to what they have to say and what they think. That’s my thing. I like to be out there in front of people and chat. Of course, I like to show off. Create a little excitement or whatever. We’re always gonna be a global company, always.

– I’m also very sad that Drupa doesn’t take place. As we spoke about before, I really hope that the next one will take place. I think that regardless whether it takes place or not, I think that it’s, for everybody in the printing industry, these shows are maybe an eye-opener that sometimes you have to have the face-to-face time with people, obviously. But you also at many points also have to figure out what is the plan B in case you have to market your services differently. For example, how you produce print samples, how you interact with the press and these kinds of things to make sure that you get your exposure anyway. Has that given you any renewed thoughts of how you work from a marketing perspective?

– We do both. We do videos. Michael has gotten into the drone world. So he’s done some very, very cool things with that. But it’s one thing to show a video. It’s another for someone to stand there and actually see it working and be able to touch it or be able to look at it and be able to ask questions. You know, a video is one thing, but the face-to-face, to me, there’s nothing like that. That’s one of the reasons why I miss Drupa so much, because I found that they had a ton of questions. And yeah, I can answer it over the phone, and Michael can answer it over. It’s not the same.

– Absolutely not. It is not the same. We want the shows back, right?

– I love the shows as you can tell from this. Can you see this picture?

– Oh yeah, I can see that one. Who is the lady in the middle, is that you?

– That would be me .

– Yeah, I thought so, I thought so. Yeah, that’s great. Well, Ellen, it’s been a pleasure and honor to talk to you.

– Same here.

– I just hope that you don’t think it was too stupid question. That’s just how I am so I apologize for that.

– There are no stupid questions.

– Okay, that’s great.

– There are no stupid questions.

– Thank you for your time.