Dear all,

Greetings from Korea! We are now halfway through the year, and the days are getting incredibly hot on the peninsula. Couple that with a monsoon front rising from the south towards our location, and we've got ourselves a hectic summer schedule!

A happy Fourth of July to our American compatriots. May the fireworks have been beautiful, the food plentiful, and the company delightful.

Across the USA and back

Last month, I and one of our directors visited the United States to discuss business and catch up with clients both old and new. Due to the logistics of the trip, the two of us ended up crisscrossing the US twice! Fly into New York from Korea, hop over to Detroit, then over to Colorado Springs, before finishing up with a layover in Seattle. If the second destination had been just a little bit to the west, we could have experienced all four of the US time zones in one trip!

While we've kept in communication with our partners over the course of the pandemic, it really did hit different when we walked into someone else's office and sat down face to face with them--in my case, it was the first time seeing most of these people in person! Thankfully, these updates that I had sent out over the past several years had a beneficial effect of sorts, as we were able to begin the conversation by announcing myself as the physical face behind the updates. Our friends were reassured that it wasn't an AI generating these emails--how long that remains true, we'll see.

Yes, that was a joke.

On the whole, I feel that our excursion to the US was very beneficial, as we were able to refresh our partners on how Pacom had improved itself over the course of the pandemic, as well as discuss potential avenues which had not yet been explored due to a combination of circumstances. Obviously things don't just magically happen because you talk with someone for a couple of hours, but we're making progress on the talks even as we speak.

On an unrelated note, the prices for everything have gone completely off the rails, at least compared to when I was living there last time. A cab going into Manhattan from JFK costing $100+, Chipotle costing $15 after taxes, Arizona Iced Tea now costing $1.29......is nothing sacred? Inflation really has hit hard, hasn't it? And I thought Korea had it bad......

PACOM's capacities, re-organized

One of the things I realized when I was meeting our clients was that despite our efforts, there were some things that became clear to me. One of these was the fact that some of the capacities we had improved during the pandemic times had not been relayed as much as I would have liked; some of our clients reacted with pleasant surprise when we mentioned that we had updated our board book capacities, or that we are capable of creating cold foil products in-line. This speaks obviously to a failing on my part (as it's my job to spread the word about PACOM to others), but better late than never I suppose.

Currently, we are working on a way to refurbish our automated calendar manufacturing system, with a specific focus towards improving the finishing of the calendars to create a more eco-friendly solution. Being green is a universal trend, and we're moving in that direction as well--this is just the latest step in that direction!

Upcoming Summer Break

PACOM will be having its summer break from July 31 to August 3. Keep that in mind if you want to contact us during that time!

That is all for this edition of the PACOM Update. Until next time!