In nineteen sixty-five
Emery took a little ride
Up the Merritt Parkway
Chuck Greer by his side
An ad in the Journal
A company for sale
Sturrup was the name of it
They had to hear the tale
An old mill in Middletown
Is where they found the shop
Sturrup, Larrabee, and Warmers
A showplace it was not
The business it was foundering
The owners ready to bail
They both got drunk at lunchtime
The price was cheap as hell
For thirty-seven thousand
Which emptied their purse
They bought the entire company
For better or for worse
A new name was forthcoming
Place names were in play
Pretoria and Canberra made the list
Canberra made the day
Sturrup was a job shop
They made instruments for Yale
The designs were from an engineer
By the name of Charlie Gingell
They had the right to sell them
Under the Sturrup brand
But the NIM Standard was coming
The end was near at hand
They offered Charlie quite a deal
To work with them as well
But a bee was in his bonnet
He told them “Go to hell”
There was a clever guy on board
Henry Webb was his name
Not known an a designer
But was he ever game
An Englishman by birth
He filled a big huge gap
Prolific was the word for him
He put us on the map
ORTEC was our target
They had a big head start
What they didn’t know of course
We had a bigger heart
They scoffed at us from on high
We didn’t take the bait
They pretended to ignore us
Until it was too late
Our strategy was quite simple
We’d match their every NIM
And price them just a little less
The differences were slim
Soon bigger things were afoot
The Division Plan you see
New businesses sprouted up
As quickly as could be
Growing it horizontally
A partnership master plan
Technical guys from industry
And MBAs , man-for-man
Detectors was the first one
When Fiedler claimed a spot
Orren became the GM
An insider, given a shot
Medical Instruments came next
Les Hammer the technical force
Sam Knoll was the business man
He had an MBA of course
Then DataNIM came along
Rick Pedersen was not alone
Gerry Matthews was the idea man
He had kissed the Blarney Stone
The Canberra Clinical Lab
Became a great success
Hervey Weitzman was the doc
Dave Smith claimed the rest
A software group joined in
With three guys on board
They had worked for a company
That was called Agrippa Ord
Sengstock, Piner, and Francis
Francis soon hit the road
Sengstock moved to Marketing
Piner kept writing code
Computer Peripherals were added
A Cassette Deck their first pick
Steve Johnson led the charge
Les Daniels designed it quick
The MCA line we bought
From Geoscience Nuclear
Harvey Roberts was the key
That much is very clear
An embryonic conglomerate
We had by ‘seventy-one
Although we had no cash left
It had been lots of fun
The bank pulled in the credit line
The Board forced out Chuck Greer
They gave Emery a new contract
For six months to a year
Emery did what had to be done
The prospects were quite grim
Three product lines survived
MCAs, Detectors, and NIM
Rising from the ashes
Like the Phoenix of old
Canberra has lived for 50 years
So this story can be told