Day 11 - Stopping by the US Embassy

This was our first full day in Ankara and we had two visits on the agenda: Lockheed and the US Embassy.

Lockheed has a tiny office of about five people in Turkey, in fact, they decided we should meet at the Hilton Hotel in order to accommodate 26 MBA students. One of our classmates works for Lockheed in the US, so we had a good connection and rapport with the folks presenting.

The Lockheed presentation covered the political climate in Turkey but I was more interested to learn about their products. The F16 was first produced in Turkey in 1978 and Lockheed continues to see a big future in Turkey. Turkey has a strong military (when you border 9 different countries, that's probably a good idea) and buys a fair number of products from Lockheed. Of course this business has a long sales cycle, often 5 years or more. Another interesting tidbit was that the planes Lockheed sells to other countries (these sales must be approved by Congress) actually are not quite the same as the planes Lockheed sells to the US military. Again, probably a wise business practice when selling weapons (save the best for yourself)! There have been some changes in the access Lockheed sales folks have to generals and the various government decision makers that makes it more difficult for them to secure sales in this relationship driven culture.

I was bummed to find out that their cheapest product is around $50 million, although they did promise to include free shipping.

The US Embassy was interesting mainly because I'd never been to an embassy in a foreign country. Security was tight and we had to go through in groups of only five people at a time. We couldn't bring in any electronics; no phones, no cameras, nothing. During our visit we spoke with folks from the political department, the commerce department, the department of agriculture (USDA), and the commercial services department. We covered a whole bunch of topics, including many we'd already discussed on our trip, but it was cool to get the perspective from Americans living in Turkey. In general, their jobs seemed like they involved writing a bunch of reports...which sounds sort of boring but everyone we spoke to really seemed to love their jobs. (Incidentally, someone from our group confirmed that these foreign service jobs are pretty tough to get.) Basically, they said their job is to "add value on top of the stuff you see on CNN."

On a side note, our visit to the US Embassy was typically American and they were the only place we visited that didn't offer us Turkish tea or water. (And I assume they weren't observing Ramadan.)

We had some down time in the afternoon so I went off on my own in search of postcards. Ankara must not be very touristy (or at least the part we were in) because I walked for blocks and never found any.

That evening we had an organized dinner at the Washington Restaurant with the folks from Lockheed. It was a good meal and I was fortunate to be seated across from Marty who always keeps things entertaining.

Based on the recommendation from the Lockheed folks we walked down to a pub for a few beers but ultimately migrated to a bar called the Fat Cat almost right behind our hotel. Since it was really our last night together as a group, nearly everyone came out and we had a pretty big night. One interesting tidbit from the bar was that we were able to negotiate our massive bar tab when it came time to pay. Granted, we were pretty much the only ones in the bar, but we did drink a lot and I don't think you'd be able to haggle on the price at a bar in the US.