I was working for a Dallas based reg'l SG distributor, and attended my first SHOT Show in Jan of '78 in Houston, where I met the Stoeger people for the first time. George Sodini Sr was the president and his his son George Jr was at that time the Product Mgr. George Sr had engineered the Joint Venture purchase of Stoeger between SAKO and Llama some time in '75 or '76, and ran the Stoeger US and Canada operations until that management group was ousted in ?'85 and replaced with retired Army Colonel Steve Glick, who I had met in Finland during a plant tour and moose hunt in October of '84. Col Glick was the still in the Army and attended the plant tour and moose hunt as a guest along with a number of others like Howard French who was the editor of Guns & Ammo magazine. An almost not so funny aside, everyone in the plant tour party, about 2 dozen of us from all over the world, was housed at a ski resort not far from the plant in Rihimaaki, but Mrs Glick and my wife had no interest in participating in the 3 day moose hunt, and decided to catch the train into Helsinki for a day of shopping. When it was time to return it apparently was very confusing in the train station, and the 2 women started to board a train full of Finnish Border Guard troops that was headed for the Russian border until Mrs. Glick realized what the train was loaded with from all the sudden catcalls and laughter about halfway up the boarding steps and beat a hasty retreat. I don't for a moment think that the women were in any danger, just that the train was an express with a destination at the Russian border several hours away and was the last train of the day in either direction. Needless to say the women were roundly teased when the story surfaced at the group's dinner that nite. I can't say enough nice things about the Finn's we met locally during our 8 days there or anyone else connected to SAKO.
Ron
