Mike Gray took a good look at our Bridge of Boats plan a week after the tsunami. He like what he saw and things moved very quickly after that. Mike set us up in his 16th floor office with staff, our own broadband terminal and a driver at our disposal. Without his faith in our concept and the backing of HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank and the British Embassy, ELM could still be just an idea on the drawing board.

Over our 3 month mission in NW Aceh we helped RR with their other major project in the area. A $500,000 clinic in Calang all prefabricate in Batam and shipped in on a barge. Batavia carried steel, cement and acted as an accommodation base for RR's top field engineer, Bactiar, while the site works were getting started. The clinic is open and we congratulate Mike and his team on a fantastic job.

Associated Press write........Then there was Gray, the Rolls-Royce executive. At the request of the British Embassy in Jakarta, he shipped masks and body bags and other supplies to Aceh, using his business contacts to make it happen.

Gray's idea to build a clinic came after he realized many military field hospitals would close. He said some aid groups dismissed his plans as unrealistic, and medical aid groups refused to participate because he was working with the military, who are fighting separatist rebels in the area.

But Gray makes no apologies, saying he couldn't have done the job without help from the troops.

"We needed something that would transcend the emergency to permanent rehabilitation and would become a focal point of the redevelopment of Calang," he said.

Gray and McHowat's aid efforts may not be over.

Like two excited schoolboys, they sat in an airport waiting room last week tossing around ideas. Maybe the clinic could be expanded into a hospital or they could help the devastated fishing industry in Calang by providing larger vessels.

"The tsunami has broken the mold," Gray said. "It provides us an opportunity to see what we can do on the ground. We're just at the beginning."