One of the biggest rewards of running a small gear company is the close proximity to our customers. George and I handle and inspect every single product we ship, and many times, we get to shake the hand of a new customer. There's a real connection between something we made and our users.

Building on that connection, at FI we like to reach out to our customers we can't meet in person to get a deeper sense of who they are, if for nothing more than to be better friends.  We recently had a customer purchase a pair of DRY ICE Tools in Saudi Arabia, and we couldn't help oursleve. We had to get to know this guy, what he's about, and what the heck he was thinking!:

Dr. William Lilley, Energy Specialist, Dhahran Saudi Arabia

Family?  Married, no kids.

Where do you ice climb?  Never been, but would like to take a climbing holiday in Switzerland or Japan.

How did you get into ice climbing?  Developed an interest reading Rock&Ice magazine.

Where's your climbing gym and who's climbing there?  We have indoor gyms in the main residential camps of Saudi Aramco. Primarily my wife and I climb in Dhahran, I also climb in Riyadh at the British School. There are a wide range of nationalities working in Saudi Aramco and we have climbers from all over the world.

Where does your passion for ice come from?  Living in the desert!

Is is simply to provide contrast while driving in the desert from Riyadh to Dhahran?  Yes we dream of escaping to the cold.

How did you find dry ice tools?  Advertised in Rock&Ice magazine.

Why did you buy them?  My wife and I would like to go on a climbing holiday and thought it would be good to get some early training.

How do they fit into your climbing?  They are great for mixing it up in the gym, they definitely make you consider you balance and footwork and make you concentrate more on moves ahead.

Why do you think they tools are useful?  To give a feel for using tools to climb. Otherwise I’d have to climb a palm tree with a standard set of axes and crampons, not that I’m ruling that out just yet!