DUBAI -- David Chambers builds the tallest flagpoles in the world. His current
client wants him to stop.
This month, Mr. Chambers is erecting a pole in
the wind-swept Azerbaijan capital of Baku. At almost 532 feet, it will be the
tallest flagpole on record. Azerbaijani officials, eager to savor the feat, have
asked him to hold off building a taller pole for a year, he said.
Clients "always tell us they want this to be the last record," Mr.
Chambers said from his small office in Dubai's sprawling port. "But they know,
in general, that we're on a roll, and we're gonna build more poles."
A
monster-flagpole building boom is sweeping across Central Asia and the Middle
East, and Mr. Chambers, an American entrepreneur, is at the center of the
frenzy. In the past eight years, he and his small company have built the world's
four tallest "unsupported," or freestanding, flagpoles. The Baku pole will top
all of them....
Last fall, the Azerbaijani
government ordered a flagpole measuring 492 feet, enough to break the
Aqaba record with plenty of pole to spare. But midway through
construction, Mr. Chambers got a call from Baku.
He says he was told the country's president wanted to top North Korea's
525-foot-tall flagpole, near the border with South Korea. It sits atop
a tower -- so it doesn't qualify for Guinness's "unsupported" category.
But Azerbaijani officials wanted to beat it anyway. (The president's
office said a spokesman wasn't available to comment, and officials
didn't respond to emailed questions.)
Earlier this year, Turkmenistan cut a deal for its own tall pole. Mr.
Chambers agreed to build one smaller than the Azerbaijani pole, which
was already under construction. But he said he'd finish it quicker.
That way, Turkmenistan could hold the record for at least a few weeks.
They got a discount because their record won't last, Mr. Chambers says.
Turkmenian officials don't seem disappointed that it will be
short-lived...
Mr. Romanos says his
potential client is somewhere in the Middle East but doesn't want to be
identified until construction starts. That's to keep neighbors from
planning their own, taller poles.
"It's important that they keep the record as long as they can," Mr. Romanos says. "It's a pride thing."