Welcome to the Paul Penders headquarters on the island of Penang, Malaysia in the little fishing village of Teluk Bahang!

Our “second home” is not far from the beach in a green valley surrounded by gentle hills. From PP Penang HQ, we often see tour buses on their way to the nearby Penang State Park and its enormous lake and dam. Or they could be heading just up the street to the attractions tucked into the nearby hills: the Butterfly Farm, the Tropical Spice Garden or the new Escape Adventure theme park.

PP International now has two main offices – one on the island of Langkawi and one on Penang island. As a UNESCO-designated “GeoPark,” Langkawi is a garden of paradise. It’s gorgeous there but services can be less than satisfactory; on the other hand, Penang is a commercial hub and a world leader in IT and related computer services. It’s been almost 2 years since we opened the Penang HQ and it’s turned out to be a good common sense solution to maintain both places.

Neighbors count. Our HQ is located right next to a mosque and there’s an excellent medical clinic across the way. The community surrounding our Penang HQ is primarily Malay Muslim with many carrying on a family heritage of fishing or operating small but excellent restaurants and food stands. Many also head to the tourist town of Batu Ferringhi just next door to work in the hotel and hospitality industries.

People here seem to have balanced life and work very well. They live in a strong community of family and friends and live a “laid back lifestyle.” Some of our neighbors are quite ambitious -- a new coffeehouse has recently opened downstairs in our complex. We often stop in for tastings of the variety of excellent Malaysian coffees.

Every day, delivery trucks back up to our warehouse doors on the street level. Whenever I’m in town, I peek in to say hello to the hardworking staff there. The warehouse is stocked nearly to its high ceiling with boxes of supplies and items ready to be shipped out to distributors all over the world.

As Asian traditions dictate, you must take off your shoes before climbing the narrow staircase up to the offices above the warehouse. There I am greeted by our friendly office staff including Yen or Louise who are usually on the phone working on marketing and sales.

The facility is spacious and super clean. There’s a conference room where important meetings take place. People gather in the central office space which has a large workstation with adjacent cubicles that accommodate 4 or 5 people at their computers at once – giving both privacy and proximity.

Yen meets me in the nearby kitchen to share coffee and cookies. We peer through a glass wall and wave to the chemists working in the most fascinating space of all – the special temperature-controlled laboratory.

One evening, we invited blogger Teviot Fairservis to watch as Bas and senior chemist Dr. Gatot Pulanggono and I “cooked up” a new shampoo product. Here’s what she wrote:

“I felt privileged to be on hand at the birth of a new product. Paul, Bas and Dr. Gatot moved easily around the space, taking down vials and bottles of various herbs and essences for the new formula. Counters line three sides of the room and they shifted from scales that can measure tiny amounts to machines that can shake-and-shimmy ingredients into formulas in a special “cold blending” process. It was fascinating to watch! And I even got to help in a final step by sniffing herbal fragrances and offering an opinion on which fragrance smelled best.”

Paul Penders products are shipped out to distributors in some 15 countries – and to nearby locations or to the other end of the world -- from our facilities in Penang or Kuala Lumpur.

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