This is the view of a self described 'maverick' but 'responsible manufacturer' Mr. Paul Tomlinson, owner of Professional Services (Pro-Serv), a Jamaican company that makes a full line of surge protectors for home, office and industry. Pro Serv's 'Power Guards' range from tiny voltage monitors handling only 1 ampere, through refrigerator and computer protectors for residential or office use, all the way up to three phase monitors for protecting heavy industrial equipment.

One of the challenges of providing electricity in small islands such as Jamaica is the vulnerability of power lines to climatic conditions. According to Mr. Tomlinson, "There are only three communities in Jamaica that are further than twenty miles from the sea, Ballynure, Harry Watch, and Sedburgh, all in the depths of Manchester!" He says, "the major metropolitan areas, and probably over 50 percent of all electricity distribution lines lie within 5 miles of the sea. What this means of course is that most, if not all, power transmission lines are subject to salt spray at some time. The thing is, salt spray is anathema to aluminum wires, it's a wonder to me that the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) manages to deliver any electricity at all!"

Tomlinson jokes that the JPS has bought his guards, despite mention of their company on Pro-Serv's original guarantee leaflet. But, he goes on to say, he has mellowed towards the JPS and indeed now has a healthy regard for their efforts. The JPS and Pro-Serv seem, in fact, to have developed a mutual respect: the reference in the warranty has been removed, and the JPS has actually showed Pro-Serv guards in customer service television info-mercials. Mr. Tomlinson said that the JPS does take 'wrong' voltages seriously; whenever a few people call from an area to say that their guards are 'on red', it seems as if the JPS responds.

Many manfacturers have taken advantage of the existing demand for surge protectors and the relative ignorance about electricity by the average consumer. Tomlinson stated that most 'surge protector' makers were not making surge protectors at all, but spike protectors. When we expressed the opinion that this would be false advertising and could not happen in the USA. He repied, "The average consumer has a hard time differentiating between volts and amperes, much less watts and amperes. Some of the people who ought to know better, prefer to perpetuate nonsense rather than try to educate the public. Blackout, brownout, dip, sag, surge, spike ... these are all very different things and there are accepted definitions for all these terms. In my opinion, most manufacturers of 'surge guards' prefer uneducated consumers. As for me, I love educated consumers, I actually call them, 'my customers,' since once they know the facts they will never again use any other protector."