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Published on December 11, 2007

He was a fluent Thai speaker and colourful raconteur with a huge appreciation and affection for the land of his birth, Thailand. He was the only son of Esko and Anja Pajasalmi, who came to the Kingdom in the late 1950s as missionaries from their native Finland and never left.

Esko Pajasalmi opted to go into business in the 1960s and founded Presko, Thailand's first full-service PR consultancy. After Presko was taken over in the early 1990s by Britain's Shandwick, at the time the world's largest independent PR group, father and son stayed on as chairman and joint managing director respectively.

Esko passed away in 2000, not long after retiring. By then his son Norman had moved on from Shandwick to pursue other business interests, which included establishing a new PR consultancy, PR & Associates, with long-time colleague and Presko veteran Sakchai Ruangkittikul.

Norman is survived by his mother Anja, his former wife Lan and their son Pol.

For details of memorial arrangements after a private family cremation, call (02) 651 8989.

The Nation