We have worked with John Bandler since around 1991 when he visited our office with several graduate students and pitched EM optimization. He had recently been laughed at when he approached a large microwave software company, “Impossible!”, and “It can’t possibly work!”, they told him and they showed him the door. Of course, in developing the first commercially successful 3‐D planar EM analysis, we had been told the exact same thing…so we listened. This led to a very successful 32‐year collaboration. This presentation reviews one of our joint developments, the port‐tuning version of Space Mapping. Also included are some personal memories and photographs of our times together.