Christian started at the Eschwege site in 2018 as a production assistant and in just six months he was promoted to deputy Operations manager At the beginning of 2019, he took over vacation cover for the operations manager in Kassel. The managing director suddenly noticed that Christian was producing many more tons of regrind than his predecessors. How can that be?
“I just work!”
Christian is clearly a doer type. It didn’t take long for the managing director, Mr. Henning, to decide “You’re staying here”.
As the business at the Kassel site is different to the one in Eschwege, the Managing Director personally accompanied Christian for a year at the plant, which now belongs to General Industries Polymere, and taught him everything he needed to know. “Everything here is very complex, we have masses of different materials, everything is sorted by type and color, you have to make sure that everything runs smoothly beforehand, you can’t mix plastics.”
GIP has been responsible for non-foam recycling since 2023 and Christian is a long-standing operations manager.
What is fun?
“The work and the challenges. No two days are the same. There are different challenges every day, often unpredictable ones.“ He plans the personnel, the process in production and in logistics. “Suddenly a truck comes and wants to unload the goods now: these are different situations that you have to juggle.” Over the years, he has worked in production on a daily basis, but now as operations manager he takes on back office tasks and deals with various departments. This is very varied and he finds the contact and exchange with different people particularly exciting.
But Christian is also aware of the responsibility and that demands a lot, for example that you sometimes have to be there at the weekend or be responsible for the staff. He expects his “employees-guys” in the production to pull their weight and “step on the gas” when the going gets tough, but also understands that everyone has a bad day from time to time.
A sense of achievement?
“When you see that everything happens as it was planned” 🙂
There is immense potential in the plastics industry, says Christian, and he sees the business grow every day. “We are far from finished.” With the Green Deal from 2030, the challenges will grow, become greater and also different.
Christian is happy to have a secure job and is also grateful for the trust placed in him by the management, “that they rely on me like this and give me the leeway I need.”
Last good words?
“Here you’re not a number, like at a temporary employment agency, here you are someone, namely yourself.” The family atmosphere and a sense of belonging are the most important aspects for Christian. As in every family, there are arguments from time to time, but they are quickly forgotten.
