This article is not really to Alfred Hänn’s liking. The 65-year-old does not want anyone singing his praises. That is easier said than done when it comes to a person who has clocked up 50 successful years in one company, not to mention three chil­dren, as well as numerous hobbies and volun­tary activ­i­ties. “Everyone with a goal in sight can manage that. And the 50 years simply came about because I was able to live my career at Uhlmann as I had imag­ined it”, says Hänn.

Even as a young boy in his home town of Burgrieden, he found it fasci­nating that “pushing a switch some­where turns on a light”. Good that his uncle had an elec­trical shop. And even better that Hänn gained one of the two avail­able elec­tri­cian appren­tice­ships. “The compe­ti­tion was high, which made the joy of being accepted even greater”, is how Hänn recalls the year 1970.

Barely 15 years, old on September 1 of that year he embarked on a career at Uhlmann, which culmi­nated in heading elec­trical assembly and ended with entry into partial retire­ment in 2020. That is the factual, extremely abbre­vi­ated version of Alfred Hänn’s career. What made it special calls for a few more lines – he has to bear with us.

Trou­bleshooter on all conti­nents

There were the assembly visits, for instance. There is no conti­nent on which Hänn would not have managed to get an Uhlmann machine running. His specialty: trou­bleshooting. It could happen that he trav­eled to South Africa, only to find and resolve the problem on the machine within ten minutes.

However, Hänn often recalls this trip for another reason. An uncle of his father was a cler­gyman near Johan­nes­burg. When Hänn appeared on his doorstep, his cigar liter­ally dropped out of his hand. A short time later, it was Hänn who was aston­ished. The great uncle had a whole box of photos under the bed, which he had taken during home visits to Burgrieden. They were of young Alfred and his siblings. “Our family didn’t have a camera and I had seldom seen photos of myself. That was wonderful”, explains Hänn. Unfor­tu­nately, he does not know what happened to the photos after the death of his great uncle.

Quality and service – that was always the motto.

Alfred Hänn

He also left his mark in South America. While on an assembly job in Buenos Aires, a local elec­tri­cian colleague took him on the Rio de la Plata one weekend. They trav­eled in a small boat to an isle, on which one man lived – who greeted Hänn in best Hamburg German.

It turned out that the island resi­dent had trav­eled to Argentina in 1940 as a stow­away, settled on the island, and had a Christmas tree plan­ta­tion there. “We recounted our life stories and exchanged letters for years.” A friend­ship that bore fruit because Hänn sent the expa­triate German Christmas tree seeds from then on.

One home, two mottos

Despite the plea­sur­able expe­ri­ence and encoun­ters, the assembly trips were no cake­walks. When the phone range at 2pm, because a machine in France, for example, was causing prob­lems, it was normal for Hänn to be on his way at 3pm. “Quality and service – that was always the motto”, says Hänn, who strived to be among the first in the morning and expe­ri­enced many a sleep­less night caused by trou­bleshooting alerts.

That he never­the­less stuck to the job for all those years is firstly due to trav­eling itself. It taught him to take a more relaxed view of things. But the return home also played a role. As much as he liked to travel, he never consid­ered staying, not even in Australia, which he was partic­u­larly taken with. The home ties were too strong. Both parents came from Burgrieden, his wife as well, and Hänn is active there in the fire depart­ment, the shooting club, and with his clar­inet in the music society. There he goes into the woods every Sunday, grows spelt wheat for self­made bread, and main­tains his classic trac­tors.

Never did he think about leaving Uhlmann – although some suit­able offers were made. Instead, he made sure that machine and company elec­trical systems were always up to latest tech­no­log­ical stan­dards. The company’s combined heat and power plant, for example, is also cred­ited to Hänn. It covers the heating needs and 80 percent of the elec­tricity required by the head­quar­ters in Laupheim. All of this does not come by chance, but is based on Alfred Hänn’s second motto, which he has lived up to over the entire 50 years: “If the company is doing well, I also feel fine.” And (some words of praise must be permitted, Mr. Hänn): What good fortune for Uhlmann.