Gerd Schneider remembers his first days at Big Dutchman well. Onboarding in January 1993 was a little different to today. Instead of a mouse and keyboard, he was given a pen and a notepad. And the folders? “Were on the shelves, not on a server,” says Schneider with a mischievous smile. “We did not have computers yet.”
On the road in more than 60 countries
Gerd Schneider retires after almost 33 years
Gerd Schneider is from Bremen, where he studied electrical engineering at the university of applied sciences. He joined Big Dutchman by chance. “My father was the manager of a poultry farm, so I had a connection to the industry.”
Originally, Schneider was supposed to plan control cabinets. “But then someone was needed for climate system planning.” And so the young engineer became a “weather god”: responsible for a good climate, if you like. “This no longer had much to do with my studies.”
Officially, Gerd Schneider was most recently part of the Regional Engineering team. “But I’ve spent most of my professional life planning climate control systems around the world, helping to draw up quotations, checking orders and drawings, and handling complaints.”
One of the biggest projects he was involved in was Etihad in Iraq. “We equipped 548 houses at once.”
Gerd Schneider has travelled extensively over the years. “I supported our sales colleagues in customer meetings, for example.” Such events often took place in hotels. A handful of interested farmers came along, Schneider gave his presentation – and with a bit of luck, the Big Dutchman team had won an order afterwards.
Only once did the whole thing go a little differently than the engineer had planned. “A colleague had taken me to a meeting in Argentina, to a hotel on the border with Uruguay.” What Schneider did not realise was that instead of a small group of customers, he would suddenly stand in front of hundreds of participants of a large congress. Including simultaneous interpreting and all the trimmings. A “Dr Schneider” from Germany had been announced. “My colleague said that no one would listen to me without a doctoral degree,” says Schneider and laughs. “And he said that if I had known all this beforehand, I wouldn’t have come.” Which was true.
“Climate researcher” Gerd Schneider visited customers who had issues with a system or wanted training. German engineering with heart and mind characterised Big Dutchman’s now ex-employee. Before construction of a new house started, he looked at our climate database and analysed the microclimate on site, for example in South Africa, from his office in Vechta-Calveslage. What is the most difficult climate to manage? “When both the temperatures and the humidity are very high, for example in Nigeria or Bahrain.”