Together with Gerlinde and Robert Fleischmann, company founder Hans Fleischmann welcomed the guests in the festively prepared canteen at the company's headquarters – all the guests were accompanied by their partners. All in all, on this evening the proud sum of 500 years of loyalty to the company gathered together: 40 employees were honoured for ten years, four for twenty-five years of service to the company.
He is extremely pleased that it is now possible, for the first time in this beautiful setting, to highlight the jubilarians in a very special way and to celebrate them separately, said Hans Fleischmann in his welcoming address. So far the staff honours have been held during the annual Christmas celebrations, but due to the large number of honoured persons, this can hardly be done without making the official part of the celebration too long. During his traditional speech at the Christmas party in December in the Schwarzachtalhalle, Hans Fleischmann showed himself proud to have reached the number of 1,075 employees worldwide with F.EE in 2018, especially in times of the increasing shortage of skilled workers. Last year, the company had once again done a really good job and 2019 was also well on the way to becoming extraordinarily successful again with very good business prospects.
On the anniversary evening, personnel manager Udo Starck took over the microphone. Before he found personal words for each of the 44 anniversary celebrants during the ceremony and gave anecdotes from their early years as well as entertaining reports from various automation projects worldwide, he surprised the audience with exciting facts about the starting years of the employees who are now to be honoured: Ten years ago, 2008, the financial crisis and the Obama election were the focus of international attention. F.EE had 400 employees at the time, had a good order situation despite the turbulences on the markets, and the switch cabinet production was located in the former barracks instead of in Industriestrasse. A look back to 1993 proved to be even more exciting: who would have remembered that twenty-five years ago the five-digit postcodes were introduced and Nelson Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize? With just 100 employees, F.EE had already completed numerous international projects for automobile manufacturers and automated the wastewater treatment plant for the Lorenz-Bahlsen plant in Neunburg, to name just a few examples.
After the certificates and gifts had been handed over by the management, the guests enjoyed the rest of the evening in the company headquarters in a pleasant atmosphere and enjoyed a four-course meal served by the six-person canteen team.