A quarter of a century or more with the same company – that’s quite a feat these days. During an anniversary celebration, principal shareholder frank kuhne and managing director florian knell, together with human resources manager petra seidler, honored the many years of loyalty and commitment of 33 employees of gewurzwerk raps. 12 employees were honored for 25 or 30 years of service, seven for 35 years of service and two employees received an honorary certificate for 40 years of service. Together they can look back on almost 1000 years of company loyalty.
"I have been with raps all my professional life, adalbert raps and horst kuhne personally hired me", says ingrid dembowski, who completed her training as an industrial clerk in 1971 and has now been working in the human resources department for 30 years. At the beginning of the 1970s, 180 skilled workers were employed at raps. A time that the jubilarian still remembers well: "adalbert raps was a real family businessman, at festivals he was always to be found in the middle of the staff. I also remember his enthusiasm for technical innovations. If there was a new piece of equipment, he bought it immediately. That’s why we were one of the first companies to have a teleprinter."
Anyone who sees the streams of goods, packaged to the tenth of a gram and perfectly labeled, leaving the factory every day thanks to highly efficient processes, can hardly imagine how much manual work had to be done in the past.
Commercial employee anita stamm, who has also been with raps since the beginning of her apprenticeship in 1978 and has been with the company for 40 years, remembers it well: "i used to type the label texts neatly on the typewriter so that they could be used as a template for the print shop." Over the years, she was responsible for the further development of labeling up to the automation of the process.
Shareholder frank kuhne, managing director of the adalbert raps foundation and son of former shareholder horst kuhne, who died in 2017, expressed his sincere thanks to each and every one of them for their extraordinary commitment, the knowledge they have contributed and their fierce loyalty to the company: "for more than 90 years, our employees have been our strongest foundation. We are proud and grateful that you are walking this path of constant change with us."
Managing director florian knell praised the personal achievements of the jubilarians: "like in a good marriage, we decided to be with each other and have walked these years together." He also thanked the owner family and the advisory board for their many years of loyalty.