With a ceremony attended by the Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer as an honorary guest, IABG celebrated its 50th company anniversary on 13 May 2011.
Over 1,000 guests from the sectors of politics, economics and science as well as members of staff had followed our invitation to the atrium of the technology centre in Ottobrunn.
After a musical prelude by the “Junge Münchner Symphoniker”, Professor Schwarz, chairman of the IABG management board, cordially welcomed the guests and provided a review on 50 years of IABG in his opening speech. “We are able to look back with pride on 50 successful years. We have had many good years and in the course of time we have learned a lot and developed our company”, stated Professor Schwarz. “In particular, we successfully mastered the transformation to a privately held company in the 1990s. We always regarded the responsibility for our employees and the environment our prime objectives.”
In his speech “IABG - The Future” Matthias Spott, managing director of IABG, addressed the future challenges of IABG and provided an outlook on the further development of the company. He identified the fields of environmental and energy engineering as the main future sectors increasingly gaining importance. “The strategic re-orientation of IABG will continue to lead towards a ‘Green IABG’”, summarized Mr. Spott. IABG was in a good position to tackle the challenges of the future.
In his ceremonial speech Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer congratulated IABG to its anniversary. He called IABG “an impressive company which has been a major contributor to Bavaria as a high-tech location for 50 years now” and added that the acronym IABG could also be interpreted as “Innovative - Ambitious – Bold and Green”.
After his speech the Prime Minister obtained a differentiated picture of the various business fields of IABG in the course of a detailed tour through the test hangars of the segments aeronautics, space and automotive.
Professor Dr. Harald Lesch, Professor for Astrophysics at the Observatory of the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich and well-known in Germany due to numerous television appearances, fascinated the audience with his speech on the topic “Error as a Way of Improvement”. He paid tribute to IABG as a fascinating high-tech company at the interface of research-based application and development which was able, in particular, to make important contributions in the movement towards renewable energies.
The ensemble “Blechschaden” supported the cheerful atmosphere with a rousing concert. Even the Prime Minister was inspired by the band’s enthusiasm. He spontaneously took over the baton and with obvious pleasure and to great applause from the audience conducted the brass ensemble of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.
After the show IABG employees completed the day with a staff party featuring a summer buffet and good music.
With an “open house day” on Saturday, 14 May, IABG continued the festivities around its 50th anniversary.
A large number of employees with families and friends as well as guests from the neighbouring communities had followed IABG’s invitation and turned the event into a large success. On this day IABG was able to welcome over 1,800 visitors.
With guided tours through the departments aeronautics, space and teleport the visitors had the opportunity to become familiar with various test facilities of IABG. In the context of the open house day the HR department of IABG also provided information on open positions and career opportunities. About 50 visitors interested in employment with IABG used this occasion to obtain advice directly from IABG’s HR experts.
Thus the open house day turned into a successful and cheerful conclusion of IABG’s two-day anniversary celebrations at the Ottobrunn location. Altogether IABG was able to welcome nearly 3,000 guests on both days.
Pictures and videos of the ceremony as well as of the open house day are available here.
