Bringing people together on the Red Couch at RAMPF

 As we all know, our company boasts a whole lot of innovative people with interesting hobbies and pastimes. I'm delighted that the second of our internal ‘Red Couch’ events will give us a fascinating insight into two of these passions. Timo Marx will start us off today – he's always keen to gets things rolling,” said Michael Rampf, CEO of RAMPF Holding, greeting the 61 members of staff gathered in the RAMPF canteen at the Grafenberg site.

At the internal “Red Couch” event on Monday, 30 January 2012, Uwe Seyfried, team leader in the semi-finished products manufacturing department, and Timo Marx, one of the epoxy laboratory team at RAMPF Tooling, told their colleagues about the rather unusual ways they spend their free time. “I basically spend my weekends in bike parks all over Europe,” explained Marx. His hobby, freeriding, takes him and his team speeding over the countryside on their mountain bikes. To make sure the younger generation can also enjoy this sport, he meets with young freeriders at a local bike park to share his knowledge about the right equipment, respecting the natural environment and staying safe. The Rudolf-Rampf Foundation set up in Grafenberg in 2000 also supports preventive youth work at a local level.
Uwe Seyfried's hobby quite literally takes him to new heights!” said Michael Rampf, introducing the second speaker. Seyfried has been flying gliders since he was 15 and now has 35 years' experience behind him. That's equivalent to 2,000 hours in the air and around 1,000 take-offs. “Once I get in the glider, I don't usually touch down again until about five hours later,” explained Seyfried. He had brought along some pictures to give the other members of the RAMPF team a real sense of what his hobby is all about and the places it has taken him, including over the Black Forest, the Zugspitze mountain, Lake Como and far beyond.
The internal “Red Couch” event gives employees at the RAMPF Group – one of the leading companies in the field of reactive resins and modeling and mould engineering materials – an opportunity to introduce their more unusual pastimes and hobbies. The lunchtime get-together was initiated by the management team of RAMPF Holding and is inspired by the “Innovation stars on the red couch” series of events. High-profile figures from the worlds of culture, business, sport and society who have shown courage and been successful in their chosen career are invited to take their place on the red couch, a symbol for one of the building blocks that make up the Group's innovation management. Britta Heidemann, Olympic gold medallist in épée fencing, has already taken her place on the red couch, as has sound designer Peter Philippe Weiss, who received the red dot design award in 2009 for his outstanding design work. The sound designer’s visit even kick-started the development of a musical composition that embodies the RAMPF Group. As part of the company's innovation management strategy, this workshop was designed to promote interaction between long-standing and newer members of staff from different departments.
Their joint efforts resulted in “The power of RAMPF”, a corporate sound that is available to hear on the company website and on YouTube.

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