Man of the First Hour

Peter Macha, JES’ longest-serving employee, took his well-deserved retirement in November 2022 after nearly 32 years with JES. A man of the first hour says goodbye.

After 47 years of work, it is now over. For 27 years in the tunnel and most recently for 10 years as ‘master of the garage warning systems’, Peter has seen and done just about everything a trained electrician can do. At the age of 17, he already met Fred Jung, the co-founder and still shareholder of JES, at an electrical company in Hallein. After an intermezzo in his uncle’s company, he later had his first work assignments in the tunnel at LIPRO, again under lead of Fred Jung. With the foundation of JES, it was therefore almost obvious to continue his professional career there in Fred Jung’s company.

Peter’s biography is therefore closely linked to the development of JES. And so he not only experienced the entire change, but was also able to help shape it. He fondly remembers the early years, when the entire staff really “moved into the tunnel” during project work and, fighting against time, solved all existing challenges and those that arose during the work. After the completed orders, which also demanded everything physically (night and shift work at all times of the year), there was then a celebration with the entire company, not infrequently for several days and sometimes also on sandy beaches in southern Europe.

The division of labor between the individual companies, as well as the size of the projects, soon reduced such experiences, where entire tunnels were carried out completely by JES, to smaller projects. Accordingly, Peter still knows one or the other smaller access tunnel to the Tauern valleys in the Pinzgau region very well from that time. Later, due to developments in the industry, JES had to specialize even more in partial aspects, for JES that of tunnel safety technology.

In the last years, Peter took over the product niche “garage warning systems”, where he had become a competent and reliable contact person for all JES customers on site with installation, commissioning, repair and maintenance for the JES systems but also for third-party systems over the years. Peter’s service was as reliable as the systems and JES components themselves, where some of them still function perfectly after 30 years. In the spirit of today’s much-preached sustainability, a benchmark was set here through high-quality system solutions that many competitors could not and cannot meet, and which has now also set a high bar in terms of reliability and ease of maintenance in the upcoming digitalization of JES garage solutions.

Generation Change Initiated

For the future tasks Peter himself brought his successor, Nico Zaglmayer, to the company. In the course of clarifying a technical malfunction of a garage ventilation system in cooperation with an electrical company for building services, he found a suitable young master electrician. During his induction period, Nico immediately showed that he already has all the emerging issues of IoT-capable measurement and control solutions on his radar. With him, the upcoming digitalization of the garage is now being implemented.

Solution orientation and good self-organization were and are also the most important characteristics of a good field and service technician, Peter emphasizes again and again. With Nico as his successor, he can now confidently take off into his retirement.

Take off is not just meant symbolically, because he has asked René Jung for a sightseeing flight over his old workplace as a farewell gift. Managing director and recreational pilot René Jung is happy to fullfil this desire.

Peter, who has already accepted the next challenge with the reconstruction and extension of his house with and for his son, will not miss the physical activity. He wishes JES and his former colleagues all the best and even though he will remain a loyal fan of analog measurement technology, he wishes everyone much success with ‚digitalization‘.

Dear Peter, JES thanks you for your loyal and long-time cooperation.