Once a Zeppelin employee, always a Zeppelin employee at heart! This was exactly the feeling of retired Zeppelin colleagues in 2005. Since they felt so connected to their former employer, Dieter Lohre, Helmut Willms, Walter Raum, Horst Naumann, Marga Pompe, August Korte and Michael Härtel decided to found the Zeppelin Veterans Club e.V. , a club to remember good old times at Zeppelin, and at the same time a place to cherish the present and to experience the future as Zeppelin pensioners together!
The founding of the Zeppelin Veterans Club (ZVC) 15 years ago, in February 2005, is one of many proofs for the special corporate culture at the Zeppelin Group. Former employees feel a strong connection to Zeppelin, and even after their active careers at the Group, they still want to be informed about what is going on in the company. That is why also members of the ZVC receive the global employee magazine on a regular basis via mail! Today the association has around 200 active members and Michael Heidemann, Vice Chairman of the Management Board of the Zeppelin Group, is one of the honorary members.
Goals and a vision
On the one hand, the club members aim to maintain contact with former Zeppelin colleagues through regular meetings and different activities: In 2008, for example, 60 members of the club visited the Caterpillar Demo Center in Malaga (Spain), and the visit of the bauma fair every third year is a fixed date for every member of the ZVC. On the other hand, the club is dedicated to keeping the history and reputation of historical construction machines alive. Throughout the years, the members of the ZVC have collected more than 3,000 books about construction machines. The collection of the ZVC Library was handed over to the Technomuseum, the State Museum of Technology and Labor in Mannheim (Germany) in June 2011 and can be visited there.
“For me, the Zeppelin Veterans Club means having a community that continues to exist even after my active time at the company”, says Werner Schwabe, board member of the Zeppelin Veterans Club.
And for us, as a Group, having a Zeppelin Veterans Club means: WE are proud to have such dedicated, passionate and committed pensioners on board. That’s why we congratulate the Zeppelin Veterans Club to its 15th anniversary and wish all members ongoing enjoyment of all future activities. WE are Zeppelin!
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