Work at Schmid

Tho­mas Oert­le joi­n­ed Schmid Auto­ma­ti­on in 2007 while con­ti­nuing his edu­ca­ti­on to qua­li­fy as a pro­duc­tion engi­neer (Betriebs­tech­ni­ker TS) at the ZbW cen­ter of voca­tio­nal con­ti­nuing edu­ca­ti­on in St. Gal­len. “After com­ple­ting my con­ti­nuing edu­ca­ti­on, I wan­ted to make the best pos­si­ble use of my new skills,” remem­bers Tho­mas. Schmid Auto­ma­ti­on offe­red him this oppor­tu­ni­ty even befo­re he finis­hed his con­ti­nuing edu­ca­ti­on. From 2011 to 2013, he acqui­red addi­tio­nal know­ledge in a com­pa­ny in the same indu­stry, but deci­ded to return to Schmid Auto­ma­ti­on after two years. This pro­ved to be a true win-win situa­ti­on for both sides, for now Tho­mas as a pro­ject mana­ger hand­les mid-size and lar­ge pro­jects on his own and is the ack­now­led­ged dri­ving force behind the elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring team. And what is more: “To allow me to pur­sue my hob­by as a hel­per at the Open­air St. Gal­len during the sum­mer months, the com­pa­ny offers me fle­xi­ble annu­al working hours so that I can be absent from the office during six who­le weeks in a row,” explains Thomas.

Simon star­ted his app­ren­ti­ce­ship as an auto­ma­ti­on spe­cia­list with Schmid Auto­ma­ti­on in 2016 and has now suc­cessful­ly com­ple­ted half of his voca­tio­nal trai­ning. “I find my dai­ly work on diver­se pro­jects very much fun,” says Simon. Now he eager­ly awaits the launch of the Trai­nee Pro­gram for app­ren­ti­ces. “I look for­ward to the infor­ma­ti­on days on elec­tri­cal and soft­ware engi­nee­ring.” After this, Simon is con­side­ring the opti­on of com­ple­ting the second half of his four-year voca­tio­nal trai­ning in one of the Engi­nee­ring departments.

Mar­cel Fust joi­n­ed Schmid Auto­ma­ti­on in 2008. “The com­pa­ny offe­red me an oppor­tu­ni­ty to join them as someone coming from a dif­fe­rent edu­ca­tio­nal back­ground, an oppor­tu­ni­ty that I didn’t hesi­ta­te to sei­ze,” remem­bers Mar­cel as if this had hap­pen­ed yester­day. After com­ple­ting his con­ti­nuing edu­ca­ti­on as a gra­dua­te elec­tri­cal engi­neer (Dipl. Elek­tro-Tech­ni­ker HF) at the ZbW in St. Gal­len, Mar­cel work­ed for six years and a half in the Soft­ware Engi­nee­ring depart­ment. Here he had the chan­ce to fami­lia­ri­ze hims­elf in-depth with PLCs and pro­cess con­trol systems such as auto­ma­ti­onX, CODESYS and TIA-Por­tal and to learn how to app­ly them. Mar­cel reflects: “Get­ting to know the new systems was easy, thanks to the excel­lent sup­port I recei­ved from the Schmid team. The hands-on expe­ri­ence that I was able to gather during this peri­od pro­ved to be extre­me­ly valuable in my fur­ther care­er.” In 2011, the com­pa­ny allo­wed Mar­cel to attend a three-month lan­guage cour­se in New York. Then, from the autumn of 2012 onward, Mar­cel – sup­port­ed by the com­pa­ny – atten­ded the MAS Busi­ness Admi­ni­stra­ti­on and Engi­nee­ring cour­se at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ence in St. Gal­len. “After this, I wan­ted to app­ly what I had just lear­ned. Tog­e­ther with the com­pa­ny manage­ment, a new role was crea­ted, and I am very proud to have hel­ped shape the future of Schmid Auto­ma­ti­on sin­ce 2014 in my capa­ci­ty as a seni­or auto­ma­ti­on con­sul­tant in the com­pa­ny manage­ment,” says Mar­cel about his care­er up to now.