European Federation of Associations
of Insulation Contractors
Dear members of FESI,
It is an extraordinary honor for me to welcome you as the new president of the association. I’m now in service industry since 2009, working for Bilfinger Industrial Services, XERVON Instandhaltung in different management positions and since 2017 the CTO of KAEFER group. I started my career 1995 as young Engineer in BASF group, including working almost 4 years in Libya as technical director of a large oil and gas facility, I can claim “I had the honor to work with different cultures and working environments like in Libya, China, Mexico, India and UAE, and I had to master very interesting and different challenges”.
During my years with Bilfinger, I was ca. 7 months seconded to Abu Dhabi. As I was asked by my Boss at this time Dr. Rudolf Jürcke, to step into a not well running big insulation (Hot and Acoustic) project, including scaffolding. With at peak of ca. 300 blue collar on site, we faced all what a challenging insulation project could teach you as the site director, but with my team we finally succeed.
By heart I learned in all these - meantime almost 30 – years: motivated and skilled blue collar workers, are one of the major success criteria for anything a manager can possible dream of. Without motivated and trained colleagues nothing really works. To create a collaborative team spirit, but hard working on goals, was always my guiding light. Therefore: you can count on me that I will try to put “all of me” into this role as the new FESI President.
Well layout by Rudolf, a particular focus in the coming years will be on employee qualification, as we firmly believe that well-trained and motivated employees are at the heart of every successful branch or company.
We are also endeavoring to grow closer together at a European level in order to master the challenges of the future together. The recruitment of new members and close and successful cooperation within the association are also of the upmost importance in order to achieve our goals and further advance our industry.
I look forward to working with you on these important issues and I’m confident that we will achieve great success through our combined efforts.
It is therefore with great pleasure, that I look forward to our next FESI association meeting in Gdansk at the beginning of October 2024 and look forward to a lively participation and exciting discussions.
Thomas-Peter Wilk
President
In our GA assembly in Zurich at the 25th of April FESI gave a big “thank-you” to the outgoing president Dr. Rudolf Jürcke.
He took over presidentship in 2020, when FESI was not in an easy situation. The split between EiiF’s and FESI’s Secretary General required a new position of the association. Over and above that the Covid-19 years 2020 and 2021 paralyzed activities based on personal contacts.
The President Rudolf Jürcke, as an already retired manager with many years in Bilfinger’s and KAEFER’s industrial maintenance and insulation business, acted as a real caretaker for FESI, succeed in keeping up the communication between the members and restructured the activities of the internal commissions. He initiated a change of statutes to motivate global acting companies like material producers to enter FESI to support innovative information and networking. The financial balance of FESI was stabilized.
The active meetings after Covid-19, again from 2022 on, in Lille, Athens and Vienna were a great benefit for all participating members. A main focus of FESI is the communication about education and training activities in the European countries. He initiated the registration of training centres and promoted activities for a successful championship in 2023, in which 11 teams from 10 countries fought for the honour of best insulator. The activities to work out European standard levels for insulators is a logical step for the future.
In the last month he strongly voted that for the next period a younger president, being still engaged in operating insulation business, should continue his work.
In the General Assembly Rudolf Jürcke thanked his colleagues in the executive committee for excellent cooperation and the members for the given support and always open communication. He wished his elected successor Thomas-Peter Wilk time for engaged activities for the association and success for the initiated and upcoming projects.
We would like to infom all FESI members, partners that the next FESI meeting with GA will take place in Poland in Gdansk, from 09.10.2024 till 11.10.2024.
All are welcome to come to Gdansk, Poland.
FESI is the information, activity and representative platform for European companies active in the insulation business.
Actually, FESI members represent 18 countries with about 1000 contractor companies and more than 40.000 employees.
Insulation work is executed in thermal, acoustic and fire protection of air channels, pipes, vessels, tanks, ships, buildings and other industrial equipment. The represented contractors are busy for the HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) sector and in the industrial insulation for power- petrochemical-, chemical- or other production plants.
The role, strategy and targets of FESI:
Following the above described role and strategy this webside provides information to interesting companies, partners, clients and of course to our members and everybody busy in the insulation industry. For questions, please be invited to contact our secretary (see menu point).
15 September 2023 - Once again, we would like to thank all our sponsors for their support of the Insulation Championship 2023. Without the support of our sponsors, we would not have been able to organise this... read more »
11 January 2023 - The task of the competitors is to: Apply a variety of insulation materials to a dummy/ring. Apply a protective cladding covering the insulation material. Perform the above mentioned during a limited... read more »