Henrik Konrad is the new Head of Training at MAPAL

Last working day on April 30. Uwe Heßler marked the last Wednesday in April in his calendar some time ago. Not because he is not sometimes tempted to continue as training manager at MAPAL Dr. Kress KG. But rather because he is convinced that professional training, as part of MAPAL's DNA, is in the best hands with his successor Henrik Konrad.  

“What has always set us apart at MAPAL is the outstanding training of our own specialists. And it doesn't matter whether a young person remains loyal to us after completing their training or is looking for a new challenge: We have definitely given him or her the foundations for a successful professional career,” says Uwe Heßler. And: “With Henrik Konrad, a master mechatronics technician who has also received outstanding training will now be in charge of training at MAPAL.” 

In the Ostwürttemberg region, Uwe Heßler is known like no other in the field of professional training and further education. This is not only due to his eleven years at MAPAL. But at least also from his previous positions as head of the IHK training center in Aalen and the training consultancy of the IHK Ostwürttemberg as well as managing director of the Ausbildungsring Ostwürttemberg.  

Uwe Heßler has always benefited from this network in the highest circles of all important companies in the region - the distances in the quick coordination with colleagues were correspondingly short. Even when you consider that there was always competition for the best trainees on the training market. “One of the most important tasks over the past few months was therefore to introduce Henrik to this network so that we could arrange the transition at an early stage, so to speak,” says Heßler. 

During his time at MAPAL, Uwe Heßler has been able to shape many topics together with his ten-strong team. In his first years at MAPAL, he was not only tasked with continuing training and further education, but also enriching it with new ideas. Together with his colleague Marc Debler, for example, he significantly expanded the internal training opportunities. Since then, there have been special product training courses for employees in the areas of sales, tool management and marketing - both nationally and internationally. Employees from international customers also regularly take part in training courses in order to be well informed about the most important current tool developments at MAPAL. 

Finally, the introduction of the company's own digital learning platform was a pioneering achievement. “That was completely new territory for us. Thanks to our colleagues Andreas Maier, Michaela Brendle and Lisa Fischer, e-learning is now running smoothly and is being used very well at MAPAL,” says Heßler. “We would like to thank Mr. Heßler for his many years of support,” says Dr. Jochen Kress, CEO of MAPAL. “Over the past eleven years, he and his team have raised training and further education at MAPAL to a new level. This has created a very good basis for his successor Henrik Konrad.”

A professional life for training young people - it is clear that many topics are repeated, but others have been added. “More meetings with parents, coordination with schools, tutoring, retraining for other professions - this is much more common today,” says Henrik Konrad. ‘However, the top priority remains that the young people are not only well trained, but can also be offered permanent employment if they perform well,’ says MAPAL HR Manager Sebastian Henke.  

Although MAPAL was unable to make such an offer to the current training year due to the current situation, nine trainees who had completed their training were able to be placed with Maschinenfabrik Alfing Kessler GmbH in Aalen. Last year, MAPAL assisted the company AKS (Alfing Kessler Sondermaschinen) when it came to enabling eight prospective mechatronics engineers to complete their training. “The regional companies work closely together in situations like this,” says HR Manager Henke. 

Along with the mechatronics trainees from AKS, the new training manager Henrik Konrad also moved to MAPAL at the start of 2024. Since then, the trained industrial master mechatronics technician has been responsible for training mechatronics technicians - and from now on for all industrial-technical training. His most important tasks include realigning training at MAPAL to meet new challenges, such as AI applications. In general, he wants to align the training content even more closely with the needs of the company. Among other things, this means that the trainees should be deployed closer to production and that the field of application of the mechatronics technician should be specified.