Every project start-up a company start-up

Jan Felgendreher, Head of the Bridge Construction Competence Center and entrepreneur in the comp

The A1, Rhine Bridge Leverkusen, driving direction Trier. A highway construction site that everyone is probably familiar with. But no one knows it like Jan Felgendreher, Head of the Bridge Construction Competence Center at HOCHTIEF and responsible for a project that, as he says with pride, “is well-known from radio and television.” The civil engineer makes sure that everything runs smoothly. The typical workday? “Starts early and ends late, and the time in between is always too short.”

So it's a full-time job in itself, but he also takes care of the trappings: acquisition, processing, setting up the site, even details like the Internet connection. “You basically start from scratch on a greenfield site. That's why every project start is like founding a company; for us, every bridge forms a company within a company”. In Leverkusen, this would now be a veritable medium-sized company with an average of around 100 employees on site - half from HOCHTIEF and half from the steel construction partner - and annual sales of a good EUR 20 million. The Internet connection, however, is giving the project manager a stomachache. There is a fiber optic cable less than a hundred meters away, but it would take too long to connect it. But he can improvise with mobile communications to transmit his data. And so, against all odds, Leverkusen is one of the most modern and digitized construction sites in Germany. But, “we could do more,” and that annoys him, because his young team values everything digital. “But above all, it's about being able to develop in important projects and take on entrepreneurial responsibility.”

For Felgendreher, this spirit is the key to the success of the projects, the company and also each individual: “We are a business enterprise and each employee must think and act as an entrepreneur for his or her area of responsibility. This requires a willingness to think outside the box in a positive sense, to constantly question oneself anew and also to take alternative paths. This way of thinking is deeply rooted in HOCHTIEF and is actively encouraged. As managers, we are called upon to act as multipliers”. At every level of the hierarchy, he says, you have to have the courage to face your challenges. And they are not exactly small.

“Bridge replacement construction is a highly complex undertaking. Constructing a new structure between existing real estate and protection zones for nature, while traffic must continue to flow as unhindered as possible on the old bridge, is certainly one of the supreme disciplines in civil engineering”. And among the most important social tasks, one might add. After all, mobility on our trunk roads and over our bridges must be maintained, even though the structures were planned under completely different circumstances: “The A45, for example, used to be the vacation highway for the Ruhr region and is now one of the busiest truck routes”.  The heavy transports put many times more strain on the infrastructure than cars. That's why “there are hardly any Rhine bridges left that don't have minor or major quirks. Leverkusen had to be rebuilt as a replacement because otherwise an important east-west link would have been lost - with disastrous effects on alternative routes.”

He has now been with HOCHTIEF for a quarter of a century. He started as a construction manager and is now head of the bridge construction competence team. In that time, he has achieved a lot with changing teams. On the A45, for example, they moved the entire 1,000-meter Lennetal Bridge into its final position over a distance of around 20 meters. Everything fit perfectly; only on one screw did he misjudge by a few millimeters. A photo of it is now his screensaver, as a reminder of the incredible precision work and as a reminder to himself to always want to do it a little better.