Technical Support made in Poland – GL opens new Office

Hamburg / Gdansk, 23 October 2008 – Classification society Germanischer Lloyd (GL) has opened its new Technical Support Office in Gdansk, Poland, to meet the increasing demand for GL’s Emergency Response Service. Already operating offices in Gdansk, Szczecin and Katowice, GL thus offers regional as well as international support made in Poland.

The GL Gdansk Engineering Services were established in January 2007. At the time, three engineers joined the local office to assume the preparation of computer models for vessels registered in GL’s Emergency Response Service (ERS).

Facing increasing demand ever since its introduction 15 years ago, ERS offers help in emergencies at sea. The continuous shipbuilding boom, a sharpened focus on safety and a growing environmental awareness amongst ship owners – all these aspects have contributed to the continuous success of GL’s ERS: almost 1,000 vessels are currently registered for the service, further 230 are in the order book.

“Of course, the ever-rising number of customer requests also calls for more technical and engineering support from our side,” said Norbert Kray, Chief Surveyor at Germanischer Lloyd, at the inauguration of the new office. “This can only be accomplished on a high level with an experienced and reliable workforce.” Engineers are hard to find these days, especially since many skilled workers are leaving Poland for better jobs elsewhere. But Kray stressed: “At Germanischer Lloyd, we try to employ the expertise of our engineers where it is most efficient: in their home environment.”

The new Technical Support Office in Gdansk will host five engineers and a number of students from the Technical Universities of Gdansk and Szczecin. “And there is room for more,” Kray said confidently.

Germanischer Lloyd has been represented in Poland since the end of the 1970s – initially only with an outpost of the Berlin branch. The official founding of Germanischer Lloyd Polen Sp. z.o.o. took place in 1992 with the hiring of three local surveyors. Today, GL Poland employs more than 50 staff members. In addition, in the Division Training Centre in Szczecin new employees from all over Europe find their feet to become marine surveyors.

Worldwide the Hamburg based classification society employs 4,800 engineers, surveyors, experts and administration staff. It maintains a global network of 208 offices in 77 countries.

Germanischer Lloyd press release