Rina Suka: How long have you been with KYBURZ?

Hans-Peter Erni: It was almost 8 years ago that I had my first day at work as a new temporary employee at KYBURZ in the service department under the expert guidance of Zopfi. At that time I was working 100% in Dübendorf as Chief of Staff for the Air Force. But at the behest of Bern, I had to reduce my unbelievably high number of accrued holiday days. I had incredibly enjoyed working manually in the service workshop. Every chassis change of PLUS senior vehicles was a varied, incredibly enjoyable job.

Rina: How did you become aware of us?

Hans-Peter: Martin Jerg was head of service at the time and he was in charge of an air transport squadron stationed at the military airfield in Dübendorf. I don't remember who took the initiative at the time to visit the KYBURZ production workshops. I was impressed by the product range and soon asked whether there was any possibility of working temporarily at KYBURZ in order to reduce my holiday overhang.

Rina: What did you do before KYBURZ?

Hans-Peter: For the last two years before my regular retirement from the Air Force, I was a Senior Duty Officer. Together with 7 other comrades, we were in charge and responsible for the (tactical) operations of the Air Force. That was a 7/24-hour job in shifts. At that time, there was something going on practically every other night where Air Force assets were called up for relief operations. In addition, I was part of the Air Force team evaluating the new fighter aircraft to be procured.

Rina: What are your activities?

Hans-Peter: I was given a permanent position at KYBURZ in January 2021. My role at the time was project manager for the ePedelec. It was an exciting and fascinating task to develop a cargo bike for Deutsche Post that has neither a chain, nor a sprocket, nor a gear shift. The human power on the pedals drives a generator, which controls the speed of the delivery vehicle with the electricity it generates.
Today I work as head of development. This challenging job in the new and further development of our vehicles is highly interesting, but also very exhausting and demanding. It involves tasks in cooperation with sales, production and also marketing. Less fascinating, but still of great consequence and no less demanding, is the management of technical crisis situations.

Rina: Where do your strengths lie?

Hans-Peter: My strengths lie in generalist and cooperative leadership of people. It is fascinating to recognise and promote the abilities of employees, but also to demand performance. When goals are achieved in the required time, with the right quality and to the delight of all involved, it is always a joyful experience for me.

Rina: What is your typical daily routine? What do you like? What rather less?

Hans-Peter: I don't know a typical daily routine. For me, every day offers something different and new. Be it at work, in my free time, in my social environment, in sport or doing nothing. I don't like monotony and repetition at all. I like to experience and admire new things.

Rina: What do you like to do in your free time?

Hans-Peter: I love stylish concerts and theatre performances. A recent, wonderful and moving experience was meeting the 27-year-old "Zian" from Basel in person (see photo). He never had any vocal training, but with his extraordinary voice he managed to storm the Swiss hit parade out of nowhere.

Rina: What are your plans for the future?

Hans-Peter: I have achieved unlimited things in my whole life. I want to cultivate and support more friends, I want to be a loving husband (newly married for a good two months) and a kind-hearted daddy to my two daughters. And I want to be healthy and agile forever - preferably in nature, in the mountains.
This requires time, time that I don't have now with an 80% workload as a full pensioner. That is why I want to step down in the foreseeable future and hand over my responsible task to my designated successor, Roland Königs.