#MEETMBV #MEETSERAL – Interview with Seral Karakoc

When I joined MBV in 2007, there were just six people working for MBV: founder Hans Zingre, two other colleagues - and me as the 'new guy' in logistics. My colleagues welcomed me warmly, and I enjoyed working in the new team and with the MAS-100 monitoring instruments right from the start. After a few years, I managed to move to the service assembly area and finally found my calling in calibration.

Today, I am part of our 7-person service team and as a Calibration Engineer, I work in our in-house laboratory, which is certified according to ISO17025. My most important task is to calibrate our high-precision calibration instrument MAS-100 Regulus. This, in turn, is used to calibrate our customers' air samplers so they can be sure they are meeting all regulations accurately. This is a demanding task which I find very fulfilling.

Quality, appreciation and enjoyment

These 15 years at MBV – and I hope there will be many more! – have been intensive, innovative and enjoyable. Intensive, because I have been able to acquire more and more knowledge in the field of viable air sampling  and thus continuously developed myself. This personal progress ran parallel to some important innovations in air sampling – therefore innovative.

I use the word "enjoyable" quite deliberately in this context, because that's exactly how it feels to me. At MBV, two words are very important: appreciation and quality. And that applies to both the appreciation of the quality of the products and the appreciation of the quality of the employees.

At MBV, new ideas always have a meaningful background and our success results from healthy and constant change in an appreciative environment. Growing in such a framework has had a great impact on me, both professionally and privately. And being able to witness how our customers get additional value from any new process or innovation is a great reward for every effort.

A family business in the best sense of the word

What I have grown very fond of is the always uncomplicated, cordial and sympathetic way the founding Zingre family deals with everyone. This is also reflected in MBV's corporate culture, and anyone who has ever met Hans Zingre or his sons and successors Ronny and Andy know exactly what I mean by this. This close-knit family and company culture has always been perceptible, and that is very important to me. 

Maybe it's also because I was born in Turkey and I know this from my own family? I really appreciate this close bond: being there for each other, and working together ambitiously towards a goal until the completion - that's the way it is at home, and also at my workplace. 

Of course, when a family grows, it also involves risks: The bigger a family gets, the more resentment can arise. But fortunately, MBV has never lost its culture. Whether we have 4, 20 or 40 employees, we work together instead of against each other, and if a problem arises, it is solved together in the short and long term.

Mastering challenges and celebrating success together

For me, MBV as an employer is the best example of how you can spend your working days with pleasure thanks to a family philosophy. Successes are celebrated together and challenges are mastered jointly. And even in less good times, MBV has always been by my side.

Our culture is characterized by harmony, but also sociability and humor. What a lot we have laughed together! Although everyone is always very focused and hard-working, there is still enough room for a good conversation or fun moments. For example, we have our Happy Hour every Friday just before closing time, with snacks and something to drink – this was even officially introduced by our management (!) and we all appreciate it as a nice, shared end to the working week!

In the future, I would like to continue to give my all to move MBV forward. We are working on lots of exciting projects and have many more good ideas in our heads that we want to implement. I am very much looking forward to seeing how our customers will receive the new products!