Special jubilee: 50 years of professional life at a. hartrodt

No one can copy them easily: Together, Hans-Joachim Koske (66) and Peter Leicht (66) have been working at a. hartrodt for a century. On February 1, 1972, both began an apprenticeship at the Hamburg-based family business to become Management Assistant for Freight Forwarding. Koske has been General Manager High & Heavy, Projects and Logistics Services at a. hartrodt Germany since October 2020. Among other things, he built up LCL and FCL inland transportation and became "an absolute intermodal expert". Leicht has been Head of Controlling for all export departments and logistics services since 2014. Looking back, he sees his greatest success as having "successfully participated" in the expansion of the freight forwarder's Asia division.

Researching truck door lettering on vacation

How does lifelong loyalty succeed? "I simply felt at home in the a. hartrodt family," says Koske. His employer allowed him to do everything – "to look left and right, to go new ways, to try things out". In return, he even once took a vacation to search for "FCL truckers for our pre-carriages" before the internet era: "I've been hanging around the Freeport borders, researching company names and locations based on truck door labels."

Management positions focus on different regions of the world

Koske's career led from sea freight export South America and later Australia after 31 years to senior positions in land transport. From 2005, he was responsible for CIS transports to various successor states of the Soviet Union and, since 2014, for rail transports along the New Silk Road between China and Germany. Leicht specialized in Asia at an early stage, becoming head of the Asia export department in 1989 and receiving commercial power of attorney. From 2005, he also looked after major customers – "as a down-to-earth person" always from his native city of Hamburg. But privately he traveled to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. In 2007, he changed to Controlling due to health reasons and finds it exciting to "look specifically into files and eliminate errors".

The two jubilarians sum up their company loyalty this way: "Must have been a good fit." And although their celebration has been postponed due to the pandemic, they remain relaxed. They still have some time before retirement – Leicht will take farewell from a. hartrodt at the end of March, Koske at the end of May.