E - Finmeccanica

E V E N T IS
9/2010 FINMECCANICA MAGAZINE
The great challenge
A number of brave British and Italian employees took on
the challenge of cycling some 2,000 kilometres from Luton
to Rome to raise EUR 24,000 for the British Army’s
Combined Services Disabled Ski Team. Teamed with three
disabled soldiers, the cyclists set off from the SELEX Galileo
site in Luton on 15 May, completing over 150 km a day over
two weeks, come rain or shine. Special bicycles enabled
Captain Martin Hewitt of the Parachute Regiment,
Sergeant Mick Brennan of the Royal Signals Regiment and
the Marine Pete Dunning of the Royal Marines, all of whom
had been wounded in Iraq or in Afghanistan, to take part.
On arrival in Rome, the cyclists were given a heroes’
welcome at the awards ceremony for long-serving
Finmeccanica employees and were greeted by the
company’s Chairman and CEO Pier Francesco Guarguaglini.
“This has been a formidable challenge and one that was
worth doing, as it is about helping the rehabilitation of
these soldiers. The funds raised will be used to help them
train and prepare for the 2012 Winter Paralympic Games,”
said Steve Rose, one of the cyclists. David Claridge, the
promoter of the event and SELEX Galileo’s Vice-President
for Enterprise Procurement, said: “The great determination
and willingness shown by all the cyclists and their support
team have been extraordinary. We congratulate them on
their commitment to raising funds in this way to help
disabled servicemen and servicewomen compete as skiers
at the highest international levels.”
affirmed his belief in the value of experience
within the Group. Paolo Bonolis addressed
him not just as a manager, but also
on a personal level, presenting an array
of images depicting his career within the
Group in an emotional journey through
memories and experiences, the ability to
look at the present and to think of the future.
For the presentation of the awards to
the Maestri del Lavoro and long-serving
employees with over 45 years of professional
experience, who were the real stars
of the evening, Finmeccanica managers
were joined on stage by the CEOs of the
individual Group companies and assisted
by the lovely Teresa D’Alessandro. Experience
was celebrated not only as one of the
Group’s values, but also by personal testimonies,
such as that of Lieutenant Colonel
Marco Lant, commander of the Frecce Tricolori
aerobatics team, which this year is
itself celebrating its fiftieth anniversary.
The whole event was accompanied by
music, from the welcome arrival on the
stage of the bagpipes of the Royal Scots
Association Pipe Band to the songs of Paolo
Belli and his band, whose lightness of
touch brought delight to the evening. The
celebration continued on the following
day, which saw the presentation of awards
to employees with 35 and 40 years of service
to the Group, with a procession of all
the award-winners onto the stage,
grouped by their companies. With the Pipe
Band’s Scottish melodies and music by the
band of the Military Aeronautics Schools
of the Third Air Region playing in the background,
the guests were able to admire a
static display of some of the products that
best represent the Group, typifying the
evolution of aviation technology and the
companies’ undiminished capacity for innovation.
The morning was topped and
tailed by the air acrobatics of the Frecce Tricolori,
who scrawled their signature in the
skies over Pratica di Mare, after fly-pasts by
an Aermacchi M-346, a C-27J and a Eurofighter.
The various products on display
included a historic AN/TPS-1e radar antenna,
made by Selenia, now SELEX Sistemi Integrati,
a Macchi M.C.202 Folgore and a restored
example of the Italian-built Ro.37
biplane from the Thirties, which had been
thought lost for over half a century but
had been found north-east of Kabul in
2006 by members of the Italian military
contingent serving in Afghanistan. The aircraft,
restored by the Italian Air Force and
Finmeccanica, is one of sixteen sold to the
Afghan air force in 1937 for use in strategic
reconnaissance and in combat. A fascinating
story that speaks of experience present
and past, experience celebrated yet
again this year as a value for the present,
but above all as the key to the future.
These pages: a few moments during the celebrations
of the sixth long-serving employees ceremony
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