profession: pilot career: actor - Jet Aviation

Resort | Terravista
running an air taxi service in Germany, he
had his planes maintained at Jet Aviation.
When it came to joining forces with a relia-
ble, high-quality partner, it was clear to
him that Jet Aviation was the first choice.
The road to Brazil
For much of Gail’s life, running a resort
and air taxi company in the northeast of
Brazil would have seemed an unlikely
venture. He was born in Germany to a
family that had begun a cigar company in
1812 and then added a ceramics business
in 1891. He was sent to a prestigious boar-
ding school in the small Swiss town
of Zuoz, then went to the University of
St. Gallen and completed a PhD in busi-
ness administration.
He had started a real estate business
during his studies, and when he gradua-
ted, he was happy in Switzerland and
intended to stay there. His father, however,
sent him to Brazil to look after the family
ceramics company’s new subsidiary.
40 Outlook 02/2008
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02
Though Gail did not want to go, he obeyed
his father’s wishes. When his father retired
in 1980 and it was time for him to come
back to Europe and lead the company, he
did not want to come back.
He brought a Brazilian fiancée back to
Europe, and they married and had children.
At first they lived in Switzerland and
he commuted to the company headquarters
in Germany. Ceramics was a hard
business by then, however, and he had to
work a lot of hours. The commute was
too much, and after two years, he moved
to Germany.
While living in Switzerland and Germany,
he went back to Brazil for vacations twice
a year. His wife had her family there, and
he still had a beach house. He wanted
his children to know the country. While
at boarding school in Zuoz, he had
marveled at the way many of the other
students, who had parents of different
nationalities, were effortlessly fluent in
two languages. He decided to raise his
children bilingual, so he and his wife
spoke Portuguese at home. He knew,
however, that as kids grow up they often
rebel at the idea of speaking a foreign
language at home. He thought this could
be avoided if his children experienced
Brazil and became attached to it.
His beach house was in Juquei, on the
northern coast of São Paulo, where it
rained a lot. After a few years, repeatedly
spending vacations in the rain became
tedious, and he started to look for an
ideal spot to build a new beach house.
He was extremely systematic. He took his
family, a thermometer and a barometer,
and traveled from Fortaleza to Rio de
Janeiro checking the climate. In the end,
he chose to buy land in the town of
Arraial da Ajuda, in the municipality of
Porto Seguro.
01 The facade of an office
building covered with
“KeraGail” tiles
02 Gail wall tiles are produced
with unique technology
As he was building his house, he began to
like the place more and more. He had the