FROM A PIONEER TO THE SYNONYM - Alucobond

Preface
by Claus Leyting, formerly President, PMU (Product Market Unit) Architecture, Alcan Composites
Back in 1969 I could not at all have imagined heading a small team 40 years
later to put together this book about the history of ALUCOBOND® on the
occasion of its 40 th anniversary.
I had joined Aluminium Walzwerke Singen GmbH as a young salesman
three years before and was in charge of exporting semi-finished aluminium
products, like coils, sheets, circles and extrusions, to non-European
countries. It was about early spring time that year when one afternoon
two guys showed up in the office I was sharing with a colleague of mine
responsible for Central European export sales. The two introduced themselves
as members of the then very small ALUCOBOND® sales team which
we learned had just been established a few weeks before. They placed a
few stacks of one-sheet leaflets, printed black and white one side, on our
desks and tried to explain to us what ALUCOBOND® was all about then.
The leaflets simply showed a rectangular plate with numerous small holes
punched into it and arranged in a way that they formed a picture of some
kind. The leaflets were only differing in the pictures created by the holes
and all were entitled ‘bed mattress support panels’. We were asked to support
the young ALUCOBOND® team by trying to sell such panels through
the contacts we had in our export markets.
Not impressed by what we heard we rather felt a sort of pity for the two
and for what they were trying to accomplish. My export business in particular
was booming at that time in 1969, caused by financial loans the
Federal German Government had granted to several Far East countries for
imports of German goods. We sold aluminum sheets like ‘hot cakes’ and
undoubtedly felt this was much more important ‘to spend the time with’
rather than ‘wasting it’ with this new product they called ALUCOBOND®.
Claus Leyting
So, I do admit I shared the pessimistic view of the future of this new composite
material with quite a number of people in the company at that time.
No way could I have imagined then that only a few years later, during my
assignment in South Africa, I would start promoting and successfully selling
the product, and that, almost exactly 10 years after my first encounter
with ALUCOBOND® in my Singen office, I would even accept to take up
the sales and marketing responsibility for the product range manufactured
in Germany; a step in my career which in the end turned out as the
beginning of a most interesting 30 years liaison with the product until my
retirement early 2008.
Looking back, I am extremely satisfied having been a member of the
ALUCOBOND® team, or should I say ‘ALUCOBOND® family’, over so
many years, lately as President of the truly global PMU Architecture. It
is with great pride that, on behalf of Alcan Composites, we are presenting
this anniversary book to all ALUCOBOND® friends and supporters,
customers and business associates from around the globe, and to those
interested to join the big ‘family’.
The editorial team was primarily aiming at documenting the most significant
milestones in the history of ALUCOBOND® and its ‘40 years of excellence’
on the way ‘From a Pioneer to the Synonym’ for Aluminium Composite
Material (ACM). We hope you will enjoy reading the ALUCOBOND®
story and the many text contributions by authors from within and outside
Alcan Composites, whom we would like to thank for sharing with us and
all readers their experiences with the product and their memories of encounters
with ALUCOBOND® and its teams around the globe.
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