Drywall builder from Töging is best vocational trainer in the crafts

Trade entrepreneur Johannes Demmelhuber from Töging am Inn (Altötting) in Upper Bavaria has been awarded the 2013 "Heribert Späth Prize for special vocational education and training achievements in the crafts". Demmelhuber has developed vocational education and training in his business to become a veritable brand, which is well known amongst youths, parents and teachers in the region.

His interior construction business with more than 300 employees provides vocational training for four trade occupations: carpenter, metal construction builder, drywall builder as well as painter and decorator. In each of these, an apprenticeship year is launched by a three-day "kick-off" event with cultural events, motivation training and plenty of exchange of experience for all apprentices and trainers.

Moreover, Demmelhuber provides apprentices with the opportunity of an exchange programme with his branches in Austria, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom as well as with a partnering enterprise in the USA. Additionally, every employee completes an individual career programme, for which the business uses its own seminar and vocational education and training centre. With regard to regional transfer of know-how between the crafts and universities, Demmelhuber is a regular lecturer at two universities of applied sciences.

Every year, a career information day is organised on the company's premises and the business maintains close co-operations with local schools for the purpose of company visits and internships. Youths are addressed also by way of the company's own vocational education and training brochure and the modern website.

In his laudatory speech, Thomas Keindorf, President of the Chamber of Crafts Halle (Saale), Chairman of the Members' Assembly of the Stiftung für Begabtenförderung im Handwerk (Foundation for Support for the Gifted and Talented in the Crafts) and member of the Steering Committee of the Zentralverband des Deutschen Handwerks (ZDH - German Confederation of Skilled Crafts), revealed how impressed he is with the degree of systematic approach, diversity and commitment with which Johannes Demmelhuber dedicates himself to winning over qualified young talent and to supporting them in their professional development.

For example, in the second apprenticeship year, the apprentices manage their own independent business under supervision of the trainers - their customers being all other employees. Accordingly, the apprentices need to take care of market research, pricing and product design, organisation and billing. After one year, the "company management" is handed over to the apprentices of the succeeding apprenticeship year. "This approach impressed me in particular, for in the crafts one should adopt the perspective of the entrepreneur as soon as possible. With your method, you sensitise the apprentices for further steps of development in the crafts", said Keindorf in his speech.

The "Heribert Späth Prize for special vocational education and training achievements in the crafts" is endowed with 3,000 Euro; it has been awarded annually to business owners in the crafts since 1997 by the Stiftung für Begabtenförderung im Handwerk (Foundation for Support for the Gifted and Talented in the Crafts). The prize is named in memory of the former President of the ZDH (1988-96).