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Can you tell us what prompted you to open and
run your own company? Which was the main theme?
After graduating from ceramics technical college I worked in many
different types of industrial plants. [In Poland there was the
socialist system. The political situation in the country was very
difficult.] In industrial plants there were fraud and theft.
My parents had taught me how to take care of business and
keep office in perfect order. Even if you pointed a thief or
you wanted to do something well, you were negated. I couldn't
deal with it. Then I decided to start my own business.
I see. Who of the family members, you or maybe your son, has
decisive wield, influence on the future of the company?
Only me. However now I rely on my granddaughter. She graduated Academy of Art and
Design, Faculty of Ceramics and Glass in Wroclaw. Maybe she will come and help me.
How many of the family members are currently involved in the activities of the company?
Zero or I can say that one -- my son. But he lives in Chrzanów and he works
in coal mining industry. If I need some help he takes days off and arrives.
How long has the company been existing on the market?
The company has been existing for exacly 40 years in Nowogrodziec.
During this 40 years you had faced some difficult situations for sure. Could
you tell us about problems you had to cope with? How did you deal with them?
I had a lot of problems. I didn't expect that I would have
so many problems when I decided to start my own business.
When I came to the office in order to submit the documents
for authorization of the craft the officers were all
amazed and their eyes were wide - why I wanted to start a business.
Someone even asked me if I planned to employ people? Of course
- I said - that's why I am opening a company to hire people.
Unfortunately, people who could and
wanted to do something, were not supported. It was impossible to develop.
I was treated as a potential thief. In Poland
you couldn't buy anything in that time. We hadn't got
electric stove or gas furnace. There were only coal stoves.
It was a huge problem to got a coal. In order to get
something you had to be a member of political party, ORMO
(Polish Reserve Police) or had good friends. Otherwise
nothing could been done. Fortunately, Mr. Wroblewski
was decent governor in Nowogrodziec. He was a former craftsman.
He helped us to get the coal to ceramic furnace.
I had problems with heartless officials from the Tax
Office, the Labor Office, the Sanitary-Epidemiological
Station, firemen, who continually harassed by inspection.
The inspections were only about feasting and drinking
alcohols on my account. We had to do many things by ourselves-
built stove, mills, from beginning to end - from the
drawing documentation to hire a locksmith and a welder. I
had to do the work of drafters and bricklayer. Fortunately
I had a pretty good basic education. We had had a very
good teacher on the technical ceramics college which I
graduated in Gliwice. Teachers were on the Silesian University
of Technology, people on a high intelligence quotient
and an enormous knowledge that was passed to us.. I had
knowledge and I was not afraid of starting business.
Indeed, the beginnings were very difficult. Could you introduce the problems
that appear later, the problems ceramic, raw materials, supplies, technology?
I had never had any technological problems. I am
chemist technician specializing in ceramics technology
by education. A chemistry of silicates was the
basis on the technical ceramics college because
I had an extensive knowledge. I helped many people
to prepare mass, glaze and gave prescription. Even
many people was surprised that I helped my competitors.
But that days there weren't competitors.
Every products were sold very quickly, straight from the stove.
Clients arrived and bought red-hot
products and they cooled them under tap. It was abnormal time.
There was nothing in the shops, sometimes
was only vinegar. People bought everything which came in shops.
Even if they didn't need it. A queue
set in front of the store up as soon as there was
information that there will be goods delivery.
So we can say that no-one helped you with these difficulties?
Nobody. I was alone. Everybody wanted to wreck my carrier.
And if you fell in the memory of any failure, something which from the
point of view of your current experience could have been done differently?
I have exactly the same knowledge now like in the old days. If I started
business now I would do it differently. Today everything is available, even
on the phone. I didn't sleep and I thought how to buy a pottery clay, coal
and raw materials for making glaze. We had to do glazes, pigments for
glass, paint, colorful glaze by ourselves. We had whole storehouse of chemicals and
raw materials. And now I can buy everything: ceramic paint and colorful glaze.
Now there are excellent conditions to start business. You only need
to have willingness and moral courage into take up a challenge.
Are you considering yourself to be a successful man?
Rather no.
Why?
I established company on my own piece of land, I helped my parents out
building house, but I don't think this is a success. I would consider
to be a man of success if no one in this country disturb me in my work.
It was not possible to achieve success because everybody disturbed me.
Now. How do you perceive your company on the market, against a background of competition?
I don't have competition. My company do something different things
from another companies. I also paint by stamping like my competition,
but first of all we paint by hand while our competition don't. I employ
very capable of painting artists. I used to paint by myself, but
now I'm 60 years old and I'm pensioner and my hands are shaking. And
I can not paint by myself. I think it is unique painting. Hardly any
company paint like us. My company sells products to the United States
of America and Canada. They love and appreciate our handmade work.
Stamps may be made by machines, there's nothing difficult in designing machine
which will perform it. Especially if there are machines which stick ears to cups.
Do you care anyhow about the market image of the business?
Does reputation of your company, which
developed during all these years allows you not to care about the market image any longer?
No. All the time you should care about the image of the company.
There is competition on the market in the field of production.
All the time I have to take care of the image, of the quality
of the product so that people would want to buy this product.
Did you have problem with competition, which counterfeits your designs, products?
My models are copied all the time but I can't do anything
with it because I would need to go through the court.
I try to forget about that problem. I haven't got willingness and health. I 'm an old
man and I have spent 20 years on fighting against gentlemans of the Communist Party.
I grew out of fighting and arguing. I know that another companies copy my designs
but I would have to hire a lawyer to sue another companies. It doesn't make sense.
Do you hope that the company will be taken over you and it will stay in the family?
Yes. This is my forty-year effort.
Ceramics is a specific knowledge. Do you think that you
need any special skills to run the ceramic company?
You definitely need to have a managerial abilities.
You don't need knowledge of the ceramic, but
you have to hire professionals who have an idea
of the ceramic. We have to buy paint and glazes
in Krakow and Warsaw. Here nobody produces them
but somebody could do. The nearest company that
makes mass and glazes is in Tułowice. [...] It
would be good to have company here, which produces
the raw materials for the production of the final product.
We used to do everything by ourselves
from the beginning. But it doesn't make sense.
There must be a division of duties. If you do
everything you don't do anything well. You need
to have specialized laboratories and you have to
hire someone who takes care of this lab, and
someone else who manages the laboratory. We used
to do everything by ourselves. For the first time
I saw electric laboratory oven when I was in the
technical ceramics college. I took small stove
to pieces and I bought heatproof cement in the
Institute of Refractories in Gliwice [now: The Institute of Ceramics and Building Materials
Refractory Materials Division in Gliwice]. I was
the first man in Poland in 1973 who designed and
built an electric furnace for firing pottery with a capacity of 1m3.
It was working but for very short period.
We had low quality resistance wire "Balton". It
wasn't very good. My mom had family in Sweden.
I got in touch with them and they brought me Swedish resistance wire made of Super Kantal.
I was forced to do the electric furnace because there were problems with the coal supply.
In what way are you going to educate your successors with your knowledge?
I teach my children and my grandchildren - everything from the beginning.
From cleaning workstation after use because you can not work in a mess.
I teach them basic things because a technical knowledge they can
learn from books. I teach them work discipline and way of thinking.
Previously, there were 200 companies around Nowogrodziec. The products
were being sold very well. People knew about that and they tried to
start their own businesses. For example: a taxi driver left his car and
he put electric furnace into garage and started own business. People
hadn't been such brave when there were only coal stoves because you
had to burn them before use and you had to know how to erect it. Many
people put chamber furnace but I put muffle furnace. I was the first one
to put the muffle furnace. Most of people burnt pottery in capsules.
All products were caged in capsules, but Mr. Gorczyński invented a furnace in which fire
went around chamber and didn't enter inside. In this way, there was only one capsule.
That was such furnance that I could walk in. It was 1,80 m high.
What about temperature?
I wanted to have a precise apparatus, but I had only a
primitive thermocouple. That time there wasn't like today
- I turn on the stove and I go to sleep. In the
modern stove are indicators and microprocessors
and when stove attains the temperature it turns itself off.
In the previous times I burned pyrometric
cones, nevertheless I still use them. A few times
it happened to me that after a few days, people
turned to my attention that the glaze is sketched. I
didn't know what was going on. If the microprocessor
is installed in the stove it is sensitive to
one-millionth of a second run out of electricity and
the furnace turns off. There was a time when the
surges happened often in the night. We have a huge
power station here but there were sometimes lacks of electricity.
And then the stove was switched off.
In the morning the stove does not show what temperature
was achieved but the temperature which was set .
By this way I experienced the loss of the entire
stove charge. [...] If you didn't know that
electricity was turned off for a split second or
there was no information about surge in the night,
you could think in the morning that everything went all right.
When you pulled the products out of
stove, they didn't look like with flaws. After two
or three weeks harys defect appeared on the glaze
because the glaze did not have a suitable temperature
during burn-in process. Since then, just in
case, I put pyrometric cone into the stove. Then I
come to check the cone: if the cone lies I know
that everything was good but if the cone stands I
know that I have to turn the stove on again. [...]