Heinz Mäder: "For me personally, the whole ETH Alumni network is a huge benefit and generally very helpful."

When you were a kid, what did you want to be?

To be honest, I can't remember. But I was always interested in technical things. Once I’d finished school, I’d had enough of studying and completed an apprenticeship as an electronic technician, in those days in Switzerland it had a long-winded name, I was known as a telecommunications, electronic and instrument fitter. But once I’d completed my apprenticeship, I found that I did want to study more so I got my general Swiss qualification for getting into university at a private school.

You completed an undergraduate course and then your doctorate in electrical engineering at ETH. Why did you decide to study at ETH?

Once I’d got my general qualification for getting into university, I wanted to study electrical engineering. Coming from Biel, I had the choice of Lausanne or Zurich. I chose Zurich for linguistic reasons. Being Swiss, I was of course familiar with ETH, even if its international standing and high ranking were of little importance to me at the time. Given my apprenticeship, I still wanted to get my hands dirty. So I simply wasn't interested in a theoretical course like physics in Berne.

When I’d graduated, Professor Mansour (Automatic Control Laboratory) hired me as an assistant and provided me with a topic for my dissertation (Pattern Recognition). This motivated me to continue studying. After around nine years as a member of the scientific staff, I moved to a private company.

After graduating, you spent several years in research at ETH and then moved to a private company. You founded your own company around 25 years ago. How did studying at ETH help you in your career?

I spent my first few years working in systems engineering at Bührle. When they merged with Contraves, unfortunately I lost my job. Then I worked for a smaller company, which developed retail security systems. After a period of turbulence, I lost my job there too. So I thought I’d reached a point where I could work for myself.

There were a lot of new developments in radio frequency identification (RFID) at the time and I had a hunch there was a future for this technology. As things turned out, I was a bit quick off the mark so it was a difficult start. But I had a good partner, who gave me a lot of support. Because the product wasn't initially a success, I worked with another partner to provide project management training.

This partner came on-board in 1999 and we founded the limited company Identech. Over the years, we worked on exciting projects like the trams for Zürcher Verkehrsbetriebe (ZVV). Other examples would be SBB, Roche, the Lucerne federal court and lots of other challenging projects. We come up with the solution and turn it into reality with components of our own software. We are also responsible for installation and maintenance: we handle the whole thing from the initial advice to start-up. This makes my work very varied. Several years ago, I started to gradually withdraw from the operational side of things and gave it up completely around three years ago. My partner continues to manage the company.

Anyone graduating from university today, almost automatically gets a job involving management duties. When I graduated, there were a lot of options available to me. Looking back, studying at ETH undoubtedly gave me a good basic education. I missed out on business management a little. But because it was always of interest to me, I made up for it. It would have been useful to have been aware of some aspects during my basic education. I think these days, they do things better.

You’ve always been heavily involved in clubs and associations. What motivates you?

My wife and I are both very active. We have a lot of free space and have always had very varied interests. So we wanted to help set something up and meet other people. The father of one of the kids at my wife's nursery encouraged me to get involved in the former GEP (today’s alumni). He was on the GEP committee and asked if I was interested in getting involved. That was about 50 years ago now.

For me personally, the whole ETH Alumni network is a huge benefit and generally very helpful. I’ve also found the social aspects interesting. The contacts I made on the committee were very useful for me personally. In voluntary work, it’s hard to find good people and motivate them. But you learn to solve problems and get on with different personalities. It always helped me to advance, which in turn was a boost professionally. So I’d recommend to anyone to get involved in voluntary work.

My voluntary work has tended to be of a more professional nature. For decades, my wife and I were also involved politically in the area where we live. Neither of us was originally from the area so it provided us with a connection locally.

Your years of work have been recognised: the assembly of delegates in November 2019 chose to make you an honorary member of the ETH Alumni association. What does that mean to you?

I feel really honoured that my work has been recognised in this way. I was pretty surprised I can tell you. It was only when I was asked to attend the assembly of delegates that I suspected something was going on.

What advice would you give the students of today?

Three things come to mind. Stick with it when things get tough. I also believe that it’s important not only to have a specialist field but also to broaden your horizons. And my last tip is to hone your team working skills.