School meets the private sector: OHB and ÖG forging a partnership agreement

Bremen, August 21, 2018. Space and technology company OHB SE has signed a partnership agreement with the Bremen grammar school Ökumenisches Gymnasium ÖG covering the field of aviation and space. Jan Andrees Dönch, head teacher at ÖG, and OHB Chief Executive Officer Marco Fuchs signed this unprecedent agreement in Bremen today. The purpose of the partnership is to help school students at ÖG gain practical insight into the working world in the space industry. At the same time, OHB wants to make it easier for school students to enter a career in the space industry, while also securing a source of young talent for its own activities.

170 new employees at its Bremen site

This is becoming increasingly necessary as the space industry is growing in importance in Germany. The main reason for this is that the industry is becoming more and more adept at highlighting the day-to-day benefits of space technology for society. Over the last few years, space technology has become substantially more relevant. For a company such as OHB, this means an increase in order intake which, in turn, necessitates greater human resources in an already extremely tight employment market. Currently, the company is still receiving enough unsolicited applications to cover its requirements. This year, for example, OHB has already recruited 170 new employees at its Bremen site, with a further 50 expected by the end of the year. “Although this shows that OHB is able to assert itself well despite the tough competition, future demographic trends make it crucial for us to seek young talents more proactively and at an ever earlier stage,” says Klaus Hofmann, the member of OHB SE’s Management Board responsible for human resources.

Lessons at the ÖG

Against this backdrop, partnerships such as the one we have now forged with ÖG will become increasingly important for OHB in the future. The main element of the agreement concerns lessons on aviation and space for grade 10 students. These lessons will be offered in the upper school as an addition to physics lessons. OHB will be supplementing the course with practical examples and elements from working life. In the final quarter of each school year, engineers from OHB will be released from their duties to teach at the school for around 2 hours a week. As well as this, OHB will be offering the school an annual guided tour of the company.

Further aspects of the agreement concern a STEM day, which will be held at OHB’s Bremen site for 5th and 6th grade school students. OHB will also participate in ÖG’s university and career information day and offer job-experience placements. It will also be supporting the school’s STEM camp on space technology.

Our new partnership agreement lays the foundations for outstanding collaboration

Jan Andrees Dönch, the head teacher at ÖG, sees the collaboration with OHB as offering a fantastic means of extending the school’s scientific and technical orientation. “Our school students have been able to receive tuition in aviation and space for many years. In the upper school they can take additional lessons to learn more about the physical principles underlying flight and space travel,” says Dönch.  “OHB, whose employees work here locally in Bremen and will be sharing their expert knowledge with our students, is the ideal choice for us. Our new partnership agreement lays the foundations for outstanding collaboration between the school and the private sector, from which both sides stand to benefit.”

Marco Fuchs, the Chief Executive Officer of OHB SE, sees ÖG as an ideal channel for identifying young people interested in a career in space. “With its multifaceted focus on technology and research in the STEM subjects, i.e. science, technology, engineering and mathematics, ÖG will allow us to target young people at school to cover our future requirements,” says Fuchs. “What is more, ÖG is a very international school with numerous activities and partnerships around the world. This makes it twice as interesting for a company which has such an international outlook as OHB with employees of 35 different nationalities. At the same time, as a company founded and based in Bremen, we want to highlight our role as an interesting local employer.”