A long and varying career in production at VEO can begin by working as a trainee and continue even after 15 years. Two production employees; Krista Hovimeri, System Engineer, and Alex Nyberg, Assembler, share the stories behind their eventful career paths at VEO.

KRISTA: OVER 15 YEARS AT VEO

“In 2006, I participated in an adult education program in electrical assembling. Immediately after the graduation I began my summer job as a switchgear assembler at VEO. Then after the summer I continued to work as a full-time employee,” Krista explains.

After 12 years’ experience as a switchgear assembler, Krista decided to broaden her knowledge by starting energy engineering studies at VAMK, the University of Applied Sciences in Vaasa.
“When I began my studies, I had a chance to take a study leave and focus on learning, and now I have already graduated a half year ago. In 2021, my role at VEO changed from an assembler to a system engineer.”

Nowadays Krista’s responsibilities as a system engineer include technical drawing, ordering parts and meeting with customers. Her duties at VEO are versatile.
“When you work in production at VEO every day is different. We work independently but also as a team. Helpfulness is a key element within our team and feedback from colleagues is always appreciated. In addition, engineers and assemblers here in production work seamlessly together.”

ALEX: FROM A TRAINEE TO A FULL-TIME EMPLOYEE

“I had always thought that engineering and sustainable energy solutions are the field of the future. In 2016, I began electrical and automation engineering studies at Yrkesakademin i Österbotten. The studies included many internships, and I completed all of them at VEO. While studying, I also started to work as an hourly-paid employee at VEO whenever it was possible: during summer holidays and other holiday seasons,” Alex describes.

After the graduation, Alex completed the compulsory military service and then began to work full-time as an assembler at VEO. Alex has noticed that adapting to the VEO’s working culture is quite easy as the orientation took place by following another assembler’s work and learning by doing.

“The best aspects of my work are the good spirit within the team and versatile tasks. Also, projects move forward really fast; there is always an interesting new project coming when previous one is finalised.”

THE PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

For both Krista and Alex, the next step on their career paths is developing their skills even further within their current roles.
“At the moment, I want to strengthen my knowledge in system engineering. However, there are always new challenges at VEO, for example working as a project manager or trying something totally different, like sales or purchasing,” Krista describes.

“I could see myself working here for many years in the future or who knows, maybe even for a lifetime. This is definitely the right field for me, I could not even imagine working in another field,” Alex summarises.