A seemingly uncomplicated era

Accelerated change

Je ne regrette rien

People

The stories behind the history

As part of the virtual Campus Tour, which gives the public an inside look at the St-Johann site, thus contributing to a deeper understanding of the work and research philosophy at Novartis, this June, four former employees from Novartis and its predecessor companies were invited to share their memories and experiences at Ciba, J. R. Geigy, Sandoz and Novartis on camera as part of the filming for the tour. live also took the opportunity to sit down with these contemporary witnesses and talk about the changes they had experienced at the site and company over the past six decades.

Text by Goran Mijuk, photos by Laurids Jensen

As a young man, Walter Mebert swapped his job as a lifeguard for a career at Sandoz.

Table of contents

A seemingly uncomplicated era

Accelerated change

Je ne regrette rien

This article was originally published in October 2013.
Published on 01/06/2020

We met the four former Novartis employees on a breezy June day with rain in the air and only a hint of sun creeping through the thick clouds. Fritz Kaehr, Peter Schad, Walter Mebert and Manfred Stahel all made the trip to the Novartis company archive – which is packed to the brim with folders, documents, photos and films – to share their own personal memories and anecdotes from their years at the company on camera.

Some of this cheerful group have known each other for decades and still meet on a regular basis. They left the gray day outside and took a journey back through time. Due to the fundamental transformation seen in both technology and the workplace in recent decades, the memories and photos from the past seem almost legendary in comparison – for a few moments, the rainy summer day outside was completely forgotten.

Fritz Kaehr still remembers his first day at work on April 30, 1947. He had his first day off the very next day.

A seemingly uncomplicated era

When Fritz Kaehr – the oldest in the group at over 90 years of age – started work at Sandoz as a metalworker in 1947, St-Johann was still a bastion of heavy industry. Huge furnaces, rows of smoking chimneys and gas boilers the size of tower blocks dominated the St-Johann site. Back then, there were absolutely no signs that this area would be the site of a modern Campus 60 years later – with state-of-the-art laboratories, bright office spaces, parks and restaurants. Who would have thought that one day children here would be able to run around a pond containing koi fish?

Kaehr, who grew up in Delémont, remembers his first day at work fondly: “I started on April 30, 1947, which was a Wednesday. The next day was May 1, which was a public holiday. We were back at work on Friday and then had the day off again on Saturday … it was a nice week,” explains the 91-year-old Kaehr, who started out at Sandoz as a metalworker before working in the boiler house and in energy supply at the St-Johann site.

Here, he also got to know Walter Mebert, who is around 20 years his junior and who also clearly remembers his first days at Sandoz. “After completing my training as a machine builder, I traveled abroad for a while. When I returned to Europe I initially worked as a lifeguard at the Rhybadhuesli in Basel, which I enjoyed. However, my boss kept telling me that Sandoz was always on the look out for new workers. One evening, I decided to make the trip to St-Johann and met the staff manager. He wanted to hire me there and then, as mechanics were in demand,” explains the sprightly Basel native.

Three months after quitting his job as life-guard, he started work at Sandoz. Nearby, his former schoolmate Peter Schad had already been working for Ciba at their Klybeck factory for several years. “I was a chemical laboratory technician at Ciba right up to my retirement. I trained and worked there right up to my last day,” reports Schad, who looks back fondly on his time at Ciba. Even today, he regularly meets up with six other former Ciba colleagues who also joined the company on April 23, 1957. “We had a good time, when you compare it to the stress of today. I have good memories of my time back then. I was a member of the works’ fire department and an active participant in company sports,” he explains. Although the concept of a work/life balance was not yet around in Schad’s day, he still has the impression that “free time and working time were completely connected ... and this mixture of private life and work was not stressful.”

The boom years after World War II when Kaehr, Mebert and Schad started work now appear simple and uncomplicated in comparison to today. Kaehr remembers his interview well, which was somewhat unconventional by today’s standards. The staff manager asked him in which position he would like to work. “I told him that I didn’t mind, as long as there was work for me. The manager then called someone else and asked him if he needed a worker. He said yes, and the staff manager then asked me when I could start. I said, tomorrow.” From these unusual beginnings, his career at Sandoz lasted until his retirement in 1982.

Yet despite these sweet, nostalgic memories, the work was not easy – even in retrospect. “Back then, coal was used for heating,” explains Mebert, who first worked for Sandoz in the boiler room before helping to develop the energy supply and wastewater disposal systems at the St-Johann site. “There was dust everywhere and we worked in shifts, every day, all year round – Christmas and New Year included.” The work itself was also dan-gerous, remembers Kaehr. Together with his colleagues, he had to clean out the huge boilers which were constantly filled with sludge. Despite the camaraderie between the workmates, there were also problems and regular misfortunes. Kaehr remembers one supervisor who lost his life during a company outing on the famous “Red Arrow” – a railcar on the Swiss Federal Railways.

And yet despite these strains and exertions – or maybe because of them – the employees felt a great deal of solidarity with the company. “Being together with your workmates was like being in one big family,” explains Schad.

For Peter Schad, the solidarity with his colleagues at Ciba was as strong as in a real family.

Accelerated change

A lot of this spirit was still in evidence in 1963, when Manfred Stahel joined J. R. Geigy as an apprentice. However, bit by bit the working world was undergoing a period of accelerated change. New technologies were discovered that led to the streamlining of many work processes. As with most industrialized countries, Switzerland now focused more on consumption following the establishment of largescale production facilities. This meant that the Swiss economy was faced with major restructuring. New skills were now in demand. Work became “business” and the strategic alignment became increasingly global. The staff – still mostly Swiss well into the 1970s – also became more international. “At the beginning, we only came from the local region,” remembers Schad. “There were no foreign workers in our department, only Swiss. The first foreign boss I had arrived after the merger with Geigy.” In the following years, the steam, smoke and soot disappeared from the St-Johann site. Mechanics made way for researchers and managers took over from foremen.

All of these aspects led to far-reaching social, political and cultural changes, and also affected individual careers – such as that of Manfred Stahel. “I joined the company 50 years ago in the spring of 1963,” remembers Stahel. He moved from Aargau to Basel, which already had an excellent reputation as a training hub back then thanks to Ciba, J. R. Geigy, Sandoz and Roche. “I joined J. R. Geigy as an apprentice and was then a laboratory technician in pharmaceutical research.”

However, in contrast to his colleagues Mebert, Kaehr and Schad, he was soon on the move. “I worked in the laboratory at J. R. Geigy for another three years until shortly before it merged with Ciba. I wanted to train further toward a new career in pharmaceutical marketing.”

In the following years, Stahel completed further training in advertising, marketing and management. However, he returned in 1980 and joined Sandoz-Wander Pharma in Bern as a medical representative before being promoted to regional sales manager, where he remained until Novartis was founded. “It was a great surprise when the merger was announced, and there were a lot of discussions,” remembers Stahel.

Though he was able to keep his job, the restructuring after the merger also affected Stahel. After 1996, he switched to Product Management, where he worked on a wide range of projects – in-cluding in skin grafting and afterwards in organ transplantation. He again worked in Basel from 2002 onwards – this time not just domestically but also internationally – and was also responsible for several country organizations.

Even though the times may have changed, he remains extremely proud to have worked for the company. “It was always a highlight to see how patients benefit from therapy, to see satisfied doctors and also to monitor the positive effects of our medication,” explains Stahel.

Manfred Stahel held many positions during his long and varied career.

Je ne regrette rien

The dynamism that swept through the company in the 1960s has continued right up to the present day, and gained further momentum with the merger of Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz that formed Novartis. The establishment of the Campus, where 14 new buildings have already been completed and three further ones will follow by 2015, also reflects this accelerated change. The new research and office buildings not only mark the end of the company’s chemical and industrial past – they are also an expression of the innovation strategy at Novartis and epitomize the entrepreneurial desire and courage needed to promote medical advancement through targeted research and development.

For Stahel – who still remembers the lively competition between the major chemical companies in Basel before the mergers – the Campus is an impressive project that has played a decisive role to promote a deep cultural change. Where employees at Ciba, J. R. Geigy and Sandoz once eyed each other with suspicion, this animosity has now all but disappeared – even though Schad still thinks of himself as a Ciba employee and Kaehr has little interest for the “gigantic” Campus where nothing is manufactured any more.

“The Campus essentially created a small town, and I think everything has become much more open,” comments Stahel. “Before, everything was much more hierarchical, with closed doors that were guarded by receptionists. Everything seems much more simple and open today.”

For this reason, Stahel would also start his career again at Novartis today if he had the choice – even if he would probably go to a university first instead of starting out in a laboratory as an apprentice. For Schad there is also no doubt that he would work for Ciba again, while Mebert – who has never regretted his decision to work for Sandoz – would also take the same path again. “Switching jobs (to Sandoz) was a wise move,” explains Mebert who, like his three colleagues, meets up regularly with his former workmates and supervisors to talk about the good old days and look forward to the future.

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