“So you work for Volvo! How nice! Great cars, have one myself actually.”
“I agree, Volvo makes great cars but I work for Volvo Aero where we make aircraft engine components, not cars.”
“Oh, I’ve never heard of Volvo Aero. You know when people say Volvo I always think of the car.”
The above is a typical conversation when I meet someone who is not familiar with the company I work for. Most people have however indirectly been in touch with our products – at least if they’ve been on an airplane.
Volvo Aero is a major supplier of aircraft engine components and we work together with all the big aircraft engine manufacturers in the world, such as Rolls-Royce, General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, Snecma and MTU.
Our components are found on more than 80 percent of all engines supplied worldwide on new aircraft carrying 100 passengers or more. On certain engine types we also perform overhauls and repairs so that they can continue to fly for many more hours.
We don’t just make components for aircraft though; Volvo Aero is also the world’s largest commercial supplier of rocket combustion chambers and exhaust nozzles. We develop and produce engine components for the European Ariane rockets – the world’s market leader in commercial launchers.
When I joined the company in 1979, it was a company with mainly military products. Over the years, the company has transformed and the military part is only about 10 percent today. The military technology and development has however formed the base for our commercial activities and we would not have been so successful without it.
Volvo Aero is an interesting company to work for, and my job in Corporate Communications is highly unpredictable, which I like a lot. One thing I do every day though is to check the company mailbox where people ask all kinds of questions about aerospace and a wide variety of other things. Some people are just Volvo fans and ask for giveaways. A man from Germany once asked for a sticker he could put on his brand new Volvo car. I sent him a Volvo Aero sticker, explaining that we didn’t have any car stickers. Two weeks later I received a large parcel with two bottles of wine - a gift from the German Volvo driver.
The job has its advantages!
