Michael Gantner

With over 300 kilometres of pistes, the Arlberg ski area is not only the largest interconnected ski area in Austria, it is also one of the five largest in the world. Boasting a guaranteed 1,500 metres of snow up to the summit of the Valluga mountain, the highest elevation reaches almost 3,000 metres, sure to delight skiers the world over. Michael Gantner was born in Vorarlberg and, at the age of 27, is an enthusiastic skier in his prime. When you are born with snow in your DNA like he was, you can never leave a place like this. Not really.

Perhaps it was precisely because he had climbed the highest peaks so often for powder skiing and carving that he developed a desire early on in life to find out what else was going on beyond these snow-covered peaks. ‘I always wanted to head out into the big, wide world,’ he recalls during the interview, for which he is connected via Teams from New Zealand. His infectious laughter is always accompanied by a note of disbelief that he has actually succeeded in discovering the world for himself. But first things first.

In 2012, Michael started an apprenticeship as an electrical engineer at the Liebherr plant in Nenzing (Austria) after completing his first school internship. Even during his job interview, he cautiously posed the question, ‘Erm, can I maybe go abroad from here?’ The trainer’s likely response of ‘In theory that’s possible, but …’ was all he needed to know. ‘I just felt an irrepressible desire for the unknown, for adventure.’

He must have made an impression on his trainers during his apprenticeship. After he graduated with flying colours in 2016, they trusted him to take on his first independent assignment abroad as a service fitter for maritime cranes. He first worked on a construction site in Turkey, in a harbour near Istanbul, then immediately afterwards in Trabzon on the Black Sea. ‘As luck would have it, I didn’t work as part of a team in Trabzon as I usually would, but was on my own. At 19, I had a lot of respect for the task, especially because the customer was initially sceptical about me and how young I was.’

This felt to him like diving straight in at the deep end. ‘I wasn’t sure whether I could do it at first, but then I wanted to keep going and see it through. And it was a good thing that I did. I learnt an incredible amount there – about myself and the many different people I interacted with every day,’ he recalls. Nevertheless, he was glad when he came home.

To let it all sink in, he first had to complete nine months of civilian service as a paramedic with the Red Cross after his return to Austria. ‘That was a good time,’ he says. ‘But I quickly realised that I wanted to go back to Liebherr. I wanted to get back to assembly work, to the cranes and harbour facilities, to the people from all over the world who work together there.’

From then on, Michael couldn’t travel far enough. The more unknown and ‘exotic’, the better. In 2017, his journey took him to Turkmenistan – a massive project involving 42 Liebherr cranes, which were to be expertly assembled and commissioned there. ‘First, I had to google where Turkmenistan actually is: a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, bordering the Caspian Sea, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The capital is Aşgabat.’ During this time, a new 1.5 square kilometre port was opened in Türkmenbaşy with large handling areas for general cargo and bulk goods as well as its own container terminal. A huge working environment for new Liebherr cranes. ‘The installation and commissioning work was really exciting and also somewhat adventurous. Everything should always have happened quickly, but it didn’t always work out that way,’ he says.

‘When problems arose, we often found they occurred somewhere completely different than the customer assumed. You always have to look very closely at where the problem lies. So the construction site in Turkmenistan was not just about technology, but often also about persuasion, for example in dealing with missing parts that have mysteriously gone astray and getting hold of new ones.’

For him, the fact that things don’t always go according to plan on construction sites – especially in poorer countries – means that, in addition to a very good understanding of technology, the fitters in the service department always need excellent organisational and communication skills. Although this can occasionally be exhausting, Michael finds it has its own special appeal. ‘I’ve never said no to a construction site,’ he says, beaming with delight. Of course, everyone would love to be sent on assignment to the Bahamas or California. ‘But I also like the construction sites that aren’t like a holiday resort, where not everything is perfectly organised down to the minutest detail.’ For him, the most important thing is to work with nice people from different cultures and with different ways of thinking – and to have a good time working together to get and keep a technology up and running, ensuring that Liebherr customers are completely satisfied. ‘Of course, that’s a challenge. So I’m all the more pleased every time we manage it.’

The countless photos that he has on his laptop tell the same story. Alongside skiing and mountaineering, the 27-year-old has a passion for photography, too. His pictures are another way of expressing his view of the world – full of wonder, curiosity and fascination about ‘the other’, the undiscovered. This has been very well received in the Liebherr community, too. Michael’s images have already been named ‘Picture of the Month’ several times, have been posted on Liebherr’s social media channels and shared countless times.

‘I’m not even 30 yet and I’ve been with Liebherr for 12 years already,’ says Michael, somewhat astounded by his own achievements. If someone had told him before he started his apprenticeship just what he would have experienced at Liebherr in a little over a decade and which countries he would have travelled to in that time, he would probably have laughed it off. When listing the places he’s been and the things he’s done, he has to concentrate so that none are forgotten: he started in Turkey, and after a European interlude in Antwerp, he travelled on to Turkmenistan, Australia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and, somewhere in between, the Port of Vienna … ‘Are you sure you didn’t forget any?’. He has now arrived at Liebherr Customer Service in New Zealand. ‘The furthest possible distance from home,’ the globetrotter notes with satisfaction. ‘I’d always dreamed of coming here.’

To outsiders, that sounds rather like a holiday and the romance of wanderlust after all these adventures. ‘That’s right,’ says Michael, a smile stretching across his face. But immediately putting things into perspective, ‘there were also complex challenges that you wish would blow over quickly.’ This included a service and maintenance assignment for several harbour cranes in Somalia. He particularly remembers temperatures that approached 50 °. ‘That was exhausting.’ For him, such maintenance tasks are a piece of cake, given how often he has done them – but this time they became a real challenge for him because of the helpers he was given. ‘They were incredibly nice and friendly, but they had to be fully trained before we could even get started. During the 45 days on site, I often had sweat on my brow, and not just because of the heat,’ he confesses. ‘My mum says I sounded a bit strained during our phone calls at the time. But the customer was satisfied. That’s the most important thing for me.’

No matter where in the world Michael is travelling, he always stays in close contact with his family in Vorarlberg. ‘I’m really close to my family. My parents have always enjoyed travelling themselves, which is why they supported me on my journey to discover the world.’ And even though he only sees them rarely, he’s still in touch with his closest childhood friends. ‘Whenever we see each other, it’s just like it was before. We can pick up where we left off in conversations and experiences from the past. I think that’s great.’ That’s why he doesn’t have to travel the world for his annual holiday. He prefers to spend it at home. In Vorarlberg – skiing and mountaineering. To him, there’s nothing greater.