What is it like to be one of the long-serving employees at HPC Hamburg Port Consulting? "It never gets boring because new perspectives keep opening up," says Hartmut Beyer, having been with the company for almost three decades. As an associate partner, sales manager, and funding consultant, he is in a position of great responsibility. At the same time, he keeps himself “alert and agile” by continuously “appealing to and winning over” customers. His content-related fitness programme goes like this: he always works on four to five projects at a time - and in a wide variety of areas, such as procuring funds for innovative and sustainable port projects, inland shipping, cruises or intermodal transport.

In the HPC team, the industrial engineer is valued for his experience with market analyses, feasibility studies and strategy concepts across all modes of transport. For Hartmut Beyer, the employees are the most important part of HPC, which is why he likes to get involved as a guide: "I accompany new colleagues over many years as a continuous confidant and try to advance their personal and professional development." As one of thirteen specially trained HPC guides, he is available around the clock for six guidees. Hartmut Beyer finds this "a great system;" he considers mutual responsibility indispensable for staff satisfaction. He is the best example of this: "As an individual, I feel good at HPC."

In his long career, the qualified shipping merchant has been "significantly influenced" by international assignments as part of which he was able to tread new territory and get to know other cultures. This is also what he experienced when spending several years managing an extensive project for the Indian Inland Waterways Authority by the river Ganges. When he takes a stroll down memory lane, he’s quickly reminded of his personal account of "Western meets Indian culture" - with a backdrop including a natural river course in a wide landscape, mobile harbour cranes at India's first inland port terminal for container ships in Varanasi and bathing Hindus.

Environmentally friendly modes of transport are also of personal "importance" for Hartmut Beyer; when it comes to climate protection, he feels obliged to his six "patchwork"-children. That is why he drives a hybrid car, travels by train with his wife and wants to build a photovoltaic system on the roof of his home. Incidentally, he discovered an accordion in his attic. The instrument keeps him grounded; and at the same time he sees making music as cosmopolitan and tolerant - characteristics "which are important for the international projects at HPC."