hasenkamp Group, hasenkamp, hasenkamp Fine Art

A team made for special logistical challenges

15.02.2022

Stefan Velte leads the Logistics & Engineering Solutions department at Hasenkamp, a company specializing in the transportation and storage of sensitive goods.

Cologne-Frechen, 15 February 2022 – Until the end of 2021, Stefan Velte was head of the art inspection unit at the Cologne-based specialist logistics company Hasenkamp. At the beginning of the year, the unit now operates under the name Logistics & Engineering Solutions – LES for short. It sounds international and very technical. And that's exactly how it should sound. In the many years that the department for special logistic challenges has existed, the demands on the team of ten have steadily increased. The new English name is intended to reflect this better; and furthermore, it's used to underline ever-increasing internationalization.

The art inspection unit is an institution in the German-speaking art market. Anyone who works with art and cultural assets or very valuable and sensitive transported goods has, for sure, heard the name Hasenkamp. Those with particularly complicated pieces, be they very old, extremely valuable, or large or particularly heavy objects, come into contact with Stefan Velte, the head of the department, when one of the above-written traits come into play. Stefan Velte, born in 1989, has been with Hasenkamp since 2012. He came to Hasenkamp because they needed someone like him: a businessman with passion and a tradesman with heart and mind.

Why did you give up the name art inspection?

The name art inspection is certainly already something of a legend in the museum and art scene. However, what is also a legend is that all we do is pack art objects or cultural assets safely and move them to their destination. Our task is often much broader: we plan, advise and implement all kinds of extraordinary logistical projects. What they all have in common is that they are so special that there are no blueprints for them. As a rule, we develop individual packaging for such transport projects, which protects the exhibits and makes them transportable. We use tools and cranes, which are often our own developments – based on our many years of experience. 

So you're not just at home in the art world. What else do you focus on?

Among other things, we provide advice on routes and building planning. Our routine plans are often required for areas where large-volume and heavy goods are transported to and from. For example, when planning new museum buildings, hospitals or data centers, or for elevators, stairwells, ramps and building entrances. And this is increasingly happening around the world, which is why we no longer found the term art inspector appropriate and have recently started marketing our team and our services worldwide as a department for logistics & engineering solutions. 

What makes your department so unique in the logistics industry?

What is special about our Logistics & Engineering Solutions department is certainly the ability of our employees to combine their technical skills with the joy of solving problems. I think that this mental attitude is what sets us apart. We work with the knowledge that we can find satisfactory solutions for our customers – and we always want to work out the best, safest and most efficient solution. Seen in this way, we are a kind of special command that is called for when solutions for complex logistical requirements are required. We are active worldwide within the Hasenkamp Group and have more than 40 locations in Europe, as well as in East and Southwest Asia. 
 

What skills do you need to have to do this job?

In addition to a high level of flexibility in thinking, tact, calm and balance are required, especially when it comes to transport. Often, every move is monitored by outside individuals. You have to appear confident and experienced and not allow yourself to be distracted, even in stressful situations. Otherwise, I would like my employees to be like Swiss army knives: we need commercial understanding, a high level of manual skills, strong cooperation and teamwork skills, and diplomatic flair when dealing with clients and project participants. 

Can you name specific examples of work in your department?

One of my favorites, because we always get to accompany it on its travels, is the Nebra Sky Disk. For me it is as outstandingly valuable as it is beautiful, because, with its estimated 3600 years, it is the oldest testimony to the astronomical knowledge of our ancestors. 

On the subject of the sky and the stars, I'd like to add another extraordinary project, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02). In short, this is a two-billion-euro scientific experiment that was transported across Europe on its way to the International Space Station (ISS) by the Hasenkamp company with a special means of transport. It traveled from Cern, near Geneva, via Aachen to Nordwijk in the Netherlands and back to Geneva before being flown to Cape Canaveral to board a space shuttle to reach the ISS destination. Our team was in charge of planning and implementing the trip to the USA to NASA in Florida. We are very proud to have made an important contribution to the success of this mission. 

Another technical masterpiece presented us with a particularly difficult challenge – this time, it was something from the Middle Ages. With a height of 4.72 meters and a weight of about 1.85 tons per wing, the bronze Bernward doors of Hildesheim Cathedral are the largest of their era and, unique around the year 1015, and were cast in one piece. 

In addition to transporting such technical, artistically valuable or historically significant objects, we also encounter very secular and sometimes curious tasks. For example, the case of an artist who created such an expansive painting in his studio that it could not be taken out the door or the window. We quickly came up with a plan that involved raising the roof of the house, removing the painting, and then lowering the roof over the studio again. We don't understand "impossible to do". 

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