Helzel Celebrates 20th Anniversary
Together with customers, friends and family, Helzel Messtechnik celebrated its 20th anniversary on 16 October 2015 at its headquarters in Kaltenkirchen, Germany. Founded in 1995 by Thomas Helzel and Matthias Kniephoff, the company focused in its early years on the development and production of intelligent industrial electronics, manufactured signal generators, synthesisers and high-frequency amplifiers before entering the oceanographic and environmental measurement market in 1999.
In the year 2000, the first commercial WERA system – originally developed in the Institute of Oceanography at the University of Hamburg – was delivered to the University of Hawaii. WERA is an oceanographic land-based over-the-horizon radar that provides real-time measurement of ocean surface currents, waves and wind over large distances. While buoys and ADCPs will only provide point measurements, WERA information is available over the entire coverage area up to 300km offshore. According to Helzel, due to the high quality of the measured data, WERA enjoys an excellent international reputation. As a result, it is installed in more than 30 countries worldwide.
Fields of application
The interesting fields of application of WERA vary from monitoring of currents and waves in shipping channels, environmental monitoring (e. g. oil spill drift prediction), to the improvement for search and rescue operations, planning support for offshore industries, ship-detection, and as a component for Tsunami Early Warning systems. For the last mentioned application, the Sultanate of Oman has chosen ten WERA systems as the main part of their National Multi-Hazard Early Warning Center (NMHEWC). The monitoring of MetOcean data in shipping channels is the focus for Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) in The Netherlands and the Helmholtz Center for Material and Coastal Research (HZG) in Germany. RWS operates two systems for the Maasmond area at the Port of Rotterdam. HZG operates three WERA systems on the islands of Sylt, Wangerooge and in Büsum. The oceanographic data for the German Bight is implemented in the COSYNA network and by this finds its way to the different users.
Commitment
Company founder Thomas Helzel says he appreciates the high commitment of their team, which made it possible to manage the very complex projects and installations during the past 20 years. Helzel Messtechnik will recruit another motivated software engineer who would be capable of supporting customers, whom also loves to work on hardware oriented tasks and will support their team on their installations abroad, he stated. Young, committed engineers can make their way with Helzel Messtechnik as shown by the career of Leif Petersen who joined the board of directors end of 2014, after 10 years of staff membership.
Dr Anna Dzvonkovskaya from Technical University of Hamburg and an expert in Tsunami and Ship Detection/Tracking joined the Helzel team, along with Marek Swirgon, Oceanographer from the University of Szczecin in 2014. In 20 years, the company has built a worldwide international partner and support network. The Latin-American market will be supported by INESI, a company founded by Roberto Gomez, a former team member and WERA software expert from Mexico.
The 20th anniversary party has been the icing on the cake of this year‘s WERA Operators Seminar which has been held regularly each year in Kaltenkirchen to train international sales partners and customers.
