Volkswagen Group honours its best apprentices from all over the world, including India

The Volkswagen Group yesterday presented its ‘Best Apprentice Awards 2014’ to young top achievers from all over the world at Group headquarters in Wolfsburg. The awards went to 11 women and 32 men from a total of 38 Group locations.  During their apprenticeships, they convincingly demonstrated excellent performance and specialist competence. A total of 43 young talents from 18 countries on 5 continents were honored including Anshuman Srivastava, mechatronics technician from Volkswagen India, Pune, India. Throughout the world, the Volkswagen Group is training about 20,000 young people.

The awards were presented by the chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, the Member of the Board of Management responsible for Human Resources, Organization and IT, Dr. Horst Neumann, and the President of the Global Group Works Council, Bernd Osterloh.
Prof. Winterkorn said: "I am proud of the competence of our young employees. Today we are honouring the best of the best from the Volkswagen world. All of the award-winners have demonstrated high commitment, excellent specialist knowledge and considerable skill during their training. With young specialists like them, we are strengthening the future orientation of our Group."

Dr Neumann said: "Specialist knowledge and skills lay the foundation for a high-performance staff, for outstanding quality, top products and business success. In addition, a thorough training opens up prospects for a promising career. This is why we at Volkswagen place considerable emphasis on first-class dual vocational training that closely links theory and practice. Most of our about 20,000 apprentices throughout the world are training in their vocation on the basis of the dual principle, which we also continue in on-the-job further training in our professional families."

Osterloh said: "The dual vocational training system within the Volkswagen Group is a uniquely successful model throughout the world. It lays a firm foundation for almost unlimited vocational development prospects for our young colleagues and therefore ensures that they can shape their own lives. The Group Works Council is committed to ensuring that Volkswagen continues to invest strongly in the training and qualification of our young people throughout the world."

In recognition of their achievements, the 43 award-winners were invited to Germany to participate in a multi-faceted program spanning several days. This year's ‘Best Apprentice Award’ was the 14th of its kind presented by the Volkswagen Group, and a total of 341 apprentices have been honored since 2001.

Eight of the award winners have already been honored in their home countries for their outstanding knowledge and skills in their training vocations. These include Chamber of Industry and Commerce national award winners Marc Ehrlich (foundry mechanic) from Volkswagen in Kassel, Kay Huber (warehouse logistics specialist) from Porsche in Stuttgart plant and Marvin Köhler (automation electronics engineer) from Audi in Neckarsulm. There were three Chamber of Industry and Commerce state award winners from Lower Saxony: Volkswagen apprentices Onur Sönmez from Salzgitter (automation electronics engineer) and Nele Steiner (vehicle paint technician) from Wolfsburg, who helped build the Golf GTI Cabriolet Austria for the 2013 Wörthersee GTI meeting. Caleb Higginbotham (mechatronics technician) from the Volkswagen Group of America's Chattanooga plant was Gold Winner in the vocational training competition ‘Skills USA’. The best industrial mechanics trained in the Czech Republic were Miroslav Hošťálek and Michal Mikschl from the ŠKODA plant in Mladá Boleslav.

Ten of the award-winners are now taking a degree course with the support of their companies: Marcos Rogério Ambrosius Filho (automotive engineering), Melanie Fütz (automobile management), Thomas Hartmann (electrical engineering and information technology), Marvin Köhler (electrical and control system engineering), Valerie Kokemüller (automotive engineering), Javier Sánchez Martínez (mechanical engineering, specializing in production planning), Onur Sönmez (automation electronics engineer), Baoyu Tang (electrical engineering and information technology), Theresa Wolf (automotive engineering) and Johannes Yalcin (mechanical engineering).

In addition, three of the award-winners will be receiving two years of individual support in their professional family within the ‘talent group for young specialists’. A further five young people will be taking part in the ‘Wanderjahre’ (years abroad) program. They will be living and working for a year at a Group location in another country.