MAXAM
MAXAM talent, best guarantee for future
2011.09.02
MAXAM Foundation - Press room - News - MAXAM talent, best guarantee for future
MAXAM is today a company that offers important opportunities for personal and professional development.
MAXAM is a powerful industrial group with more than 70 production facilities spread out in the five continents. It is a modern company, proud of its 140 years of history, but always in the lookout of new opportunities for the future. Hence the new projects that await in the emerging markets, like the Chinese, that foretell new periods of growth and new opportunities for professional development for the new generations of technicians that will, no doubt, join the company.
The change of the century has been a key in the history of MAXAM. The year 2000 marked the starting phase of the international expansion of the company, becoming the great industrial group it is today. At the same time, and with the aim of boosting this process of growth, the MAXAM Chair saw the light. Thanks to the collaboration agreement signed between the Higher Technical School of Mining Engineers (ETSIM) of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and MAXAM.
The change of the century has been a key in the history of MAXAM. The year 2000 marked the starting phase of the international expansion of the company, becoming the great industrial group it is today. At the same time, and with the aim of boosting this process of growth, the MAXAM Chair saw the light. Thanks to the collaboration agreement signed between the Higher Technical School of Mining Engineers (ETSIM) of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and MAXAM.
The MAXAM Chair is the resulting collaboration between the Higher Technical School of
Mining Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and MAXAM. On the right, young
mining engineering working in a mine.
MAXAM’s important challenge for the education and the constant incorporation of new talent to the company, at the time it was immerse in the full process of internationalization, have allocated the group in the world elite of manufacturers of products and services for blasting, as well as initiating systems, and holding the first position in the world ranking in the manufacturing of cartridges for hunting, that today are sold in over 80 countries. In just five years, MAXAM has doubled its size reaching a turnover figure next to 1000 M €, with an annual cumulative growth next to 20% in the last five years. MAXAM is today a large multinational group, with 85% of the sales, produced and sold by the company's subsidiaries throughout the world.Mining Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and MAXAM. On the right, young
mining engineering working in a mine.
MAXAM Chair: Figures and Results
The MAXAM Chair was born with the aim of opening the doors to the knowledge, dissemination, and training on all aspects of civil explosives and initiation systems: properties, manufacturing, transportation, storage, use and services for blasting and other applications. All the engineers that each year have completed their training through the MAXAM Chair have had the opportunity to live in first person the innovative technological contributions made by the company. Extraordinary projects, such as the expansion of the Panama Canal, large mining operations in Siberia, in Carajas –Brazil -, or the important role of R&D in the labs or experimental plants of the MAXAM factories, among others.
Part of the activity of the Chair is to bring the use of the explosives to the students that are still in training. Also, each year, 30 students from the Higher Technical School of Mining Engineering count with a week of practical training throughout MAXAM’s commercial network in Spain. During this decade, over 300 students have had the opportunity to get to know the reality of the use of explosives, all of this thanks to MAXAM. Without a doubt, the most important thing is that a large number of professionals, who have passed through this Chair, have been able to join the labour market under high competitive conditions. At present, 23 mining engineers that have completed their training at the Higher Technical School of Mining Engineering are now part of MAXAM’s payroll. Over half of them are leading projects or international operations.
International outlook
The MAXAM Chair is a pioneering example of collaboration between the university and the company, preparing future professionals - of very different backgrounds - to the reality of the business world in the five continents, attending the needs of society for a continued progress and sustainable development. In recent years, the Chair has begun to receive in Madrid students from other countries (Brazil, Russia, Bolivia, Angola, Bulgaria, Hungary, Ghana and France, among others) to complete their last year of training in Madrid to later integrate in the different multidisciplinary teams of the MAXAM international network.
The entire group of young people that have been part of the training program for graduates without experience, YESS (Young Engineers & Scholarships & Students) out of which 90 engineers of up to 12 nationalities have started his professional career in MAXAM, in projects that involve real challenges for today’s engineering. This is how these young people have had the opportunity to form by learning, first-hand, the design of blasting in large mining operations, optimizing productivity and improving the safety in places as diverse as Africa, the Amazon, Siberia, Australia, Central Asia, or in Finland, near the arctic circle, this way obtaining the minerals that will allow the energy supply, or the development of the industry and economy in the world's most dynamic regions.
Members of the MAXAM´s team at work.
Members of the MAXAM´s team at work.
Celebration of the X Anniversary
To commemorate the ten year Anniversary of the MAXAM Chair, on the last 18th of May we gathered in a ceremony held at the Higher Technical School of Mining Engineering. There we counted with the presence of MAXAM’s Chairman, José Fernando Sánchez-Junco, the Director of the Higher Technical School of Mining Engineering, Benjamin Calvo, the Professor Responsible for the Chair, José Ángel Sanchidrián, some members of the Management and Technical team of MAXAM, teachers and a large number of students from the School.
In his speech, the Chairman of MAXAM, wanted to thank, in particular, the contribution of all those who were students of the Higher Technical School of Mining Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and who are now working in MAXAM. He also wished to thank the School itself, since without their contribution "today MAXAM would not be what we have been able to achieve". He also especially addressed those students from Angola, Brazil and Ghana, who this year are completing their theoretical- practical training through the MAXAM Chair, as well as the Spanish students who are also involved in this training program, MAXAM’s Chairman wished to underline the fact that "MAXAM represents a great opportunity based on a system with the highest standards of self discipline, and I am fully convinced that with your talent, skills, training and the strength of youth, you can join any team with a project for the future".
In his intervention, José Fernando Sánchez-Junco highlighted the success of the ten years of existence of the MAXAM Chair. This was a pioneering initiative in its moment, "reminding us of the entrepreneurial spirit that continues to be part of our identity and our way of working and of focusing on the future". For the Director of the Higher Technical School of Mining Engineers, Benjamín Calvo, the most important achievement resides in the resulting collaboration between MAXAM and the Higher Technical School of Mining Engineers, "To have made the students, who have been part of the MAXAM Chair, understand the role of the explosive in the progress and development of society. They are increasingly becoming involved in the explosives sector, more interested, reason why, each time more and greater projects are arising. An extrapolation is gradually reaching all of the society".
Finally, as evidenced by MAXAM’s Chairman at the conclusion of his speech on the X Anniversary, the MAXAM Chair will remain open to the participation and contributions of all those who, being today students "tomorrow will be the engineers that will be leading the projects, and as we say in MAXAM, shaping the world you live in".
