Kessin (OZ) Yesterday, the Minister for Economic Affairs Rolf Eggert (SPD) handed a grant approval decision with an amount of 90,000 Deutschmark over to the company Nordum Institut für Umwelt und Analytik GmbH. Thereby the development and tests of new technologies will be forwarded.

With this support, a new product in the field of environmental technology should be developed, for there are currently no competing products on the market available. The bio test kit for water quality assessments is characterized by a simple applicability. Until now it is necessary to possess an advanced knowledge to assess the conditions of water.

Eggert: “In some cases, the costs are passing the boundaries of cost effectiveness. The aim of the project is to develop, optimize and test this user-friendly test kit for the determination of the water quality.”

Besides the degree of colonization of bacteria and plankton, an increased nutritional supplement and the presence of environmental toxins are being recorded. Therewith it is now possible to monitor lakes for bathing and fishponds, which almost couldn’t be analyzed yet.

Original text by author in German translated by the Nordum Akademie GmbH & Co. KG

“…Likewise Anita Plantikow wants to keep it rolling. In order to fulfil the increasing demands of her customers, she, the managing director of the Nordum Institut für Umwelt und Analytik GmbH & Co KG, and her 26 colleagues are offering a whole range of environmental services. These include measurement of emissions as well as quality assurance culminating in environmental audit. In addition she entered the business of qualification. Already in 1995, only 5 years after the foundation of the company, she outsourced the branch of further education to an independent and state approved academy. In spite of the overcapacities in her business segment, the managing director of the company of Rostock isn’t darkening the future: “We try to take care for our customers on a long-term base and adjust to the changes on the market.”

Original text in German translated by the Nordum Akademie GmbH & Co. KG

In this year, the abdicating Federal President Roman Herzog confers the Federal Cross of Merit exclusively to women. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had even two representatives with the mayor of Wismar Dr. Rosemarie Wilcken und an entrepreneur of the chamber district Rostock: Dr. Anita Plantikow of the Nordum Akademie GmbH & Co. KG in Kessin.

The 44 years old businesswoman was mainly honored for her social commitment. Since years, Anita Plantikow is working in the association of German businesswomen, in which she was elected into the board of the federal management in 1998. She is co-founder of the innovation agency Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and was there the Vice Chairman for period of 4 years. And from the start she is participating in the jury for the “Idee-Förderpreis”, which is, since 1997, carried out annually by the entrepreneur Albert Darboven from Hamburg for innovative foundresses of new businesses. That may seem likely as if the job as a managing director, she is one of three managing directors at Nordum, is not fulfilling her. Not to mention the job as a single mother. Why so much dedication “alongside” – especially after the hard years of setting up a business? “The company has to come first”, says Dr. Plantikow, “but if you are only looking on your own business you lose the vision. Then you are stuck with entrenched habits and you cannot develop.

She was making progress and with her the company, which history can be read like a story of success. 1990 it was founded as an independent institute by five chemists out of Rostock, three women and two men. Business portfolio: environmental consulting and pollutant analysis – areas, in which the relevance increased abruptly after the German reunification.

Nowadays, the Nordum Institut für Umwelt und Analytik GmbH & Co. KG is occupying 26 high-skilled professionals with a wide-range multidisciplinary project experience. It is offering complex engineering achievements to solve environmentally relevant problems. After a period of 4 years they could leave the supporting microclimate of the technology park in Warnemünde and move to a brand-new specially built institute building in Kessin.

The institute is participating in research projects, e.g. for new methods and test systems for the detection and assessment of environmental toxins, including a procedure to capture data about the atmospherical pollutants in the North and Baltic Sea. For the accomplishment of the growing number of tasks a branch was set up in Neubrandenburg. 1995 followed the spin-off for the Nordum Akademie GbR, an independent association, for the sector of advanced and further education.

Behind these results stands work and hardship, often ad nauseam. Anita Plantikow had to face, like many other founders of a new business, that the initial years of a company is putting the view of the own way of life to the test. However, she is belonging to this kind of person, who always shouts out to herself: Now more than ever. Out of the worst they are always looking for new fields of friction and not accidentally these fellow men are often women.

This is also something that Roman Herzog is being aware of, a man who took office with the aim to increase the annual amount of the townswomen, who are receiving the Federal Cross of Merit, from usually 17 to 30 %. That he did not achieve his goal afflicted him apparently and so in this year, quasi as his last official act, he invited only women to castle Bellevue. Therewith he was honoring 36 townswomen, who are living life as role models, “who are not matching the common clichés”.

Regina Halentz

Original text by author in German translated by the Nordum Akademie GmbH & Co. KG

Rostock, in the far north, directly in front of the coastal strip of the Baltic Sea, is one of the great German seaports. Till the year 1990, the former region of GDR was one of the most important locations of economy and production. After the German reunification many scientist had risk a new start. Two of those newly founded companies are called “Nordum” and “Bioserv”.

Strong analysis

Five scientists, chemists, started right after the German reunification to build up a laboratory for environmental and pollutant analysis. The three managing directors Professor Jupp Kreutzmann, Dr. Anita Plantikow and Dipl.-Chem. Ralf Becker accepted the risk and today there are already working 25 employees in the environmental institute Nordum.
Also Shimadzu had its share for the good start of the company: The whole lab equipment was installed by the Technisches Büro Berlin. Nowadays, 4 GC- and GCMS-devices, the HPLC, several AAS-spectrometers, photometer, TOC-device and infrared photometer are accomplishing the biggest amount of the analyses. Customers are, besides industrial companies and agricultural enterprises, mainly public authorities, engineering offices and citizens, who are awarding contracts like analyses of water, soil and air, determination of contaminated sites, site investigation and production monitoring.
Immission investigation and noise level measurement are also belonging to the range of products of the company Nordum. The latest products of the company are remedial designs and environmental impact assessments.
The laboratory moved with its colleagues, who were almost all coming from structurally weak regions where they lost their employment, to a new one’s own building in April 1994. It is already planned to expand for new business fields are being prepared. The employees, including 11 academics, are offering all the conditions so that these extending plans will come to reality.
The east of Europe and the entry to the world are just lying in front of the gates of Rostock. It is inevitable natural to go into partnership with companies from the Baltic States and the Ukraine. Here it is convenient to use the old connections to the successor states of the Soviet Union. The good knowledge of the culture and language are making a lot of things easier. Initial contacts to Asia are made, with business delegations conversations were made about corporations with Singapore, Indonesia and South Korea and guests, coming from China and Viet Nam, are receiving a first education at Nordum.

Original text in German translated by the Nordum Akademie GmbH & Co. KG

Equipped and educated in the state of the art

The NORDUM Institut für Umwelt und Analytik GmbH was founded as a private, independent institute in 1990. The company had its start in the technology park Warnmünde (TZW). “We had really good conditions to realize our full potential. We started with three rooms. At the end we had nine. And then it became just too small for us. Maybe we are a kind of model in the matter of TZW. Such a center is meant to be a support for companies for three to five years. Then the company has to survive on its own power, has to outsource itself”, as Prof. Dr. Jupp Kreutzmann states, managing director together with Dr. Anita Plantikow and Dipl.-Chem. Ralf Becker.

Kessin – a location with future

Already after one year in the TZW the search began for a suitable location for the institute. In Rostock no appropriate offer could be found. Finally there was created the new building in the industrial park Kessin. Kessin – that’s a location with future. Through the freeway right on the doorstep the harbor and the German capital had come within reach. The journey time is calculable. But my dialog partner is also not hiding the third reason: the beautiful landscape. The forest starts just behind the house.
The move was done at Easter. In the new build the employees have the opportunity to use the state-of-the-art measurement and analysis technology. But the technical equipment is not enough; professional competence and experience in the field of environmental and pollutant analysis are indispensable. With 11 academics, that’s comparative high towards the total number of employees of 22, the institute is meeting the requirements in the areas of measurement, assessment, further education, consulting and research/development. By participating in ring analyses the company is ensuring the quality in its own business. Referring to that Prof. Dr. Jupp Kreutzmann: “That’s a really good surveillance. Only the one who is determining the values in a precise way is being confirmed as a state approved institute for measurement and analysis. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania we have this approval.

Wide range to offer

Another approval, which is granted by the “Bundesanstalt für Materialprüfung” (Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing), is requested and the first ring analyses are already completed successfully.”
True to the motto “Our services for you” the company is offering the whole spectrum, from the environmental impact assessment to the creation of waste management concepts to production of waste water analyses for the municipal authorities and companies. The corporate environmental management is becoming more important and is, in relation to the exclusion of risks and an authentic environmental image, not only ecological but also economically reasonable.

There is always a market for quality

Sure, the offers in the field of analytic capacities are huge in the region of Rostock. The company NORDUM, except for loan funds and subsidies the money put into the business is only East German DM, established oneself as an efficient institution. Also Schwerin realized that. The subsidies for the new building in Kessin were much easier to request than for the commencement. There is always a market for quality and adherence to schedule.

Original text in German translated by the Nordum Akademie GmbH & Co. KG