Portrait René Steiner
After 53 of service to Bühler, René Steiner retired in March 2021. Despite – or because – he has remained loyal to the company all these years, he now looks back on a career filled with exciting and profound challenges.
Norbert Jenal, June 1, 2021
In today’s fast-paced working world, it’s rare to find someone who has spent his entire career with one company. That is why René Steiner sees himself as sort of a dinosaur. The Swiss from the canton of Appenzell started his professional career in 1968 at Bühler as an apprentice.
“Today, everything is much more fast-paced. If something does not fit, everything is rescheduled or replaced without further ado. The same applies to life planning,” the retiree reflects. But René is not lamenting, on the contrary. For him, the glass is always half full. Without this positive outlook on life, he’d feel like he was wasting time.
Of course, there have also been moments in his professional career at Bühler when he considered leaving the company. Why he stayed has a lot to do with Urs Bühler. “Urs Bühler has a big heart, he is modest, and he is very loyal. That has always impressed me. I experienced this loyalty in the entire Bühler family. That is why I always chose to stay,” says René.
This attitude of giving and taking lead to René's professional growth. “I don’t regret for a second that I never switched companies.” Something else that has kept him with Bühler is the fact that the company always thinks long-term. “Every decision is made with a view to long-term success. Building something quickly to then sell it as profitably as possible does not appeal to me.”
René grew up as the second oldest child of seven children in Waldstatt in the Swiss Canton of Appenzell, not far from Uzwil. The economic circumstances of the extended family did not allow him to pursue an academic career at that time. This privilege was only granted to his older brother. René follows the traditional path. After secondary school, he starts an apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer in milling at Bühler. This is an apprenticeship that no longer exists in this form today.
This practical and broad-based craftsman’s apprenticeship lasts four years. “I really liked working with wood, metal, and plastics.” His interest in the school subjects of geography and history further motivated him to work at Bühler. René was already determined at the age of 15 to travel the world after completing his apprenticeship. “Even back then, Bühler was very international. I hoped to get to know the world as an assembler or service technician.”
But that is not the only reason René wanted to work for Bühler: “Most of the men in our family were employed by Bühler at that time,” he explains with a laugh. Shortly after completing his apprenticeship and basic military training as a grenadier, René was faced with a challenging choice: continue working at Bühler or chose a career in sports.
While in the military, René become the junior Swiss champion in the military pentathlon and earned a place on the squad of the Swiss National Team. But instead of embarking on a career as an athlete, René took up the offer to go to South Africa for Bühler. In Johannesburg, he gained his first professional experience as a service technician and mechanic.
In 1973, the apartheid regime was still ever-present in South Africa, something that the young man and inexperienced service technician did not understand or condone, but he had a job to do for Bühler. He and his two South African colleagues at the service station were called on wherever a mill was not working. To be able to do his work autonomously, René even got a car. “Professionally, it was a time with a steep learning curve, but I also enjoyed great freedom at work. That was exactly what I was looking for.”
But René also realized that there was much more he could learn, so after two years in South Africa, he returned to Switzerland and started working in the planning department. In the next step, he trained at the Swiss Milling School (SMS) to become a milling technician. Bühler then offered him the opportunity to go to Madrid, Spain, where he was to oversee the construction of two mills as project manager.
“When I look back today on the many different professional tasks I have performed, I realize that complex tasks have always appealed to me. I am equally fascinated and motivated by working with customers.” René says of himself that he is a straight shooter and known for not always doing what is asked of him.
If it is not the right thing to do, I will always speak up.
René Steiner,
retiree
“If it is not the right thing to do, I will always speak up. In most cases, my superiors have been happy with me. Of course, I was not always right, but often,” he recalls with a laugh. René always strove to find solutions. That this can sometimes lead to difficult situations, he had to painfully realize during the restructuring of the international sales and service organization (today Services and Sales, SAS).
“Building up today’s SAS was the most challenging task in my career. Not from a technical point of view, but in terms of the human component,” says René. Until shortly after the turn of the millennium, the field offices are managed centrally from Uzwil. At that time, Calvin Grieder spent more than a year looking for a suitable person who could implement the restructuring. “Bühler is very complex. We develop, we manufacture, we install, and then we hand over the plant to the customer.”
René never hides his disagreement with the centralized management structure at Bühler. “Every market has unique needs and different circumstances. You can’t treat every region the same, it just doesn’t work.” The former decathlete takes on this task.
You can't treat every region the same, it just doesn't work.
René Steiner,
retiree
For a long time, René swims against a strong tide. With the reorganization, he inevitably must eliminate some positions and consequently disempower several managers. “I often had the feeling that I wasn’t getting anywhere with the reorganization, until one evening I saw a book about Genghis Kahn. That’s when I realized I needed to change my strategy.”
He decides to change the world of Bühler from the outside. René traveled to all the field offices and hands over the authority to act independently to the heads of the regions. “This way, they no longer did what the centralists in Uzwil wanted them to do.”
Power and money that come with such positions have never been important to me. Achieving something with employees and customers, that is my motivation.
René Steiner,
retiree
This move triggered the cultural change that resulted in today’s decentralized SAS structure. “Power and money that come with certain positions have never been important to me. Achieving something with employees and customers, that is my motivation. With my decisions, I have always strived for what is best for Bühler.” When the reorganization was successfully completed, Urs Bühler said to René: “You have taken on the most difficult tasks. In return, things have now turned out the way you always wanted them to.”
Challenges excite René. After the restructuring, he got the chance to choose which site he wanted to manage. René decided to move to Minneapolis. There, he his job was to realign the region and prepare Bühler North America for the future.
Shortly after his move to the United States, the financial crisis of 2007-2008 revealed the advantages of the Bühler’s decentralized management structure. “At the beginning of the crisis, the US was hit hard; in Europe and Asia, the market reacted later. By the time the crisis reached China, we were doing better in the United States. This helped us to come through the financial crisis reasonably unscathed,” says René.
Standing still is not one of René's strengths. “In my 53 years at Bühler, I have always been able to develop myself further and have always learned something new.” This is exactly what he hoped for as a youngster when Bühler opens its doors to him. “I owe my professional career to my thirst for knowledge, my desire to understand things better, and the trust that Bühler and its customers have shown me. For this, I am forever grateful.”
René says of himself that he enjoys sharing knowledge. In South Africa, he soon realized that during apartheid, customers had no opportunity to further their education. To counteract this, René organized a three-week milling training course in Uzwil for some employees.
Further training courses were also held for CEOs of milling companies later. “We then institutionalized the philosophy for young professionals, similar to the dual education system in Switzerland.”
As CEO in Minneapolis, he later becomes heavily involved in the development of apprentice training. The North American Miller Association honored him with the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019 for his contributions. And the biggest highlight for René was when he and Calvin Grieder were invited to the White House with members of the Swiss government. “Unfortunately, the then President Barack Obama had to cancel our meeting at short notice, but the reception at the White House was already a great honor and proof of the efforts regarding the co-development of the dual education system in the US.”
But that is not all. Shortly after in 2014, Dr. Jill Biden, the current First Lady, and then Second Lady, traveled to Uzwil to learn about more about our apprenticeship system.
René has clear views on what it means to be a leader. “Leadership for me means setting a clear direction and having the right tools at hand to do so. It is equally important to let people do what they want so that they can develop and contribute. Leadership that dictates how something should be done is not optimal, in my opinion. If it had been like that at Bühler, I would not have stayed so long. Urs Bühler once said to me: ‘You just always have a team around you that can do everything,’” he explains.
René viewed his job precisely like this. “As a manager, I have to have a little bit of a clue about everything. Nobody can do everything, but if you bring together the strengths from the team that it needs to accomplish the tasks, you can accomplish a lot.”
In 53 years, René has helped shape the company. “I understand people who move on because they don’t see any development opportunities. That was not the case with me. Bühler gave me a lot and made a lot possible. That’s why I stayed.” One thing has always been important to René, however, and that is to remain true to himself. “That is the most important thing in life.”
With his straight-forward and humorous manner, he always manages to inspire employees and customers. He draws on his Appenzell roots to do so. His father always said, “Where people sing, you can feel at home. Because bad people don’t sing songs.”
He never thought he would ever yodel on a stage. But that is exactly what happened at his business school graduation ceremony in Lausanne. At this event, the students were supposed to represent their respective nationalities.
“Everyone had prepared something, except us six Swiss. So, I improvised. I asked all the professors to come on stage and yodel with me. But not just like that, that would be too ordinary. I required the lecturers to kneel down for it.” Since then, René has been yodeling at every opportunity, including at Bühler’s 150th anniversary. At this celebration, he also taught yodeling to Calvin Grieder and Stefan Scheiber. Urs Bühler is also a yodeling student of René.
As a child, René got some advice from his father that he never forgot. “René,” he said, “you have to know one thing. When you get older, you should still be able to look everyone in the eye. It is not the money that matters. It’s much more important to be at peace with yourself.” It is an approach to life he has done well with, he says, and one he will continue to follow.
The end of March 2021 was René’s last official day at work. Naturally, he celebrated the evening in a unique way. “At home, I opened a good bottle of wine and poured two glasses. One glass for me and the second in memory of my grandfather. He and I worked for Bühler for 53 years each, so I was able to raise a glass to him and to our 106 years of Bühler.”
“No one in our family has been Bühler as long as my grandfather and I have. Or maybe I should say, Bühler has put up with us for so long,” he says. René’s life philosophy of always seeing the glass half full has accompanied him throughout his life. His gratitude for everything he has experienced is also reflected in the toast he gave to his grandfather and his retirement: “Health, wealth, love and time to enjoy it. I’ve had that good fortune.”
An unforgettable occasion: In 2018, René Steiner was honored together with five other Bühler employees for 50 years with Bühler.
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Uzwil
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