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Foreign Investors In Estonia | BALTI SPOON
The Woodman is Blind
The veneer manufacturing business requires a highly-skilled work force, and so employees must be carefully trained. “The woodman is blind,” says Smolarek, placing his hand flat on the burled-wood conference table to illustrate how a professional judges wood. But to be called a professional takes years. On the warehouse floor we find a case in point: a well-dressed, gray-haired gentleman personally sorting a pallet load of veneer. “He’s a German,” Smolarek raises his voice to be heard over the warehouse din. “He’s been in the business thirty years and he knows exactly what his client will and won’t take. And he’s training an Estonian who has two years of experience.” If Smolarek has his way, Balti Spoon will create a lot of thirty-year veterans of the wood business in Kupu Village. The company’s personnel recruitment operation is built to that end. “Right here is where we make money or lose money,” says Venkata Iyer, Balti Spoon’s Financial Controller, who gestures to a laser cutter on the factory floor. “How that man cuts determines a lot about our business.” Iyer says Balti Spoon invests heavily in its machine operators, and a skilled operator can easily earn as much as a white-collar worker in the capital city of Tallinn.