Miro Hudeček: Heating More Than Your Home

By Pavla Janoušková

My grandmother told me about the man who designs and calculates the boiler. I think a lot of people don't know what this job is. I found my person‘s business card in google.com. He was very willing to meet and talk about his work, answering all my questions.
When most Czechs get cold and need heat, they gather a bit of wood, or flip a switch on the boiler. But Mirko Hudeček can actually design and develop this boilers, and not only on Czech power station, but even elsewhere the world. But when mustachioed gentleman, 51 sits in the office, his head is full of ideas, it‘s incredible to think he can build something like that.
„Energetic is so good, because energy is needed, as well as human food,” says Hudeček, Department Manager Boiler Development and Engineering Calculations for the company Austrian Energy and Environment in Brno. „I’m one of the few people who consider his job something like a hobby. I don‘t go to work earn money, but because I enjoy it.”
While he likes watching basketball, going bowling with friends, and dancing with his wife, he says he much prefers reading professional manuals about the energy industry instead reading a detective novel.
Hudeček graduated in Brno at University of Technology in the Department of Energy. „My parents are both teachers and they wanted me to be a teacher, too. But I was interested in technology and scientific knowledge of natural laws,“ he says.
Already in his fourth year he agreed to work at the First Brno Engineering plants of Clement Gottwald. This he won a scholarship. „It was amazing, I wasn’t financially dependent on my mother and I could do things, I never could afford before,“ he says with a smile.„He is a person whom I admire, and everywhere I say his memorable sentence: ‚I like to go to work,‘“ says his mother, Marie Hudečková. According to her, Hudeček is very ambitious and pursued his goal. „He chose a difficult profession in which he can excel,“ she says.
One year after school he decided to finish a degree of candidate of Sciences. He chose the issues in the energetic sector with a focus on the environment. „At the time it was innovation. I found, that teachers didn’t know all about energetic,” says Hudeček. He learned how to make fluid boilers, which captures emissions in the combustion process. And these products were to research also in the company, in which Hudeček operates.
„I‘m glad that Mr. Hudeček is my boss, because he can be responsible,“ assess his colleague Milan Ryšavý. „He‘s an experienced engineer who has many years of his profession.“
He’s now been doing this for 26 years. The company changed owners five times, but business is still the same. „I sit on the same chair, I have the same telephone number, but I work in the fifth company,“ he says with a laugh.
He stays here so long, because energetic isn’t subject to large crises and experts make a good salary. „I would say that I have credit, because people believe me. I have certainty that they won’t fire me,“ he says.
The company closes about five contracts per year. The first four boilers they built in the Czech Republic, the others they develop or retrofit throughout the world. It means that Mr. Hudeček often flies to other continents. „This is a satisfactory feeling that I’m respected and an important person, but it takes huge responsibility,“ comments Hudeček.
In 1993 he was in the United States in the state of Connecticut. „For me it was strange that they measure there in miles and inches, I had to convert it all,“ he says.
Hudeček also visited China. He was there about eighty kilometers from Shanghai, where the company has the factory. „I felt there deaf and dumb, because I don‘t know Chinese,“ he says. The inscriptions are mostly the Chinese characters and the people can’t speak English. „People are honest, friendly,“ he notes but he complained about the smog and a lot of cars, bikes and mopeds.
Now, before him it discovered another big contract with Brazil in Sao Paolo. He was there in this year and at the end of November he flew there to finish some details. Of course, this is a business trip, for which he needs a few days to prepare, but also on the other hand it‘s a nice trip. He has one thing to do and doesn‘t have to deal with a lot of telephone calls and emails.
„I know how a tropical rainforest looks like,” he says, „I read and heard about it, but until that person sees it with their own eyes, he can‘t offer their own opinion.“
Another big contract will be in Russia near the Black Sea. In the Austrian company, where he works, the main language is English and Hudeček now begins to re-learn Russian, which he learned at school.
„I have a plan to stay in this position as long as possible,” he says. “I’ll raise my successor and then I‘ll hand over my group of calculation boilers. Then I‘ll have a good feeling that the work will continue the way it should.”