Salesman braves the cold

Denis Stepanov some­times travels 10,000 kilo­me­tres on a busi­ness trip. He is respon­sible for ebm-papst’s sales in Siberia

Siberia — the word brings to mind huge distances, few people and, above all, bitter cold. And this descrip­tion is entirely accu­rate. The snow cover around the Siberian ebm-papst office in Yeka­ter­in­burg is rather deep as early as late November. However, Stepanov does not let this get in the way of his busi­ness trips. As the only outside sales­person in Siberia, he has to cover an enor­mous sales terri­tory — more specif­i­cally, ebm-papst’s largest in the entire world — by himself. “Of course, my everyday work also includes regular office tasks,” Stepanov relates. “However, I spend about half of my working time on the road.” In Siberia, customer contact is key. From his sales office, Stepanov travels to customer events, product presen­ta­tions and, above all, nego­ti­a­tions.

Stepanov travels as far as Chabarowsk at the Chinese border — 5,000 kilo­me­ters away from his office

To cover all of the customers,

good plan­ning is every­thing. Most of all, this means keeping a close eye on the weather report. One has to be ready for anything: Siberia’s climate ranges from a sweaty 35 degrees Celsius in summer to an unbe­liev­able minus 70 degrees Celsius during the cold season. This extreme range is also encoun­tered within any given season. Siberia includes multiple climate zones, which Stepanov can often feel right on his skin: “At the same time of year, I can wear just a T-shirt here at home, while I have to break out a heavy coat in other loca­tions.”

A different kind of frost protec­tion

Given the often cold surround­ings, it sounds almost para­dox­ical that Stepanov cites ground cooling as one of the most impor­tant projects. “That plays a great role here,” he says. “After all, oil produc­tion is one of the most impor­tant sectors of the Siberian economy.” We can quickly under­stand what that means by looking at the conveyor systems on the north­eastern penin­sula of Taimyr: in winter, the frozen soil thaws quickly, as the crude oil heats up to temper­a­tures as high as 50 degrees Celsius when pumped out of the ground. If the plant falls into the sump thus created, the results are cata­strophic. Exactly that is prevented by cooling machines with centrifugal fans in Green­Tech EC tech­nology, which keep the ground at a constant temper­a­ture around the freezing point, regard­less of the weather.

On his busi­ness trips, Stepanov often has go by plane (left). In Novosi­birsk degrees around minus 19 celsius are quite normal (right)

Projects such as these require Stepanov to drive thou­sands of kilo­me­tres, as Siberia is one of the world’s least densely popu­lated regions, with an average of only three people per square kilo­metre. Accord­ingly, there are only a few major urban areas, with a lot of nothing in between. Novosi­birsk, for example, is about 1,500 kilo­me­tres from Yeka­ter­in­burg, while Vladi­vostok is even 5,000 kilo­me­tres — it would take several days to make the drive by car. These distances do not bother Stepanov much: “I can fly to any region in just a few hours,” he explains.

“To keep the busi­ness trips at least some­what manage­able, I purposely chose Yeka­ter­in­burg as the head­quar­ters.” Russia’s fourth largest city, which will be one of the venues for football’s World Cup in 2018, is located in southern Siberia, a major centre of Russian industry. Only the means of trans­port have not quite kept up with this status. Usually, Stepanov has to make short trips by bus or taxi, which often get caught in Russia’s infa­mous traffic jams. The only Siberian city with an under­ground system is Novosi­birsk, where two Metro lines run. However, improve­ment is in sight, and Stepanov relates proudly how he took on a project for another city’s streetcar system.

Keeping out draughts

“The streetcar company of the city of Irkutsk approached me back then with a problem,” reports Stepanov. The passen­gers had to cope with average outside temper­a­tures as low as –45 degrees Celsius. At every stop, the open doors caused a draught to blast through the wagons, sending a chill through the whole compart­ment in seconds. Even at full power, the heating system was not powerful enough to heat the air by the next stop. The solu­tion: The company took Stepanov’s advice and installed a warm air curtain at each door. This keeps the cold outside. The warm air curtains are acti­vated only when the doors are actu­ally open. This ensures energy effi­ciency. Since the instal­la­tion, feed­back from passen­gers has been entirely posi­tive. Finally, they can take off their hat and gloves in the city train. This also impressed the streetcar manu­fac­turers, who have since made the warm air curtains stan­dard in Siberian cities.

When Stepanov talks about this project, it is easy to tell how much fun he has in his work: “Basi­cally, I am doing the same thing as my many colleagues around the world. Customers come to me with a problem, and we then solve it together.” Despite the massive distances in Siberia, he has a job that allows him to deal with many inter­esting people. “That is a very nice fringe benefit,” he adds.