October 1, 2023, is a day worth celebrating for Vagn Kristiansen who can commemorate his 40-year work anniversary at Stansomatic as Technical Sales Manager where no two days are alike. This has made the past 40 years fly by.
Vagn is a valuable employee who has shown a lot of flexibility and readiness for change and who has helped solve many of our customer’s challenges.
He is respected for his knowledge, expertise, and friendly approach to people, projects and tasks. Vagn is a great coworker – always helpful and always with a smile on his lips.
A lot has happened since Vagn’s first workday at Stansomatic in 1983. He was the driving force behind the CAD project in 1988 when Stansomatic started using CAD as one of the first in the industry and was part of the management group for a large number of years.
He started as the first tool designer in the once-small R&D department and since then, the number of customers, machines and coworkers has increased significantly.
An exciting job offer drew him to Stansomatic
Back in the day, Vagn was headhunted for an exciting job and since he already had a positive impression of Stansomatic, he chose to accept the job offer. And it certainly has been exciting as the technical field and the company have progressed tremendously during the time Vagn has been here.
»I’ve always been involved in designing parts with our customers. I remember my first project was designing power rails for cable drums. Developing/adapting parts to fit the customer’s needs combined with our production setup also plays an important role today. Utilizing all our competencies, the customer achieves an optimized price and functionality,« he explains.
»Vagn was our first tool designer and besides a good portion of creative skills, he only needed a drawing board, a desk and a chair. Back then he wasn’t just a tool designer - he held multiple roles and participated in exhibitions and customer visits.«
- Søren Bahnsen, CEO and coworker for 17 years
Problem solver
Having been at Stansomatic for 40 years, Vagn has seen both ups and downs, but his highlights are characterized by machine investments and new customers. Vagn remembers e.g., when we bought our first Haulick press in 1993 and that we landed several big customers in the 90’s and 00’s. He also mentions 2006 and 2012 as memorable years when we made contact with the first customers in the medical sector and 2012, when we introduced insert molding to our production setup.
Vagn enjoys his job as there are always new challenges when working with technology and design. Vagn has also become the R&D department’s problem solver, handling the more difficult projects.
»People come to me for good advice if they have problems with a task. I like figuring out how to solve such tasks,« he says with a smile.


Senior employee policy
At Stansomatic, we believe in workplaces where everyone can thrive – and for that reason, we’ve implemented a senior policy that allows Vagn to work part-time while still handling important tasks in the company.
“There’s always been plenty of challenges and the learning curve was steep so I’ve never felt the need to look for challenges elsewhere,” Vagn says.
So far, Vagn has been in this job for 40 years and his positive attitude towards changes has made a positive impact on the company. Every day he focuses on passing on all his knowledge and nuggets of wisdom to R&D Manager, Stig Horsted, who has already taken on personnel responsibilities in the tool design department and taken over project management.
The work anniversary is celebrated at a closed reception on October 27, 2023.