A company was established near Bologna at the end of the 70s
that managed to affirm its position in the engineering sector right from the
start in an innovative way. With five thousand clients and over ten thousand
projects completed in fifty years of business, Electra deals with the design
and installation of civil and industrial plants. It also offers a wide range of
services to the construction industry besides being a single, competent and
reliable partner for global maintenance services. For FARE INSIEME, Giampaolo
Colletti interviews Micol Maestrini, today’s General Manager of Electra
by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
Photocredit: Giacomo Maestri e Francesca Aufiero
Have you ever heard of hunger to do? That healthy obsession to
mark one’s time, when you try to create a path, a career, a life from scratch?
So, to tell the story of Electra - company operating on the Emilia-Romagna and
North Italy market, designing, installing and servicing electrical, special and
plumbing and heating plants - we have to start from that hunger to do. It all begins with Costantino Maestrini, an
electrician trained at a very young age. An expert, enthusiastic and energetic
entrepreneur. One of the many artisan entrepreneurs that decided to start their
companies in the years straddling the Economic Boom and the following crisis
between the Sixties and Seventies.
The
strength of the pioneers. In his early twenties, Costantino Maestrini, after
his apprenticeship as an electrician, courageously decided to launch his own
business, along with his wife. While he dealt with the management of the
work-sites, she managed the administrative and human resources side of the
business. But Costantino looked ahead. And created a technical office and hired
electrical engineers. From the outset the idea was to think big: already in the
early 80s he had formed a design team with two young and dynamic project
managers and a surveyor. This allowed him to operate on the market as a single
point of contact for public and private bodies. The focus of the supply was
initially electrical and special installations, including panel boards, but
soon extended its reach also to mechanical plants and construction works. And
more. Costantino and his team won major tenders: there was the construction of
the Villaggio della Speranza at Villa Pallavicini in Bologna, the design of the
electrical installation for the residential complex in Borgo Masini close to
Bologna’s railway station and, again, the work for the paediatric surgery
department at the Maggiore hospital in Parma, to which he gave his heart and
soul. “From the outset my father thought big, was ahead of the times, reasoned
within a team logic. At that time not everyone was so forward-thinking as to
set up an in-house technical office and an office devoted to the management of
tenders. My father, who passed away in 2020, had an extra gear,” says Micol
Maestrini, today's General Manager of Electra. Electra works mainly in the
sector of contracts with the Public Administration. And to do this in an
effective way you need know-how, professionalism and attention to detail. In
1977 the headquarters were in Casteldebole, but they were soon moved to Via del
Lavoro, in the new industrial centre of Casalecchio di Reno, third most
populous metropolitan area and which many other companies moved to over the
years. And the construction of that area was the dream of a group of
entrepreneurs interested in setting up their activities there. Costantino was
one of those entrepreneurs. Today, as in the past, Electra works for numerous
public entities and private companies in the design, installation and
maintenance of civil and industrial plants and in construction works with over
ten thousand projects completed over almost fifty years of work.
Today and tomorrow's challenges Electra has 13
employees and a turnover of approx. 3 million euros. It looks ahead, without
ever stopping. Hunger to do, we said
at the start. So, also with the second generation at the helm of the company
nothing has changed. And Electra Global Service was born, the brand that
expresses the strategic positioning on the market as a single, experienced and
reliable partner. «Right from the start I began working on relations with
clients, suppliers, partners and potential stakeholders, on monitoring the
ever-evolving market and on the best strategies to adopt to continue providing
excellent solutions in step with the new frontiers of technological innovation.
However, everything starts from the people, the beating heart of the company.
That's why I pushed to improve the operating processes and methods and to
promote professional training and development,” says Maestrini. Environmental
and social sustainability, the importance of the ethical and social values of
work, maintaining high quality standards and appropriate levels of safety of
the personnel are fundamental in Electra's global strategic vision as is the
diffusion of a culture of transparent and ethical business practices with all
the stakeholders. Today, within the context of the technological plants, the
new generation is represented by co- and trigeneration, while in electrical
engineering it is represented by photovoltaic systems with storage and by home
automation. And Electra is here too. “We
make detailed and precise assessments and propose solutions oriented towards
energetic and environmental sustainability, in line with the new frontiers of
technology in the sector,” says Maestrini with pride. As Adriano Olivetti said:
“A dream remains a dream until you start to work on it. And then it can become
something infinitely greater”.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
Read the other interviews
