In March 2019, Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Werner Kaßner celebrated his 75th birthday in Dresden.
He has been enjoying his professional retirement for some time now, but looks back fondly on his more than 45 years of interesting electroplating work. During this period, electroplating technology has also undergone decisive developments and changes in which he was able to participate and contribute. For example, after his apprenticeship as an electroplater at the former VEB Galvanotechnik Leipzig, a lot of manual work still dominated. Soon, mechanical electroplating machines were increasingly used and the decorative and corrosion-protective application of the layers dominated, which was accompanied in particular by the rise of bright nickel plating with a leveling effect and its application in multiple layers with the final micro-cracked chrome plating. The first industrial applications of electroplating plastics and the increasing use of electroplating in the manufacture of printed circuit boards expanded the significance of electroplating processes. At the same time, technological development meant that the use and treatment of water, general recycling and ecological adaptation became key components of modern processes.
After studying surface engineering in Dresden, Werner Kaßner worked in production and development in the camera and electronics industry. The continuing customer trend towards coatings with low costs and uncompromising quality assurance was realized in the industry in an application-oriented manner through the development of coatings and coating combinations with new property profiles, but also required target-oriented advice for users to solve problems.
problem-solving also required targeted advice for users. Werner Kaßner took on this task with a focus on corrosion protection through many years of work at the Central Office for Corrosion Protection Dresden (now the Institute for Corrosion Protection Dresden) and from 1990 until his retirement in the field at HSO Solingen.
Werner Kaßner has been married for 50 years and has two sons. One of them has trained as an electroplater and, after studying materials technology, has also returned to electroplating.
Werner Kaßner has dedicated a second level of his professional life to association work. Formerly in the Chamber of Technology (KDT), from 1990 in the German Society for Electroplating and Surface Technology (DGO), from 1991-1994 on its board and 1997-2002 as DGO district group leader Dresden, as well as co-organizer of the Leipzig technical seminar. In 2005, he was awarded the DGO badge of honor for his voluntary work
