ROZHOVOR
Mrs Halfarová, it is still quite unusual to
meet a woman at the top management of
an engineering company. What is the story
of your family enterprise?
There are two storylines here: one is the
story of my husband Pavel, who founded
IPH, and the other is the story of Yvona.
My husband’s story starts in January 1994,
when he established a company to provide
advisory services in engineering and
energies. He had already had five years
of experience in the field and believed
that creating technological procedures
to repair or upgrade devices to work more
efficiently would be a very prospective
business. The first clients were companies
producing cellulose and paper and, step
by step, he acquired clients operating
in energies.
My story begins with me being a wife and
educator at an elementary school. I wanted
to provide the best support to my husband
when he started his enterprise and I was
at home on maternity leave. My husband
got me more and more involved
in company operations: I helped with
administration, economics and human
resources. I found my job rather variable
and most enjoyable. I studied at the Business
Academy and VŠB–Technical University
in Ostrava to upgrade my expert education.
14 ǀ POSITIV 2/2020
This is how our independent stories
became the history of Pavel and Yvona,
husband-and-wife team running the
Halfar family company, IPH. We learnt
to share and divide jobs and responsibilities
in the management: my husband was
responsible for technical, production, and
sales issues, while I processed economics,
finance, and HR.
Our little family company hired more
employees, developed a larger portfolio
of products and services, and built our
company’s premises. In 2011, the company
became the capital company IPH Servis
Morava, s.r.o., and I am currently its
corporate agent.
Your family company has grown out
of a vision: how successful are you in
making that vision come true?
At the start of our enterprise, we had
our dreams, great enthusiasm and had
made the decision to work on interesting
projects. Our vision was to provide services
and solutions with high added value,
to introduce new saving technologies,
innovation and service. We wanted
to cooperate with people who would
enjoy their jobs and find them fulfilling so
that we might together share the values
we cherish.
We expressed that in the name of our
company. I – inovace (innovation),
P – profesionalita (professionality),
H – hospodárnost (efficiency).
After many years in business, I admit that
keeping our values and vision has not
always been all that easy. What matters
is that we have always had a good team
of employees eager to join us in these
efforts. Without such an allegiance, without
the support of all our family, including
both of our children (now adults), further
progress would not be possible. That makes
us very grateful and happy.
The stage of growth undoubtedly brought
an increase of production capacities but
also the introduction of new services on
the market. Who are your current clients
and products?
Nowadays, our clients include power
plants, incineration plants, and cellulose
and paper producers from the Czech and
Slovak Republics. We started advisory
services and solutions in energies and
currently our main activities are in supplies,
assembly, maintenance and compensation
service technologies, smoke dampers,
and technologies cleaning heat transfer
surfaces. We also develop and produce
technological machinery customized for