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