Since February of this year Arno, who originally comes from Vorarlberg, has been Head of Infrastructure Management at the Linz and Vienna-based employer tmc. Arno talks extensively and with great enthusiasm about his new job and the two teams that have now been united in his hands. Arno also shares details about his great passion free diving with us, which he took up during his doctoral studies in Manchester, UK, in 2012.
From theory to practice
Arno’s professional career is already very exciting. For his PhD studies in civil engineering, the trained mathematician even travelled to Manchester and Paris. There he focussed on the “simulation of fluids” and worked on mainframe computers to further develop the very computationally intensive, grid-free method that allows free surfaces in motion to be better measured. Following his studies, Arno worked for two years at the University of Bodenkultur (Boku) in Vienna and then decided to switch to a start-up, where he programmed for the simulation of particles. With his move to tmc Arno as a team leader now programms less and manages more, as he says with a laugh.
Extensive field of activity at tmc
The mix of hardware and software as well as working on the promising future of rail transport really appealed to him at the Linz-based company tmc. With great enthusiasm Arno now explains what his infrastructure team, which consists of six employees in Linz and six in India, does. Track surveying via marker position scanning from surrounding masts, laser scanners that are attached to trains and scan the surroundings, light-space scanning, direct surveying of the tracks for damage or obstacles and subsequent data processing are just a few examples of their tasks. They are also working hard on embedding the Infrastructure Team’s data in the shared operating system tmOS.
Dancer and enthusiastic free diver
Arno is also a very enthusiastic person in his free time. On the one hand, he has been dancing Latin and Standard dances with his wife for over ten years now, for which they train weekly. On the other hand, Arno has been a passionate freediver since 2012 and is now also very involved in this sport in Austria.
Arno explains that he used to go scuba diving, but discovered freediving through a random YouTube video. While still a student in Manchester he looked for an instructor and has remained enthusiastic about this sport ever since. In Austria freediving primarily takes place in pools; he trains mostly in Maria Enzersdorf in Lower Austria. Before joining tmc Arno took a month off in Tenerife in January this year where he also trained as a freediving instructor. He proudly reports that he has already taught his first student.
Committed to the sport
Arno is Vice President of the Austrian Freediving Association and also Deputy Sports Director of the Freediving Association of Lower Austria. Arno also organises various Austrian freediving competitions, such as the Austrian championship or the “Hydro-Dynamic Competition”, which he and a colleague took over in 2019 and have continued to run very successfully.
Arno explains that perhaps 200 to 300 people freedive in Austria and around 50 do it competitively. The sport, which involves diving without a compressed air tank, is therefore still more of a niche sport. There are usually four different competitions, whereby a distinction is made between “simple” air-holding under water and other competitions in which the longest possible distances are dived with different types of fins.
Sometimes competitions are also held in lakes, where you dive along a rope into the depths. On the question of pressure equalization Arno tells us that from a depth of 30 metres the lungs compress to the size of an orange, as there is no pressure equalization by continuing to breathe using a scuba tank. But the human body, like all mammals, can also descend to much greater depths with the organs performing incredibly well.
If any of you are now as enthusiastic and interested in the sport of freediving as we are, you are welcome to contact Arno directly via LinkedIn and ask him any questions you may have.
You can find a very impressive video about freediving at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQITWbAaDx0&pp=ygUNYmFzZWp1bXAgbmVyeQ%3D%3D and further information about this fascinating sport can be found for example at https://aidainternational.org/ or https://www.aida-austria.at/
Even as a team leader at tmc, a good work-life balance leaves enough time for extraordinary hobbies! Thank you for this in-depth interview and the insights into freediving, Arno! We wish you all the best for your future at tmc and much success with your hobby.
Become part of our tmc team and check out our vacancies now or follow us on LinkedIn for regular updates. We look forward to welcoming more enthusiastic people to our tmc family!
