Walter Werner was born on 21^st of September 1943. In 1965 he attended a basic course for blasting operation and got his shotfirer licence. He studied business administration in Cologne. From 1970 he worked together with his father in their own company. This was a company for demolition of buildings including blasting operation. In 1977 he took over management of the company which carried out the first blasting demolition of a skyscraper in Germany in Hamburg. Since 1980 Walter also worked as an official expert for blasting demolition. From 1981 to 1997 he was the president of German Blasting association. In 1988 he comes up with idea to form a European Blasting Organization.

As a result of this idea EFEE was founded in fall of 1988 and he was the first president of EFEE. Walter was also father of reunion of the east and west part of the German Blasting organizations. From 2006 to 2010 he was the president of the German Demolition Association.  He also worked as an EFEE Board member for a long time and was responsible for the election and audit committee.

Raimo Vuolio was born on 9th September 1936 and passed away 16th June 2023 at the age of 86. He studied metallurgy and mining in Helsinki University of Technology, in 1964 (MSc.). In 1965 he got his master shotfirer licence.  He followed his education path with Helsinki University of Technology in 1978 (LicSc.) and in 1990 (DSc.). From 1964 until 1970 Raimo worked as a Supervisor of explosives and later as a Blasting consultant. His employment continued with the company OY FINNROCK AB in 1970, when the company was founded. From 1970 until 1974 his position was Technical Manager and from 1974 until 2001 Managing Director. He was focused on two main business areas – Blast Design and Blasting Consulting. During his years in Finnrock, Raimo, was involved in most urban area blasting projects in Finland. Some examples of very challenging urban area projects where Raimo has been involved during his employment in FINNROCK:

• Finnish Parliament House excavation (Helsinki, Finland 1975)
• City Forum excavations – shopping center  (Helsinki, Finland 1982 – 1984)
• Hotel Scandic in city center (Helsinki, Finland 1998)

From 2002, after retirement from FINNROCK, his business career continued in KALLIOTEKNIIKKA CONSULTING ENGINEERS OY where he worked as a Special consultant in charge of supervising demanding projects and blast designs. Some examples of very challenging urban area projects where Raimo was involved during his employment in Kalliotekniikka:

• Kampi Center – shopping center, central bus terminal (Helsinki, Finland 2002 – 2004)
• Helsinki Music Center excavation (Helsinki, Finland 2007-2008)
• Kehärata – ring rail road Helsinki center to Helsinki-Vantaa airport excavation (Helsinki, Finland 2008-2012)

Raimo also contributed considerably to many other large projects for example – Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant, Vuosaari harbour project Helsinki, Vuoli railway tunnels Helsinki, Helsinki metro tunnels, Länsimetro tunnels and US embassy rock blasting. He has published hundreds of articles in books and papers and also issued textbooks of excavation and blasting. He has lectured in blasting technique in several different technical schools and universities. Raimo was also an examiner of shotfirers authorized by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. Raimo took part in the founding meeting of EFEE in 1988 and was one of founding members together with Walter Werner. He was the president of EFEE in 1997-1998.

Björn Jonsson went to Bergsskolan in Filipstad, Sweden, in his young years and became a mining engineer.

Björn held a whole host of senior positions within the industry and started his career at Grängesberg (iron ore mines) in 1959 and moved to Liberia in 1960 for Lamco, Liberian American Co, mining project, where Gränges had a joint venture company with Atlas Copco. He stayed in Liberia for four years before he moved back to Sweden and continued in Boliden as a mining engineer. After two years in Boliden he moved back to his hometown Örnsköldsvik and started at Hägglunds & Söner´s mining machine division with a lot of international assignments for a period of nine years.

He then started at Nitro Nobel 1975 where he was marketing manager until he became CEO of Nitro Consult in 1981. He held this position until retirement in 1997.

Within EFEE, Björn was one of the pioneers in the 1980s and sat on the board and was its President between 1993-1994. He was for many years also a member of the Swedish national blasting organization Bergsprängningskommitten and thus represented Sweden in EFEE.

Rolf Schillinger is a leading expert in the blasting field with international recognition in the explosive and blasting industry.

In addition, he is a lecturer in blasting techniques in Germany and Austria. He was a former member of the study group for Blasting Vibrations in Germany from 1992 until 1996. He has been a member of the Technical Scientific Society, Mining Association of Austria, since 1997 and was a lecturer for blasting techniques at the Department of Mineral Resources & Petroleum Engineering University of Leoben, Austria, from 1996 until 2011, and guest lecturer at the Department of Mineral Resources & Petroleum Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, in 2013.

He has conducted numerous official environmental expertise tasks commissioned by authorities, insurers, underground mines and quarries in the field of blasting works and blasting vibrations.

Rolf has also authored more than 100 technical papers in the field of blasting works, blasting vibrations and environmental protection. He has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the German Society of Explosives Engineers from 1995 until 1999, and as the President of the EFEE from 1998 until 2000. At this time, he was the organiser of the 1st World Conference on Blasting Techniques, in Munich in 2000.

During this time, his main activities were concentrated around Safety and Environment and International Affairs.

According to Rolf, the philosophy for the great circle of success is based on:
Consulting – Conception – Implementation – Customer Liaison and support in Continuous Improvement.

• 1970 Blasting license surface. Independent contractor since 1972.
• 1980 Blasting license underground.
• 1989-1998 EFEE Board (European Federation Explosives Engineers).
• 1995-1999 DSV Board of Directors (German Engineers Association).
• 1998-2000 EFEE President and Organizer of the 1st World Congress for Blasting Technology, Munich, 2000.
• 1996-2003 ISEE Board of Directors (International Society of Explosives Engineers).
• 1996-2003 Chairman International ISEE Committee on Safety and Environment and International Affairs.
• 2003 International Society of Explosives Engineer’s Award for serving on the Board of Directors.

There aren’t many members in our association that actively contributed to the development of the EFEE board for over two decades. One of those members, Heinz Berger, has been a member of the EFEE board since 2002. A milestone in his EFEE career is EFEE presidency which ran from 2003 to 2005 and the successful 3rd EFEE world conference on explosives and blasting in Vienna.

Furthermore Heinz had an instrumental role as the head and chairman of the conference committee and worked towards the worldwide acknowledgement of the EFEE world conferences on explosives and blasting which continue to be successful and growing semi-annual events. The EFEE world conference has established itself as a successful and valuable symposium in explosives and blasting by the combined efforts of the conference committee and Heinz’.

Outside EFEE Heinz was also the President of the Austrian blasting association for more than twenty years during which the number of members in the association increased from 1500 to 7000. Heinz initiated a special insurance agreement for members of the association as well as permission to hold official shot firer education, to mention just a few of his achievements. As President of the Austrian association he had close contact with many international blasting associations and attended almost all of their national conferences.

Karl Kure was awarded an Honorary Membership of EFEE for the superb work and achievements carried out as Chairman of the Shotfiring Committee.

Karl joined the Shotfiring Committee and took over as chairman in 2006. He has worked tirelessly to develop the European Shotfiring Certificate, based on National training and certification, to the PECCS education and exam system. Karl led EFEE into ESSEEM and the work carried out by the committees resulted in developing the PECCS training and certification scheme. This provides the syllabus for necessary training standards of the ‘EFEE Education System’ leading to the ‘Pan European Competence Certificate for Shotfirers and Blast Designers’. Karl also contributed directly to the content, writing the chapter focusing on Blasting close to existing structures.

The first PECCS course and examination successfully took place in Stockholm in 2020. Whilst many people worked hard to develop the system it was Karl Kure as chairman of the Shotfiring Committee who provided the drive and enthusiasm to achieve their goal. Karl’s working career spans a diverse range of roles including research scientist, explosives distributor, blasting expert, an active contributor in The Norwegian Tunneling Society (Norsk Forening for Fjellsprengningsteknikk – NFF), a conference presenter and a member of several sub committees. He was central to the revision of national blaster’s certification in the 1990s. He has always had a strong enthusiasm for sharing/spreading knowledge on safe blasting across country borders and was awarded honorary membership of NFF in 2013.

Roger Holmberg was born in Umeå, Sweden, in 1948. He graduated from Umeå University in 1972 and started as a research engineer at Nitro Nobel, Alfred Nobel’s first company. He then moved to the Swedish Detonic Research Foundation in 1974, first as a research engineer but was subsequently promoted to R&D Director and Vice President. He held other important positions during his many years in the company. He continued as R&D Manager for Dyno Nobel’s Initiation System, DNIS, after Dyno Nobel bought Nitro Nobel in 1995. During his time at Nitro Nobel he was a key member of the research team who invented the Nonel system for non-electric initiation. Dyno Nobel was acquired by Orica in 2006 and Roger continued as Global Conventional IS Technology Manager for a further 2 years until 2008.

Roger has been a loyal member of EFEE for over 25 years and represented Sweden in The Swedish Rock blasting committee, where he was also the president for 10 years during 1997-2007. In EFEE he served as a member of the board for 5 years between 2003-2008 and as President during 2006-2008 and as General Secretary for 15 years 2008-2023. Roger has been an essential part of EFEE administration for 20 years.

Roger has also been a loyal member of ISEE, the International Society of Explosive Engineers, for many years and he contributed lectures and submissions to the organization’s development. Roger was recently awarded for Distinguished Service by ISEE in 2022.

Roger has authored, co-authored and edited many books, publications and lectures that have been instrumental to the development of the industry. Most famously he co-authored ‘Rock Blasting and Explosives Engineering’ and has headed the technical committee, editing eight specialist EFEE World Conference proceedings. Roger has contributed his specialist knowledge to the development of the explosives industry.