Any idea what event is going to be the most important one in 2019? You probably hover between the first picture of a black hole, the end of the Game of Throne echelons and the BREXIT. You are wrong anyway – at least from my point of view – and, yes, I do confess it’s a mean question in a company’s newsletter. Of course it is related to this company – and it is…. ChiroBlock’s 20th birthday!

Why is that worth MENTIONING? Hold on! Haven’t you even CELEBRATED your 20th birthday? Why celebrate the 20th turn of circling around the sun? It’s because many things change during such a time span (interestingly enough, the sun’s face does not – on neither side) and not everyone has bought a ticket for so many turns. So, an anniversary is a good opportunity to check what remained constant, what did vanish or appear and how does the birthday boy (girl, it) looks and feels? To come to the point: ChiroBlock has just reached majority age, feels healthy and strong and is going to ask the booking clerk for a couple of additional rounds.

Yes, many things have changed in the course of 20 ChiroBlock years: The hair colour of the founders, the numbers of customers, employees, completed projects, in- and outbound bills, complaints and accolades - both the counter of our electricity meter and that of our coffee maker – the ways of communicating, the political landscape, chemical technology, the market and the competition… - so any constants though? Yes, (surprisingly) indeed – there are (what a coincidence) exactly THREE rocks in the blustery ocean of time: ChiroBlock’s formal DNA, the field of our activities and the spirit of the ChiroBlock people.

When we gave birth to our juristic person 20 years ago, we did not know much about markets, competition and nurturing a company. But we have been following nature’s recipe of survival from day one on: The right balance between constants on the one hand and adaptions to new conditions on the other hand. So, we permanently took care that our baby kept learning new facts, tasting unknown food and exploring new territories. But we carefully prevented it from following false friends or alluring siren’s melodies and from consuming too many sweets.

Many temptations had to be overcome: investments into soap bubble trends like “microwave chemistry” or “synthesis on a chip”, synthesizing commodities, becoming a catalogue vendor of chemicals, lending synthetic workforce to customers, abandon chemistry for biotechnology, getting dependent from a few large clients, quit own R&D, riding the wave of publicly funded research projects just as a business model, colouring the founder’s hair, showcasing results instead of really generating them… and/or just denying ChiroBlock’s identity as a chemical R&D company.

This has been – and definitely will remain – our constant field of activity. When we started 20 years ago, we were told: Chemistry is a technology of the past: hardly 20th century, let alone part of the 21st! Today, chemistry is seen as key for addressing all huge issues of mankind: climate, materials, medicine, energy and electronics. Even new, sexy, chemistry related terms were coined: “Green Chemistry”, “Smart Chemistry” or the international terminus “Chemiewende” with German roots! Is there any better ennoblement for a start-up of 1999 than getting told the perception of its business idea has transformed from bane to boon over the years? (Obviously, the founders either had access to Warren Buffet’s crystal ball or just share his visionary and analytical mind…)

The owners of the company are another (relative) constant of the birthday “it”. “Relative” because they undoubtedly had bought a finite (yet unknown) number of sun-cycling tickets as their wrinkles and (missing) hair may tell. Their everlasting imprints in ChiroBlock’s DNA, however, are other cornerstones for this baby’s hopefully promising future: independence from third parties, a strategic rather than a tactical prospective (we do like marathons and not sprints), staff ownership and management, having fun with – and interest in – WHAT is done rather than with (and in) short-term financial figures.

That’s the link to the third constant: the passion of our team. They work with ChiroBlock because they share these attitudes and values. They are gifted scientists and technicians. They don’t come to work just to get their hobbies financed but they opted for pursuing their interests at work and consequently – additionally - getting rewarded financially as a result of their passion. This staff’s attitude safeguards the right balance between constants and changes. It makes sure that ChiroBlock’s DNA gets decoded at the right position, gets deciphered in a way that meets the ever changing challenges of synthetic chemistry, of forming and breaking inter-atomic bonds aiming at new molecules of the (nearly) endless chemical space.

With such a potentially infinite product and service scope, with such a balance between conservatism and progress, mediated by skilled human beings, our juristic birthday person should – and could - live for many further years to come. Isn’t that reason enough for both congratulations and optimism? Happy birthday to you: ChiroBlock! Keep cycling around our central star! You may never exit this ellipse, never collide with a black hole, never face Stories of Ice and Fire…

I would like to thank your customers and the staff on your behalf! The latter make you think and act, the former pay the bills. And me? The hair turned grey – an unmistakable sign of age but also for wisdom! So, why to colour it? I will stand by you and continue spreading my growing wisdom for the benefit of your development :-). See you in 20 years, next pit stop, next party!