Hain gives credit to CEO Udo Ungeheuer for mentoring him during these years. “He influenced me very much because at the beginning I did not have a specific direction for my long-term career. He specifically challenged me. He was really demanding on people (Ungeheuer translates into English as “monster”), but he also gave a lot of opportunities. When he saw that somebody did a good job, he promoted them. He most influenced my professional life.”
RECREATION LESSON LEARNED
After stepping away from Schott, in 2010 Hain became executive VP of Rosen Group in Switzerland. The company tests, inspects, and certifies infrastructure, such as pipelines, for the global energy industry and he worked there until 2023 when he was named CEO of Reiser Simulation+Training, returning to beautiful Bavaria where he grew up. He almost provokes this writer’s envy when says, “I’m sitting here in one of our conference rooms on a beautiful, clear day and I can see the mountain range outside the window.” (Maybe he will break a leg on those majestic mountains when he engages in his hobbies of skiing and mountain biking! Forgive my schadenfreude.)
The chance of that injury happening, which for the record we don’t wish on an executive who gave us an hour of his time, is a slight risk because of limited exposure. Hain said, “I try to do something like [ski]
Yet, he more somberly remembers a crisis as managing director of Schott Solar when their emerging industry could have been mistaken for dead. After 20 years, he well recalls the lesson learned from that event. Read and learn:
“The solar industry was just starting, and Germany was a big player. We were worried about government support and growing our customer base and focused on those issues, but what we really overlooked and missed, as an industry, was whether there was enough silicon in our supply line to manufacture our product. There wasn’t nearly enough when solar took off. It got to the point when silicon manufacturers offered to build a plant if we guaranteed to buy their production for the next five years—paid in advance!
“The industry got turned upside down because nobody thought to ask the basic question about our supply chain. We all just assumed there would be enough silicon because the solar industry was starting so small, but we outgrew our supply chain fast. We couldn’t grow our solar business because we overlooked a most basic question. I guess my only comfort is that it happened to all the companies because nobody asked. I learned that when you are responsible for a business you have to really look at everything around, 360 degrees, all at the same time.”
360-DEGREE VIEW
These days, Hain’s head is on a 360-degree swivel, and the CEO sees opportunity and emerging technology issues for Reiser. “Our
greatest opportunity is 16 Sept/Oct 2026 that aviation industry is growing compared
once a week because my wife tells me I have to do something to stretch and not get stiff, but if I try to do it more than once a week, I don’t have the time.”
Hain does find time for less injury-prone pursuits, such as his current reading of a biography on Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and he has a guilty pleasure—watching Monty Python’s twisted comedy. Hain fondly recalls the movie scene from the Holy Grail, “I’m not dead yet!”
to other industries. Here in Germany the aerospace growth rate for last year was 7% to 8%. The more the industry grows, the more you need simulation and training for it,” he said.
Also, he sees another growth opportunity— if it is used appropriately: artificial intelligence. “We’ve tried to avoid putting AI (within)everything, just because we have it. There’s a German saying ‘when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’ We’re using AI in software development to simplify coding. We can also use it in developing flight models, but you have to be very careful because in the end AI needs to tell you where it is getting its data from. It needs to follow valid flight physics.
“I think where AI is going to be most helpful is in monitoring the trainee in a simulation—to see where he or she is looking and focusing. Then, it can compile that information for the flight instructor to review. Another step further where AI may be useful is to adapt sessions tailored to a specific trainee. So, you wouldn’t have one-size-fits-all training. A trainee may have acquired certain skills and need more work on other ones. AI could be a tool to adapt that trainee’s sessions to work on his or her weaker skills to create more efficient training.”
the
While aviation training technology rapidly advances, just as technology is changing other industries, Hain has found something unique about the rotorcraft industry after his past in other industries. He said, “What’s unique is the longevity of the products. It’s unique to other industries how long some of the platforms, such as the Black Hawks and Skycranes, have been around.” Hain has been around the world in a long and varied career. Compared to other sectors, helicopters stand out—as do rotorcraft industry leaders.
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