Temporary joint leadership at IAB: Robert Fetter strengthens management board

Since the beginning of this year, the Institute for Applied Construction Research Weimar gGmbH (IAB) has been jointly headed by Dr.-Ing. Ulrich Palzer, together with Dipl.-Ing. Robert Fetter.

Orderly transition

“This shared management arrangement is temporary,” says Palzer, who will retire from professional life from around the middle of this year, and thus from IAB Management. But he will always continue to have a close bond with the Research Institute. “For this reason, an orderly transition, as smooth as possible, of Institute management to my successor is important,” emphasizes the outgoing Director. Therefore the decision for joint management of the Institute in the coming months was reached.

Until joining the IAB Management Board, Robert Fetter was Division Head of the Thuringian Ministry for Economy, Science and Digital Society. Fetter, with a degree in mechanical engineering, is well acquainted with the fields of research and development involved in his new position.

Great responsibility

“I am very much looking forward to the new tasks and to the challenges connected with them,” says Vetter, who intends to continue the success of his predecessor. He will make use of the coming weeks to become more intensively acquainted with the Institute and its staff. Vetter very well knows that “Construction research has a long tradition and the name IAB is known far beyond the borders of Thuringia.” He is fully aware of the responsibility of the new task assigned to him.

“I am very pleased that we have found such a competent personality as Robert Fetter, who will guide the progress of the Research Institute,” says Jörn Otto, Chairman of the Non-profit Association of the Institute for Applied Construction Research in Weimar e.V. (FIAB). “He has our full confidence for this task, and we wish him a good start with the management of IAB,” continues Otto.