Santiago was unusually warm for the season and its buildings and landscapes shone in all splendor. We came to Chile with the idea of visiting dear friends and clients who have accompanied our Magazine since its beginnings and meeting others in person.
It was a very encouraging experience to meet businesspersons in a fantastic good mood and willing to collaborate in everything necessary.
Although the construction industry has not returned to the 7% of 10 years ago, previous to the pandemic, nobody complains. Quite the opposite.
We met with Eng. Rosa Tapia, the woman who runs one of the most important companies in Chile, Ingelift Ingeniería Transporte Vertical Ltda. based in the commune of Macul.
She invited us to a coffee at the emblematic Cenco Costanera mall, better known as Costanera Center, a seven-story, 300-store shopping complex, the largest in South America, located in the elegant commune of Providencia.
It was a fascinating chat with this brilliant woman, the only mechanical engineer in her class, who entered the University of Santiago with a second-grade point average.
Today, her company, with more than 100 employees, serves 400 escalators of the giant Chilean Group Cencosud, one of the most important ones Ingelift serves, as well as hundreds of elevators from the same Group, distributed throughout the country. Ingelift has the first category of installation, which means they have completed more than 100 projects and are qualified to install all kinds of lifting equipment, and they do this in high-rise buildings. Still, Ingelift has major projects to be carried out shortly.
While we were holding an interesting conversation, Don Victor Montenegro Gueiza, the owner of SOTECSA S.A., a leading company in the Fifth Region, Valparaiso, traveled to meet us from their headquarters in Viña del Mar.
Don Victor, and his partner Patricio Lofat Castillo, share the tasks of SOTECSA, where also works part of Don Victor’s family. SOTECSA is a company that covers almost all of Chile from Viña del Mar where they have their workshops and warehouse, passing through Santiago where the Head Office is located, and the North where they have an office based in Iquique for the entire region.
Without a doubt, Don Victor and Rosa compete in different specialties of the activity, but they love each other very much, and we can attest to that. “Rosita and I love each other a lot”, says Don Victor in good Chilean. “We went to China together, to the great We Expo Exhibition”, he says. They had not seen each other for a year and the joy of the reunion was evident. SOTECSA maintains about 1,000 elevators, which is the product of the evolution of a company run by people with long experience in vertical transport. Both are very satisfied, with a lot of work and projects.
They talked about everything, not only elevators do man lives on. Family, pets, travel, and their plots in the countryside where they plant fruit, and walnut trees and enjoy their weekends, were part of this talk with these two very affectionate friends.
Rosa had to leave for her company, which was being audited by a certifying body. However, the meeting went on a delicious lunch in the company of Don Victor and his partner Don Patricio Lofat.
With Patricio, the talk turned to the evolution of the industry in Chile, where years ago multinational companies had the lead, something that has been changing significantly in terms of installation and maintenance. It does not happen the same with the minimal manufacturing of components, since the spare parts imported from abroad, especially China, are much more profitable for them not only economically but also in bureaucratic terms. Importing from these countries is very simple for them.
The next day we had the honor of receiving a visit from young Nicolás Boroschek from the Georgia Kt Company.
Nicolás’ father is an important seismic engineer who has created an Eqrelé brand seismic switch.
It is a self-contained electronic device, which allows the activation and deactivation of electronic systems through an internal relay.
The switch allows, for example, the rapid stopping of an elevator and other actions defined by the system operator. The device has a series of differential advantages concerning others manufactured in Japan, which activates very easily by any vibration, something undesirable that does not happen with the Eqrelé seismic switch. This company has been interested in advertising this product for the Chilean industry in Revista del Ascensor, and now the time has come to do it.
It was a coincidence that Nicolás’s aunt, the Argentine journalist Fanny Polimeni, had worked in the publishing house that has been publishing Revista del Ascensor for 28 years.
It was a pleasant surprise for both of us to find out and we are pleased with the unexpected link that further cements the relationship with the Chileans. Time began to be scarce in Santiago due to the Halloween festivities and the Day of the Dead on November 1. However, we still had the opportunity to communicate by phone with more friends and acquaintances of our magazine.
That was the case with the company Sertec Ascensores Ltda., also located in the metropolitan commune of San Miguel, Santiago. Sertec is the company into which Don Pedro Gutiérrez pours his long experience in the sector. Its client portfolio is wide and varied: residential buildings, universities, health centers, government departments, large companies, etc. Sertec Ascensores participated in the specialized press release on the Chilean elevator industry, published some time ago in Revista del Ascensor.
The list goes on, and that confirms once again the close relationship between Chilean companies and Revista del Ascensor, achieved along years of work and communication developed with effort and dedication.
The reality of Chile is that of a country that has grown a lot, with order and planning. Hence, naturally, its vertical transport fleet is growing steadily.
If there is one thing that Revista del Ascensor has always had, it is a vocation for delivery, service, and closeness to all of Latin America. It is not for nothing that it is the most well known independent journalistic medium with the greatest reach throughout the continent. We care about the actors in this industry, what they do, how they do it, and why they do it.
All of these friendly companies and others that will join us will be present in a special edition of Ascensores Chilenos in our next edition N° 188, with more interesting information, and many novelties, to give us an example of how to work with tenacity, effort, desire for progress and above all, a lot of humility.
