Wonder
I traveled to the the small town of Cremona, Italy to photograph the employees of Wonder, a manufacturer that produces tire valves. Wonder’s CEO, Matteo Gosi, decided to make a book featuring portraits of all the employees for the company’s 70th anniversary. Wonder is a family-owned business that prides itself on employing 50% women, many of whom have leadership roles. Most people who work at Wonder only leave when they retire, and spending time at the factory I got a sense of the tight community bond that brings its workers together.
Below are some of the pictures I took, and I’ll be posting many more here in the coming days.
Many thanks to Wonder’s incredibly generous and thoughtful employees.
After 20 years at Wonder, Elisabetta handles Monday mornings like a pro.
Diego has worked at Wonder for the last 12 years.
Mauro is Wonder's health safety and environment manager. I asked him to show me something he's proud of and he immediately got up and took me on a loooooong walk to this little shed that holds a water filter that he designed.
Maurizio designs the automated machines that fabricate most of Wonder's products. Over the years he's created over 10,000 custom parts.
Michela, quality control at Wonder since 1996.
Alberto is the manager of the assembly department at Wonder. In his free time he's an amateur sommelier.
Simone seems to work in every department at Wonder, but his official title is "rubber mixing & degreasing foreman".
Carlo started in finance and sales at Wonder in the early 1970’s. Now he's the company's president.
Stefano is Wonder's technical manager. He finds that studying the classics is a good form of inspiration for new product development.
Half of Wonder's employees are women, many of whom have leadership roles. Nadia is one of them.
Giovanni was 16 years old when he first started working on this old milling machine. Now he manages the entire machine shop at Wonder.
Wonder's youngest female engineer, Monica.
Mauro works in the assembly department at Wonder. He's also a Ferrari aficionado.
Attilio is Wonder's accounting manager.
Giovanni is the grandson of Wonder's founder, Gianni Carutti. He oversees the financial side of the company, but spends his mornings running the family farm.
Paolo is a mechanic, and shift leader in the assembly department at Wonder.
Daniela is shift leader of the manual assembly department.
Marco is Wonder's in-house electrician.
Gabriele began working on a lathe machine at Wonder over 40 years ago. Now he’s the senior technical specialist & gage department leader.
Matteo, Wonder's CEO, with his daughter Celeste. Wonder is a family owned business and when Matteo was only 8 years old his grandfather gave him a symbolic key to the company. If Celeste is interested, she’ll take over some day.
1 Comment
It is absolutely incredible how you imprint the people from this Tire Valve Company directly into my brain. Your photographs consistently connect to my spirit in the way only the rarest museum paintings, sculptures, or photographs can. Every picture is expressive. Yet, when combined, each collection is a masterpiece of story-telling. Well done! And thank you!