Please introduce yourself:

My name is Gabriele Walther and I am a Senior Education Account Manager. This is the story of more than 2/3 of my life. It began on September 1, 1980, as a trainee at Verlag Chemie. After the three-year apprenticeship I was an assistant in the journals production department and then the secretary to the head of this department. After that, I switched to the so-called product information department (PI). Here I created advertising plans and designed advertising materials (flyers, advertisements, etc.). From here I was sent to the VCH Publishing world: 3 months in Florida, Deerfield Beach - we had a branch there :-) and later I went for one year to UK. The first half UK year at Academy Group in London and the second half year at VCH Publishing in Cambridge. All this was at the beginning of the 90s. Then I came back to Weinheim to the export department and Paul Kwiatkowskyj, who accompanied me as a boss for many years. During this time, I had my two lovely children, became best friends with my colleague Bettina Adler, and we became part of the Wiley family. So a lot has happened during this time. In the meantime, my department is called Sales, Paul has retired and my boss is a woman. I'm still there and have been for over 40 years.

What is/was your relationship with Wiley-VCH?

This is a difficult question, which I will try to answer in a few words:
Wiley(-VCH) is my employer for more than 40 years and therefore also a bit my Wiley(-VCH). Here I have made friends for life, experienced beautiful but also sad moments and of course learned everything about publishing. I have experienced how a local company went global, how a man's world opened up to women, and how the print business became more and more digital.

Why did you choose to work in academic publishing?

This may sound very simple, but the publishing house was very close to my parents' house and very convenient for me. That's my honest answer, but what started as a simple decision became a completely different story. In any case, it is something very special to work in publishing and being part of this community.

What was your most remarkable situation or exciting experience during this time? (For long-time employees, in addition: How has working at Wiley-VCH changed over time?)

Basically, everything has changed. I'll illustrate this with an example that I experienced during my time as a trainee. I actually had to warm and serve the sausage for lunch for an older colleague with whom I had been training for several months. You can't imagine that today, and I thought it was anything but great. It was like that with some things, the clocks ticked quite differently. Women in leadership roles were rather rare, hierarchies were very important, everything had to be signed off and stamped. But there were also opportunities, I could go abroad for Wiley-VCH, for example, or make a career for myself through further training or moving to other departments and functions. Many things were possible once you had cleared the hot dog hurdle.

What are you most looking forward to in this anniversary year?

Seeing my colleagues again, talking together, laughing, spending lunch breaks, toasting birthdays and anniversaries, and even hugging one when I feel like it.

Please complete this sentence: 100 Years of Growing Knowledge is….

... a great contribution to humanity, environment, research, teaching, learning, and science.