About Marco
Marco Ameye is commercial technology manager for Metal Fabrication in Europe. He belongs to the marketing department for Packaged Gases Europe. Marco is mainly responsible for the promotion of ‘differentiated offerings’ and new products (such as Maxx® gases and Integra® cylinders) for welding and cutting in the European metal industry. “I think of myself as the technical conscience of the marketing and sales department, because I try to establish a link between the wishes and needs of the client and the application of gases in practice. This is especially important when introducing new products and developing new applications. For example, prior to the launch and introduction of Integra® XtraLite cylinders in France, I tested the cylinders in practical applications at clients and studied their reactions.”
Ameye is happiest working in operational settings and getting his hands dirty. He is regularly to be seen in old jeans, a welder's helmet and overalls, in clients' workshops, testing new gases for himself or giving demonstrations. Ameye also heads up a team of sixteen welding application specialists working in different countries including Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, France, the UK, Dubai, Malaysia, China and, of course, the Benelux countries. In addition, Marco is involved in developing promotional materials such as presentations, brochures and customer cases. Moreover he develops costing programs and computer models which marketing and sales staff can use to support their sales efforts and improve the reputation of Air Products as a ‘welding expert’.
His experience
Marco Ameye has worked in the welding and gas business since 1992. Immediately after completing his training he went to work for AGA Gas which was later taken over by Air Products. Officially he has been on the Air Products payroll since 1998. Ameye trained as an electromechanical industrial engineer with special focus on welding techniques. Later on, based on his experience, he became a certified European welding engineer (certificate no. EWE-BE 00194). He belongs to several international professional associations such as the EWF and the AWS. Ameye visits clients from a range of sectors: metal construction, aircraft engineering, the automotive industry, the offshore sector and energy. Ameye is interested above all in the use of welding robots. He believes they are capable of delivering consistent high quality. Furthermore, because the programming and flexibility of welding robots are improving all the time, the number of applications is steadily increasing. Ameye believes that people generally have a limited knowledge of welding gases. “Most welders know about argon and CO2, but they have scarcely heard of 3-component gases and their advantages. Improving that knowledge is also a job for us, because we need to provide better information about the effects of gases on aspects such as droplet transfer, spatter, quality, productivity and the costs of the weld.”
On a personal note…
Marco's work takes him all over the world, so he has little free time left. His hobbies are deep-sea diving and running. He runs about 2,500 kilometres a year to keep in shape. He believes in the old adage: A healthy mind in a healthy body!