A group of Commercial Painting Industry Association members are currently traversing across Germany to expand their knowledge on the commercial painting sector during the German Paint Tour.
The 10-day trip, concluding later this week, is hosted by German CPIA member company Heinrich Schmid. The delegation features 25 members from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.
Heinrich Schmid is a fourth-generation painting company that also offers other contracting services with over 180 locations across Germany. For the first leg of the trip, the CPIA crew spent several days in Cologne visiting Henrich Schmid’s regional office and learning about the company’s business and operations.
The delegation also attended the Farbe, Ausbau & Fassade (FAF) trade fair for façade and interior architecture, moderating between the networking trades of the creative finishing sector. The conference was particularly focused on the painting and stucco plastering trades, making it one of the largest coatings expositions in the world. Additionally, numerous experts presented groundbreaking products and inspiring design developments.
Then, on Friday (April 26), the team traveled to Heinrich Schmid’s headquarters in Reutlingen, with a stop in Heidelberg to enjoy a guided tour of the city. That weekend, the group also was able to shop at an authentic lederhosen clothing store prior to attending a regional beer festival. Some members also toured the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart on Sunday.
On Monday (April 29), to kick off the week, Henrich Schmid offered presentations on its operations to learn about their legal structure, apprenticeship and training programs, IT and real estate initiatives. In the afternoon, the delegation visited a couple of local current paint projects, including a six-story refinish and repaint of an apartment building and a very large floor coating job at a new, state-of-the-art Bosch factory currently under construction.
“The trip so far has been a perfect example of the original CPIA mission of getting peers in the commercial painting industry together to learn from each other and escalate commercial painting professionalism,” said CPIA Executive Director Mike Stanley.
Evening dinners have provided everyone the chance to discuss the day’s activities and continue to share ideas, challenges and successes, added Stanley.
The German Paint Tour still has another few days of activities, featuring travel to a historic German town, the Henrich Schmid offices in Eschbach and a visit to one of the most beautiful cities in Germany—Freiburg.
This year’s tour follows the Australian Painting Tour in 2023, hosted by Higgins Coatings. The trip featured networking, product introductions, facility tours, educational segments on application techniques and other opportunities down under.
