Jörgen Wonisch – The Air Traffic Controller Who Went Green

After my meeting with Lina, I hurry in the pouring rain all the way out to Norrköping airport for my next meeting with Jörgen Wonisch, CEO and founder at Greenman. I enter through the back door – or rather the loading platform – but it serves it purpose and I can roll all the way in. Some employees are laughing, they seem to have a good time, and they show me the way to Jörgen’s office.

– Welcome, please have a seat. Coffee?

We breathe for a moment, and then Jörgen starts to tell his entire story. And it’s a good one. He grew up in Skåne with a Swedish mom and a dad from Czechoslovakia. After high school, he decided to become an air traffic controller, stationed in Norrland.

– I wanted to broaden my horizons and stayed in Norrland for three years. No one wanted to be there, neither did I. Since I had been loyal, I could choose where to move next. I was offered Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and Karlsborg. But for different reasons I turned them down for Norrköping, and I’ve been here since.

In parallel to the work at the airport, Jörgen registered a firm.

– I didn’t really have a reason to it. I thought, ”If something turns up, it is at least nice to have the paperwork done”. That’s typical me, I am really structured. Sometimes, that can be a negative thing when it comes to my entrepreneurship.

Instantly, I see what he means. We get interrupted by one of his coworkers, who enters the door and asks a question that is high above my level of competence. Jörgen thinks for half a second, and then he answers with military precision, not wasting a word. Maybe it is his old job as an air traffic controller that has made him like this. He continues.

 – I got in contact with an Englishman that lived in Södertälje. He sold office supplies, and I asked him if I could sell his products. And I could. Five weeks later, his company went out of business. I looked at the list of products, and got interested by one item: environmental friendly toners for printers. I guess you can say that Greenman sort of was founded there and then.

As his side business grew, Jörgen hired a few people and continued to work at the airport.

– I worked nights in the control tower and drove by the office on my way home in the morning. After that, I went home and invoiced all the business that had been faxed to me from the day before. Then I slept for a couple of hours, drove by the office on my way to the tower, and had another shift at the airport. And so it continued.

In 2005, Jörgen decided to start working with Greenman full-time. But he still worked a lot.

– After a while, I realized I had been working too lot. Well-being should not be compromised with. Let me show you a thing.

We walk outside the office, and Jörgen shows me a room with a massage chair, sauna, and Jacuzzi.

– Studies show that sitting in a massage chair for 15 minutes, three times a week, increases your well-being. That is important to us. We do other things for our employees as well, for instance we send all full-time employees to a self-leadership course for three days.

We continue the walking tour and Jörgen shows me the storage of toner cartridges. Today, Greenman is one of the largest companies in the industry. The business idea is to collect used cartridges, change some parts, refill them, and then sell them.

– Today we have a number of own brands, together with a recycling system. We collect around half a million used cartridges each year. We are very proud of this, and this is also one of the reasons to why we have achieved the Nordic ecolabel Svanen. This is a competitive business, and we always try to innovate ourselves. Later this fall, we will have a new release that we hope and believe will change the industry.

I ask, but I am not allowed to write too much about the new release, but I can tell you this: it sounds promising! I thank Jörgen for the meeting and get back in the saddle for my next adventure.