(Interviewed in 2014)

Susann Mayer

If, on a Saturday afternoon on the TU Dresden campus, you come across a large crowd who don’t quite fit the normal student age demographics warmly greeting each other, Dr. Günter Kieb is certainly not far away. Campus tours are a firm fixture on the program for the owner of the destination management company ‘Dresden AHA! Tours’.

“I’m actually an alumnus of TUD myself — class of 1973 — and I can understand why there’s a desire to revisit the place where you spent your student days during a reunion,” Dr. Kieb said. He lives just around the corner, so he knows the area like the palm of his hand.

Dr. Kieb was born in Thuringia, central Germany, and really only came to Dresden by chance. “When I was training to become a telecommunications engineer, I particularly enjoyed the subject of business administration, so choosing to go in this direction with my studies was the logical next step. Back then, TU Dresden was the only university that offered classes in economics for the electrical power and electronics industry.”

After he spent many years working as a research assistant and wrote a dissertation on the effectiveness of inpatient health care, Günther Kieb set off into the wider world in the 1980s — as far as Tanzania to the University of Dar es Salaam. “From 1983 to 1987, I worked as a lecturer at the Department of Economics at the University of Dar es Salaam on behalf of TU Dresden. I held lectures and seminars in economics and business administration for over 200 students each year. I also researched environmental problems in Tanzania and the role of renewable energy.”

Those four years spent in Tanzania laid the foundations for Dr. Kieb’s travel company. “Because I spent a long time living abroad with my family, I can understand the perspective and questions visitors from near and far might have, and approach them accordingly. And it’s just fun to guide people around Dresden and show the city to them.”

But first, Dr. Kieb used his experiences to help shape courses in marketing at various educational institutions in a freelance teaching capacity. “A solid education at TUD and my strong motivation were crucial for working as a sales manager in the private sector and as a consultant, coach and lecturer after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Being able to combine practice and theory has stood me in good stead right up to now, as I am helping with the Diplom program at Sächsische Verwaltungsakademie and the bachelor’s degree program at Fernhochschule Riedlingen – The Mobile University, both in Dresden.”

Nevertheless, he took a leap four years ago into something new and expanded his previous sales and marketing coaching company ‘Aha! Coaching + Führungstechniken für Marketing und Vertrieb’ into ‘Dresden Aha!’ “Right from the start, I offered campus tours alongside the ‘conventional’ city tours for tourists and guests. I worked together with the Alumni Relations Office to offer my campus tours to the organizers of alumni events, who were very happy to accept. Again and again, I get to witness TUD alumni’s faces light up when I lead them through their old lecture halls; the Lichtenheldt Lecture Hall, commonly known as the Bombentrichter (bomb crater) is a firm favorite. I always stop there to give a short presentation about the current developments at the University of Excellence.”

During the tours, Dr. Kieb tells lots of stories about the campus, and often he gets to hear interesting stories from the alumni, too. “Campus tours are not only part and parcel of alumni events — especially graduation anniversaries — they are often presented as gifts from children to their parents who used to study at TU Dresden. Last year, I had the pleasure of leading individual tours for the Open Topic Tenure Professorships candidates. They were all thoroughly impressed by the history and current building operations.”

Contact:

Dr. Günther Kieb

Mobile: +49 172 364 63 09

E-Mail: Dr. Günter Kieb

Web: Dresden AHA

Back to the portraits