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On 20 September, Marine Engineering Galaţi – otherwise known as MEGA – celebrated its 20-year anniversary. Part of the Naval Division of the Damen Group, MEGA specialises in detailed engineering packages. In this conversation just after the anniversary celebrations, MEGA Office Manager Oana Boazu talks about the defining characteristics of MEGA and its team. And, of course, what a great birthday party they had.
After a ceremonial begin to the anniversary party, the festivities continued with some presentations. “These presentations highlighted the evolution of the company. In the beginning, for example, we worked on a lot of tug projects, but as we have gained experience, we have taken on more and more complex projects. Today we are mainly focused on naval ships and luxury yachts. We have the accreditation and licences from our Romanian authorities to perform this kind of work with military ships, which is an added value because not every company has this kind of accreditation,” says Oana.
From left to right: Damen Naval Director Operations Tijs Buijs, Damen Naval HR Director Jeroen van Mierlo, MEGA Managing Director Florin Rascanu and Damen Naval Managing Director Roland Briene.
The presentations shown at the party also gave special attention to MEGA’s personnel. “This includes our actions regarding social responsibility. For example, some of our team are involved in collecting for children’s charities, others run marathons to raise money,” adds Oana. “We also celebrated the people who have been working here for 5, 10, 15 or 20 years.”
Indeed, MEGA started out in 2004 with just six people working in three small offices on the grounds of Damen Shipyards Galaţi. Two decades later, the team has grown to its current size of 196 people. “We have a nice atmosphere here. People want to keep working at MEGA for many years. Of the six people who were here in the beginning, five of them are still working here,” says Oana, who has been working at MEGA since 2008. “And maybe before the end of this year, we will reach two hundred people on the team – that will be another important milestone.”
Presentations were made to invited guests during the festivities.
There were two more official parts of the party that needed to happen before the dancing and more informal festivities could begin. These were the launch of the brand-new company website – https://marineengineering.ro/ – now aligned with the Damen house style, and taking a photo of the entire team.
Looking forward to the coming months, the MEGA team is working on a new corporate movie. “This will be about the ‘MEGA dream’ and will, of course, be people-orientated because without our people, we wouldn’t be here.” When asked to define the ‘MEGA dream’, Oana says that it continues on the same path as what the company’s Managing Director, Florin Rascanu, started 20 years ago. That was “to build a strong and dedicated engineering design team within the Damen Group – we want to keep growing with that same idea”.
