Albert Zeller, CEO of RC Tritec. RC Tritec is a family-run business and a leading company for luminous applications in the Swiss watch industry, If your watch glows in the dark, there is a very strong chance that the dial has been made using RC Tritec’s Swiss Super-LumiNova®.

1 Describe briefly your childhood.

I would say that I have spent a very happy childhood. My sister and I grew up in the Appenzell area on the countryside of eastern Switzerland where we had the chance to play outside in the nature. With both of my parents working in our family company RC Tritec, I kind of grew up with the watch industry and chemistry. Because our family always worked in an international field, my sister and I had the chance to already see the world in young years, which was not the case for other kids in the same age: We travelled around the globe to see partners from all around the world, got to know different cultures and also learned, that we were very lucky to be born in Switzerland.

As a child, my life was not always easy, since I had some problems with my coordination in the younger years and at the same time I wanted to understand the world a little bit more in detail than kids in my age. I often played by my own or spent hours of reading books while others were playing soccer. Speaking of soccer: Team sports were never something I was much interested in, probably also because I was just not good enough to be on the same level as those of the same age. With a mother who grew up in the mountains, we spent a lot of time in the mountains and I fell in love with snowboarding at a very young age. Snowboarding is still a passion which helps me nowadays to relax a little bit.

 2 As a child did you have any driving ambition?

As I wanted to understand the world and its history more closer, probably an archaeologist like Indiana Jones who discovers lost palaces would have been my absolute dream. Ancient cultures like the Greece or the Romans where always in the center of my interest. The chance to get in touch with those ancient cultures seemed to be very attractive by that time. Luckily I did not recognize by that time, that archaeology nowadays works a little bit in a different way.

When I grew older, professional skateboard or snowboard athlete would have been a second dream. Since I was spending almost every free minute as a teenager in wintertime on a snowboard, I was also able to compete in various snowboard contests and I got a lot of support of various sports brands. Doing what I loved to do in my free time in a professional way would have been pretty cool back then. Later, it became more and more clear, that being fully dependent on a sport is not the most safe way to have a good future, especially if there was the chance to participate in our family company.

3 What is your first significant memory as a child?

During my parents free time, we always spent a lot of time in the mountains, where my grandfather had a little cottage close to a forest with a small river. There we spent hours and hours exploring nature, climbing rocks and trees, building stone constructions at the river and so on. Being up in the mountains was always the ultimate adventure for us children. And if you have a grandfather who teaches you things like how to shoot on tin cans, boys dreams come true very easily. 

4 Have you ever had another profession?

If you are just finished with middle school in Switzerland as a young man, it is time to go to the military. Usually, military service does not directly start after the summer holidays, so I thought that it would be a good idea to work one winter as a snowboard instructor. Actually this was a lot of fun: Going out every evening, sharing the joy of snowboarding with children, which start to smile as soon as they have their first success experiences and just being able to live in the mountains was a great time. And yeah, if a lot of snow was falling and no customers asked for lessons, I also had the chance to spend a lot of time riding for myself. What should probably should not be mentioned is that in the overall, I spent more money that winter than I actually earned.

After my military service, I worked on a lot of side jobs like in gardener, fitness instructor, construction worker or in research at the Paul Scherrer institute during my studies at the University of Zürich. All of them were fun, but nothing I wanted to do for a longer time. But if you are a student, every Swiss Franc counts and you do not have a lot of choice when it comes to getting a job.

5 What made you decide to go in the direction you are currently in?

Since my dad was a chemist and I basically grew up with the company, the fascination for natural sciences was more and more growing. That’s also why I have chosen mathematics and physics as my main direction at middle school. If you are a lazy teenager, decisions like this are not always the best ones and my worst mark at the graduation was in mathematics. The best marks were in art, so that first plan did not work out as well as planned. Nevertheless, I definitely fell in love with chemistry during those years and decided to do my studies in chemistry and business studies.

During the studies, it became clear very fast, into what direction I wanted to go and I decided to start working in my family’s company. Like this I could follow the long time family tradition into the fourth generation. To be honest, this was one of the best decisions I ever made, because since then I have never had to actually work on a boring job again and every day is a new adventure for me.

6 What’s the worst job you’ve had to do? 

This is very hard to tell, because in my opinion all of the jobs I had until now always had their fun sides. Since I am trying to stay as optimistic as much as possible I could not say, that one of the jobs that I have chosen by myself would have been bad.

If it comes to jobs that I was not able to choose, I would say that my military service was not always fun: I like being my own boss and love to search solutions through reasonable discussion bases. Lying around in the dirt for hours while it is raining or to guard trucks all night while nothing is happening, just because someone with a higher rank told you to do so, drives me crazy. So it is probably no surprise, that I never got promoted to a higher military rank.

What I should mention at this point is, that it was not all bad in the military: Working together on a task, being completely equal and going together through hard times also led to a lot of nice memories with the other soldiers at that time.

7 What’s been the hardest moment in your life so far, and how did you overcome it? 

Seeing my grandfather die. He was always a very strong role model for me, who kind of represented everything I ever wanted to be when I was older. He got a diagnose of cancer, which spread rather fast. Seeing the strong man from my childhood memories slowly getting weaker and weaker every day, just because of something which was growing inside and he could not fight, broke my heart.

The last thing he did before he died, was to smile at our family and from exactly that moment on I knew, that I had to start taking care of myself and to enjoy my limited time on this planet. Since then I have stopped drinking alcohol, took care of what I eat and I try to do sports at least four times a week. Living a conscious life like this helps me a lot to enjoy every day as much as possible.

8 Who has had the strongest influence on you?

I would say my family. Both of my parents gave everything to let me and my sister enjoy our childhood to the fullest. Additionally, they always took care that we could learn things and enjoy ourselves outside of the digital world: Being away from consume orientated medias gave us the chance to become creative and to solve things in our way. I learned from them, that basically nothing is impossible and that you can reach all your goals if you really work hard on it.

9 What are you most proud of? 

I am proud of the great team I have around me in our company RC Tritec. Being able to work with a friendship-based team in a small scale and to develop market leading solutions together makes me really proud. Seeing the final products in the watch boutiques and being able to know that we have the great chance to be part of such beautiful products is definitely a great feeling.

10 What advice would you give to a 20 something someone thinking of taking a similar path as you? 

Do whatever makes you happy. And try not to harm other people and creatures. Listen to the people around you, because they have something to tell you and you can learn from everyone. And appreciate what you have: You do not always need more.

11 Name three things on your bucket list. 

I would love to have a family with children

Designing and building my own watch

Enjoying as much time as possible with my loved ones

12 Where do you think the watch industry is going to be in 10 years time?

Automatization and new technologies like 3D-printing will definitely become more and more important for mass production of watches. There, I have the slight doubt, that the quantities of standardized huge series will go back in numbers, especially in the low and middle price segment.

At the same time, individual creations and customized models will have a large growth, which brings watchmaking back to its origins.

When it comes to the high price segment in the watch industry, I am quite sure that these watches will be also sold in the future in big numbers since there are more and more wealthy people all over the world. To maintain a brand attractive, a clear and attractive brand positioning is the main key. If this does not happen in a proper way, the sales will go down very fast.

To learn more about RCTritec