Alumni Portrait: Jens Gauthier - Collaborating with strong partners

The first time Jens Gauthier sat at a desk at LAP Laser was as a student at Lüneburg University. The degree candidate was writing his thesis at the still small company at the time. The task was to develop a cost and accounting system for the company. Jens Gauthier's work was convincing and he was taken on. Today, Gauthier is the managing director of the formerly small medium-sized company - and today's world market leader: LAP Laser is a provider of systems for increasing quality and efficiency through laser positioning, laser measurement and other software-based processes.  The company has grown organically and through acquisitions in medical technology and has subsidiaries in the USA, Singapore and China, among others. Jens Gauthier helped build up the business in Asia and currently benefits from this experience. An important partner for LAP Laser in research and development is Leuphana University. "The good connection has existed for as long as I can remember. The best example is myself," says the LAP managing director.

Just over a year ago, the go-ahead was given for a project to improve radiotherapy for cancer patients using laser technology. The state of Lower Saxony and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) are funding the cooperation project "Innovative Support for Repeatable Patient Positioning" with almost € 700,000. LAP GmbH Laser Applications and the Institute of Product and Process Innovation (PPI) at Leuphana - represented by Prof. Dr Anthimos Georgiadis - are jointly researching innovative medical products and processes that assure the highest possible safety in imaging and patient marking for the precise application of radiation sources in tumour therapy. "Patients must be positioned correctly during radiation treatment so that the therapy works and is safe for the patient," explains Jens Gauthier.

In addition, Leuphana master's students are also supervised at LAP. "Conversely, one of our employees is doing a doctorate at Leuphana," explains Jens Gauthier. Then there are working students and excursions. "Not only prospective engineers join us, but also students of business administration. We have taken on many of them after their exams. I appreciate the high level of research at Leuphana. We are world market leaders in our field. We can only collaborate with strong partners.” The fact that his company gives young students at Leuphana the opportunity to gain practical experience also has to do with his personal experience. He would like to enable today's students to do the same. If he hadn't had the chance to get to know LAP directly on site back then, his career path might have been different and perhaps in a different region. Jens Gauthier enjoys his job and his company not only because of technical and business challenges: "We develop medical products. In the end, our work helps people."