The General Coating Team
General Coating has fast grown to include a proactive and highly qualified permanent crew of around 80 employees with additional expertise being available on request.
With both in-depth marine and yacht coating experience and exceptional project management skills, General Coating are proud to be able to offer you an unparalleled total solution backed up by a hard working multi-lingual and committed management team.
Chamdi Sefer (Owner & Managing Director)
Originally from Xanti, Greece, Chamdi Sefer now lives in Kiel, Germany where in 2004 he founded General Coating GmbH. Previously team leader for one of the industries leading finishing and refinishing companies, Chamdi has extensive international experience, having worked with some of the world’s largest shipyards on various projects. Chamdi now spends all his energy on developing the company and through sheer hard work, dedication and vision has grown General Coating into the success it is today.
Fatih Solak (Senior Manager)
Fatih was born in Frankfurt, Germany and studied International business and negotiation management. He joined General Coating in 2016 and is now Senior Manager.
Jörn Füllgraf (Marine Division Manager)
Jörn Füllgraf has over 20 years experience in the corrosion protection industry and succsessfully managed projects in the range of industry (tank farm, bridges) to offshore (transformer-station, tripods). He is part of the General-Coating Team since 2015. His experience of many years, especially in the navy field, has proven to be usefull. He also managed many merchant ships projects in the corrosion protection sector. Through his professional training he was able to gain different qualifications (SCC certificate, KOR-certificate, road- and trafficmanagement, certified managementsystem amm.) and continues to educate hiself further. He already worked in all sectores himself and has the ability to manage projects in high quality but stay fair priced at the same time. The current projects he is working on are navy new builings in the submarine sector for TKMS in Kiel, he supervises them in the technical and mercantile field.
Hüseyin Güvenc (Yacht Division Manager)
Hüseyin Güvenc joined General Coating in 2018 and is now our Yacht Division Manager.
Susanne Homborg (Head Office)
Susanne is a qualified Lawyer and accountant's assistant, and worked for many years as an assistant to management of various accountants/financial advisers. She is able to bring this knowledge and experience over into her day to day running of the General Coating Head office as well as in her role as a PA to the director of General Coating.
Riccardo Kühnel (Yacht Division Manager)
Riccardo Kühnel joined the General-Coating team in September 2020. His duties and responsibilities include the project management and the processing of errands, his specilties are in enviromental reglations. His area of expertise is the new consruction of mega yachts, his knowledge also involves the new construction of naval and merchant vessels. Mr. Kühnel gained his professional experience in over 26 years, whereof he spent 23 years in a leading position. He acquired his experience in some of the leading corrosion protection companys like the Lürssen Group, German Naval and Blohm+Voss.
Mario Andres Fernandez Aparicio (Project Coordinator & Quality Control manager Yacht Division)
Mario Fernandez Aparicio became a part of the General-Coating Team in October 2019. As a project manager in the range of yachts is his duty to coordinate projects, the team and schedule management and to assign tasks to the team. Furthermore is he providing technical advise and assisting in the paint applications on board. He is examining the quality procedures and results to verify the project outcome. Mr. Fernandez Aparicio is in the megayacht industry since 2004. His work experience comes from is former emplayments as a painter, Quality Assurance Manager and project coordinator. He was already in charge of over 100 projecs all around the world.
Ilona Otto (Clerc in Corrosion Protection)
Ilona Otto joined the General Coating GmbH in September 2020, she has 29 years experience as a administrator for corrosion protection. After finishing her education as a office clerk at the Pene Werft she worked in materials management/purchasing.