Ines and Arne always joke about how they fell in love at an AA Meeting. AA as in A. Arend and sons, a rental company for heavy equipment. Albert Arend was Arne’s great grandfather, who founded the company in 1920. The locals referred to the company as AA (like it read on the building wall in huge letters) since it has been the place to go if you need tools or heavy equipment for about a hundred years. Ines worked at one of the three locations in the area- They fell in love during a two-day marketing agenda meeting. They married a year later.

Arne started to work for the family business while he was still a kid. He practically grew up on the premises. While his grandpa was managing the company, his dad was the lead technician. By age 10, Arne was handing him wrenches, absorbing the business processes. When his dad took over, AA really started to thrive. They expanded to a larger warehouse, adding specialty tools and earthmoving equipment. Arne was still a teenager, but already involved in decisions. His dad valued his opinion, and Arne never thought of a different career. He went to college to study logistics and worked for an international company for a year to get some experience outside the family business, but he could never stop to think for his father’s company.

Now he is managing the company together with his dad and spends most days in the office, but he still loves to repair machines and get his hands dirty. Arne knows how lucky he is that he found Ines. She has his back, and she creates the perfect counterbalance. Arne hopes one of his daughters will show an interest in the company later – but he doesn’t want to push them in that direction. And maybe there will be more kids later, who knows?

Arne really likes his work, but his family is more important to him. Arne was worried that Ines would be unhappy as a stay-at-home mom, but she convinced him that it is exactly what she wants. And it works perfectly for both of them. Since his parents are happy to watch the kids occasionally, Arne and Ines can still go out for dinner or spend some quality time together.

Both of them enjoy hiking, and Arne likes basketball. He used to play ball at school. Arne is very tall (and often bumps his head somewhere), athletic and not very good at sitting still. If he couldn’t take breaks from screen time to shoot hoops in the back yard or walk around the premises to check on this or that, he would probably have serious back pain by the end of the day.