
TESS – TESS-Founder Erik Jølberg (80)
Erik Jølberg can look back on 54 years as CO of TESS, with a tremendous growth curve. At 80 years old and with 60 years in the hose business, he is still fiercely ambitious on behalf of his life’s work. Visionary, controversial, engaging, fascinating, curious, creative, impulsive, artistic, loyal, hardworking, detail-oriented, entrepreneur, business leader, and owner. TESS is his life, and his life is TESS. Jølberg has passed retirement age by a wide margin but has no plans to scale back for that reason. On the contrary, he still maintains a pace that very few 80-year-olds can enjoy. Do you get energy from working? “Yes, when you succeed in what you do, it’s a pleasure to be able to work. I also think it’s a bit amusing when I take two steps at a time and pass the youth at the stairs at the TESS headquarters,” says Jølberg. Another thing that is going upwards is the results at TESS. Last year, the company had a turnover of 3.4 billion Norwegian kroner, and can point to a growth of 300 million