25 years of building with ATLAS
15 February is a symbolic date in our calendar. On this day, in 1991, Grzegorz Grzelak, Andrzej Walczak and Stanisław Ciupiński formally registered the company manufacturing adhesive for tiles called ATLAS.
When they were setting up their first company AT-TA, which was active in the branch of finishing works, none of them expected that 25 years later would succeed internationally and become the leader of construction materials, regularly awarded with titles “Superbrand” and “Building Brand of the Year”.
In the atmosphere of freedom
For the last quarter a century they have come a long way from a small contracting company to the leader of the construction chemicals. The history of the brand is as well the history of the Polish entrepreneurship, blooming after 1989 in the reality of the market economy.
„Nowadays the economic freedom means something completely different than when we were starting our business. In that time we saw freedom as the possibility of purchase of the foreign currency, possibility of traveling, freedom of reading. The be free meant to stay wherever one was.” – said co-founder and co-owner of the company, Andrzej Walczak on the reception of the “Wiosło Biznesu” award in 2015.
The secret
Staying in Łódź, they were looking for new clients for finishing works. One of the investors – a foreigner planning to open a tile store in Łódź – delivered on site a western adhesive for tiles. It was a completely new product in Poland as people used to fix tiles with a traditional mortar based on sand and cement. The idea of such ready-to-use Polish adhesive became extremely interesting for the co-owners. The misterious essential chemical component of the mortar mix was identified by the professor of the Łódź University of Technology, Piotra Klemm. After three months of laboratory works the recipe of the Polish adhesive for tiles was ready.
Concrete mixer and garage
The concrete mixer rented from a client and shop scales for the components weighting were working at full speed in the garage, where the production of the company, registered on 15 February 1992 as ATLAS, was started.
Vogue for tiles
The good product, passion and trust in success were supported by the market tendencies. The vogue for tiles started in Poland. Very soon renting of a production hall became essential, the concrete mixer was paid back and the scales put in the company museum where can be seen also today.
25years later
Nowadays over 20 factories and 3 mines within the ATLAS Group employ almost 3,000 people. The Group includes mostly the manufacturers of construction and repair products, who hold together the market leadership in Poland and Central-Eastern Europe. As ATLAS we offer the broadest range of construction chemicals. We develop a comprehensive program of cooperation with professionals. We lay emphasis on the business social responsibility and the cultivation of Polishness as a value – these are our distinguishers which make the professionals, people associated with culture and art as well as businessmen to identify with ATLAS.
