Interview with Gemma Riba, laboratory worker

The laboratory is one of the departments at Montana Colors that is least exposed to the general public... what work is done there? 

Well, it’s where we develop the projects for the ideas that Montana has for any product that is to be launched onto the market or that is to be improved.

From developing new products from scratch to the end customer, improving our current formulas, research into new raw materials. It involves more work that you might think. 

What is your role in all these processes? 

I’m in the quality and innovation department.

I analyze the raw material that arrives from Basics to produce the bulk batches of paint. I also check certain batches of Cromaresme paint, I help with the odd project involving new products or improvements by copying raw materials from the formulas, and I partly manage the samples that some clients or future clients ask to try. 

As a key point in terms of the research and development of our brand… what is day-to-day work like in this sense? 

Continuous improvement. 

Which departments are you most in contact with? 

Basics Production, Sales, Basics Shipments and, in my case, Cromaresme. 

You have worked for this company for 15 years...have you always had the same job? What else have you done? 

Yes, it’s been 15 years. I first spent a year and a half in spray packaging production, then in finished product quality control, a short time in air paint preparation and dilutions, and I then started in the job I have today. 

What skills do you think you need to work in a job like yours? 

I think you must be quite meticulous, tidy, responsible, precise and neat, among others. 

What is your relationship like with the other workers on the team? Do you think developing emotional ties is important in ensuring everything works as well as possible or is it better to simply follow functional guidelines and rules? 

I have a very good relationship with my team mates.

I do think a good working environment is essential, as it makes project development more coordinate and everything flows more easily. 

What do you like most about your job? 

The variety of tasks I have to do, which means it’s never monotonous. No day is ever the same.

I like working in different areas, I have no time to be bored. 

Tell us a funny story about something that has happened to you at work. 

It's not really a funny story that happened while I was working at Montana but beforehand, when I was 16.

I was studying at Terrasa School of Arts and a group of friends and I discovered the Hardcore sprays and painted the Rubí river basin.

Who would have know that I would be working at Montana several years later? I would never have imagined. 

What has been your personal experience of the evolution of Montana Colors over the past 15 years? 

At first we all knew each other. There were 50 of us when I started, everything was located at the same place and we didn’t even make the paint we packaged. All the packaging systems were manual, nothing like it is now.

Now, I only know my closest colleagues and those who started at the same time as I did. 

A lesson or thought you’d like to share? 

Everything to do with a spray paint is amazing.