Kopperå

Kopperå is a village in the municipality of Meråker in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. The village lies about 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) east of the municipal center of Midtbygda and about 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) west of the Swedish border. The Meråker Line railway runs through the village and stops at the Kopperå Station. The village sits near the confluence of the rivers Kåpperåa and Stjørdalselva, and it is about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) south of the lake Fjergen. The local Kopperå Chapel sits on the northwest edge of the village.

Manufacturing

Kopperå had one of the best microsilica factories, Elkem Meraaker, a member of the Elkem Group. Elkem Meraaker (originally Meraaker Smelteverk) started to manufacture carbide in 1898, and was later re-built to manufacture microsilica. But in 2005 the company made the decision to end microsilica manufacturing. The factory ceased operations in summer 2006 and the buildings were taken down by 2008.

References

Hilmar Kopper

Hilmar Kopper (born 13 March, 1935) is a German banker and former Chairman of the Board of Deutsche Bank (1989-1997).

Personal life

Kopper was born in Oslanin (Osłonino, Poland) to a Mennonite family, he was expelled after World War II Since 2003, he is married to Brigitte Seebacher-Brandt, the third wife of Willy Brandt. One of his three children of his first marriage is the historian Christopher Kopper.

Career

Kopper was employed as a trainee in Deutsche Bank in 1954 and spent his whole career there. He became a board member in 1977, and after the terrorist murder of Alfred Herrhausen in 1989, he became chairman. He chaired the supervisory board of DaimlerChrysler from 1998 to 2007. He is a former member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group. He is also a jury member of the Franz Werfel Human Rights Award.

Controversy

Kopper received widespread public and media attention in 1994, when he used the word "peanuts" to describe a sum of DM 50 million. A jury of linguistic scholars subsequently voted the term as German Un-Word of Year, thus criticizing the widely differing definitions of a non-notable amount of money by bank managers and average people.