Glock GmbH

It sure is a waste of time visiting gun maker Glock and I'm not happy about it. It's a 15-mile bike ride from downtown Vienna to Deutsch-Wagram, a small farming community near the Austrian/Slovakian border. I don't have a street address only a post office box number but as expected in a small place like this it's no problem; the first person stopped points me in the right direction.

Glock's headquarters/factory complex occupies a two-square block area about a mile from downtown Deutsch-Wagram. Railway tracks pass within yards of Glock and the bridge crossing the train tracks affords a great view of the company's layout. A 10- foot tall concrete wall encloses the property including the large parking lot. There's a single yellow one-story building on the grounds but it's very large and a block long. Picnic tables can be seen on a grassy area near one section of the building. Residential housing butts up to the property on two sides and there's a small freestanding post office next to the entrance leading into Glock.

Hmm, after locking my bike in the walled-in parking lot you still can't see the factory/office building because there's another10-foot high concrete wall blocking the view. To enter the grounds one must be buzz a buzzer and pass through one of those steel turnstiles configured to allow only one person at a time enter. Security cameras monitor your every move.

The reception area contains a glass case filled with 10 semiautomatic Glock pistols and another filled with Glock clothing apparel. I tell the receptionist how I sent a letter of introduction a month earlier to company founder and CEO Gaston Glock. She makes a call and Martin Schiffer from the marketing department steps out and introduces himself. Schiffer says they never received my letter. Schiffer goes on to say that CEO Glock works out of an office in his home in another part of Austria and Glock's mail is opened here before being passed on. "How could you not get my letter here in this small town where Glock is its claim to fame", I ask somewhat skeptically.

I explain to Schiffer how this is a one-time visit for me and if someone would have a few minutes to answer questions about the head office. Schiffer says it isn't possible and that they're in a "sensitive" business and "don't give out much information".

I try explaining how I've visited at least three other gun manufactures and hadn't run into this problem with them. It's to no avail. I'm quite open in expressing my disappointment to this poor reception. Thinking I'm an easy person to pacify Schiffer gives me several Glock patches and a key chain with a tiny Glock pistol attached to it.

I leave privately held Glock still not knowing how many people the company employees or its revenues. The company Website (www.glock.com) reveals little except to say Gaston Glock founded the company in 1963