Technical designer at the Port of Aarhus: Marie Louise has a key role in keeping the port running

Surrounded by cruise guests in the late summer sun, Marie Louise Larsen stands with a measuring device that reaches about 30 centimeters above her head. She must measure coordinates on a crane to transmit its exact location to the port's digital ground map. Her face is turned to a device that most of all resembles a calculator. Here, the coordinates of the crane are uploaded, which are then digitally transferred to the base map of the port — all while cruise guests take pictures of the Cathedral and Dokk1.

It is Marie Louise's responsibility that the map is updated. An important role that many people and businesses at the Port of Aarhus depend on daily.

Marie Louise is the specialist at the Port of Aarhus when it comes to producing technical drawings for projects, lease drawings, surveying drawings, updating port maps and wiring plans.

It was her dream of a different everyday life, alternating between practical and office work, that led her to an education as a technical designer in 2018 and later to an employment at the Port of Aarhus.

All my life I've been curious about constructions and how things are built. I find construction work super interesting. I have always loved to draw. So this thing of being able to combine these interests seemed like a good educational match for me.

And it should turn out to be. But it was not immediately in the cards that Marie Louise was to make a career as a Technical Designer.

I dropped out of high school after the first year and worked as a waiter the subsequent year. At the time, I didn't know you could take an education to be a Technical Designer. I actually had a lot of doubts about what I wanted, but in collaboration with a student counselor, I found the education and thought it sounded really exciting, she says.

From West Jutland to South Jutland, Copenhagen and Aarhus

Marie Louise was raised on a country estate in the small West Jutland town of Ulfborg with her mother, father and younger brother, and with her two older siblings and grandparents close by.

She's a big family person. But even though her entire family still lives in West Jutland, that hasn't stopped her from settling in virtually every corner of the country to pursue her education and career dreams.

She completed the basic course for technical designer in Aabenraa. After this, an offer of an apprenticeship at SEAS-NVE, now called Andel, led her to Copenhagen in the summer of 2018, and she was transferred to a technical school in Roskilde.

My family became very quiet when I told them I was moving to Copenhagen. But they weren't surprised either. I've always been very outgoing, so they knew there was something pulling me in, she says, smiling:

So when I announced in 2023 that I would be moving back to Jutland, they were very happy to get me closer again.

After a well-passed exam during the coronavirus lockdown in Christmas 2020, Marie Louise became an employee at Fibia in Haslev in Midtjælland, where she commuted from Copenhagen every day. Here she worked for a number of years, and during her employment she was transferred to a department in Aarhus to get closer to her family. But in the fall of 2024, the time had come to try something new.

I needed change. And I missed a larger touchpad with the core of why I chose the training as a Technical Designer: namely drawing. I had simply come too far away from that. In the job posting from the Port of Aarhus, I could see that it would become a big part of my everyday life, she says and continues:

At the same time, I was able to contribute with the sought-after competencies in digitization and the use of Geographic Information Systems to collect, analyze and visualize data. So I applied for the job.

The importance of cross-departmental collaboration

Marie Louise has been employed in Infrastructure at Aarhus Havn since November 2024. She sits with a wide palette of assignments across departments and calls herself "rentegneren" ('English: The draughtsman').

Everything new that occurs at the port, she measures, draws interest and enters digitally with precise coordinates.

This could be, for example, measurements for parking lots or a new roundabout, the placement of containers on the cruise quay or drawings for the construction site area where the construction work for the completion of the Omniterterminal has just begun. But it can also be plans for snow removal in cooperation with the Port Service of the port or lease listings for our commercial department.  

All Marie Louise measurements are also recorded on the port's ISPS map, which is a detailed overview of the high-security areas on the port grounds. In this way, Marie Louise has a large and important touchpad with the many activities at the port that make the Port of Aarhus a critical infrastructure.

At the same time, Marie Louise's recommendations on how to optimise digitalisation in her department to work more sustainably have played a significant role.

It's a super exciting process, because we're a department with a lot of competencies, and the programs have to be something that works for everyone, she says.

At the Port of Aarhus, a lot of employees have worked here for many years. This is something that Marie Louise pays special attention to when she has to explain what the different programs can do.

There is clearly a balancing act in introducing new digitalisation. This sort of thing is intrusive in everyday life and there needs to be time to get everyone on board with the changes we're making. Otherwise it's not going to be good. And all the existing data must also be converted into a new program — at the same time that we also have to carry out our daily work, she says and continues:

I think it's really great that I'm generally part of so many tasks and initiatives, and I feel lucky to start in my position at a time when I can contribute to the creation of a new container terminal.

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