THE AUTHOR

I am Bruwer Swanepoel, a semi-retired engineer and businessman. I am married with three children and two grandchildren. I live in Munich in Germany and St Francis Bay in South Africa. I am the author of the recently published memoir FAITH: FULL CIRCLE – The Religious Journey of a Baby-boomer Afrikaner.

I completed a BSc Engineering degree at the University of Pretoria in 1975 and a Master of Business Leadership degree at the University of South Africa in 1983. I worked for a few companies until I started my own business in 1984, manufacturing and selling industrial filtration products for air pollution control. WL Gore & Associates, Inc., an American company, bought my business in 1997. I stayed on and managed their South African operation for nine years when they asked me to take a three-year ex-pat assignment in Europe. The three-year assignment became eleven years until I retired from the corporate world in September 2016 at age 65.

Based in Germany for the last eleven years of my corporate career, my primary work commitment was new business development in former USSR countries, North Africa and the Middle East. It allowed me to travel widely, exposing me to diverse cultures and people and opening my worldview to diversity. I spent considerable time in, among others, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Following my retirement, I became a full-time consultant for a Swedish company for a year and a half. Today, I am still a part-time consultant for a South African engineering company with business interests in Germany.

My insights today are the consequences of the search-and-explore manner in which I lived my life and the extensive exposure to divergent peoples and cultures afforded by my working career. I am supporting the message of inclusivity and tolerance through atheism. My hope is to live in a world with less apathy and more openness, understanding and respect for people who choose to live an informed,  meaningful and moral life free from religious indoctrination.

I have become YOUR ATHEIST NEXT DOOR.

 

 

70th Birthday wishes from his daughters (Instagram posts)

Happy 70 years young @bruwerswanepoel ❤ You taught us to be brave but humble, self-assured but not arrogant, and most importantly to be inquisitive, to admire, love, respect and appreciate life, humankind and all living things on this beautiful planet of ours. Love you with all my heart.

  • Karien Coertzen (19th September 2021)

This Legend turned 70 today, and just a few days ago, he managed to hit a Hole in One! The best father I could ever ask for, the funniest, the best host and the most humble man I know. Veels geluk pa. Ich Liebe Dich ❤️

  • Nelmarie Swanepoel (19th September 2021)