Martin and Andrea Santen didn’t know each other when they began their Corning careers as engineers in 2014. But they soon met, fell in love, and began traveling the world together. Over the next decade, the Santens stayed with Corning, embracing expatriate assignments as a pair. 

Through it all, Corning stood by the Santens, ensuring that the pair could continue growing as engineers, while living together abroad. 

“If you have the opportunity to take an expat assignment, you should take it,” said Andrea, CET forming core technology leader in Germany. “My perspective has changed so much. You get a different understanding of your own culture.” 

A native of Dusseldorf, Germany, 10-year-old Martin moved with his family to New Jersey in the United States, where he later studied mechanical engineering at Rutgers University and spent a semester in Hong Kong. Martin describes his semester abroad as a “really amazing” experience that instilled a desire to further explore that part of the globe. 

“I wanted to work for a company where I could also travel to Asia,” said Martin, now an equipment engineer and energy site manager at the Corning Environmental Technologies plant in Kaiserslautern, Germany. 

After starting as a melting and forming equipment engineer in MTE in 2014, Martin got to travel back to Asia, this time for work. 

“I was in Japan for 10 or 12 weeks at a time. It was super cool,” Martin said. He also worked in Korea and Taiwan. 

Andrea came from a small town in Missouri and studied ceramic engineering at Missouri University of Science & Technology. After that, Andrea started as a process engineer in CET Division Engineering in Erwin, New York. She, too, found opportunities to work in Germany and China.  

“I grew up in the middle of nowhere near a small town and did not see that in my life plan. It was very surreal,” Andrea said. 

Moving in the same crop of engineers, Martin and Andrea crossed paths in 2015, grew close, and got married in September 2017. While they had both traveled internationally on separate work assignments, the Santens decided they wanted to live and work in the same place. A supervisor asked the couple how long they’d be willing to live apart. Andrea and Martin conferred with each other and decided, “A month. Not longer than that.” 

Corning respected their preference. 

“They made it happen. It makes you feel valued,” Martin said. 

When Martin traveled to Hefei, China, for work at a new Corning Environmental Technologies plant in 2018, Andrea moved there not long after, although her site work was not scheduled to begin for a few more months. 

Life in Hefei, a five-hour drive from Shanghai, brought all the employees who worked there closer together.  

“You’re riding the same bus, an hour to the plant, an hour back. You’re going out to dinner after work, having drinks,” said Andrea. “It reminded us a lot of being in college.” 

Work didn’t take up all of their time. The Santens enjoyed vacations across Asia. Corning connected the couple with a cultural coach who encouraged their exploration pursuits. 

“The trainer suggested making a list of places we wanted to go and things we wanted to do, and schedule them,” Martin said. “We ended up going to southern China, eastern China, northern China, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Bali.” 

The coach also delivered sessions on Chinese culture and language, culture shock, and reverse culture shock. 

“For me, when we go back to the U.S., some of that culture shock training comes into play, because we’ve been gone from the U.S. for so long. I thought the training was really gooduseful,” Andrea said. 

In 2019, the Santens made a permanent move to Martin’s home country, Germany, to continue their Corning careers. 

“The work-life balance is something we really enjoy here in Germany and more geared toward the employee than the employer,” Martin said. 

The two bought a house in 2021 and are now expecting their first child. Andrea is working on her German while Martin is reconnecting with his roots. 

“It’s been nine years with Corning. But every couple years, we’ve had such a big change," Andrea said. “I've been in the same role or a similar role in forming for the whole time. But the projects have been so different, the locations have been different. It feels like I've had four different jobs. But I'm able to take my learning continuously with me because I like what I do.”