When you look back and see you got some work done, that it’s all in order, then you forget all the trouble you had doing it
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Jaroslav Holler was born on 20 April 1927 in Pilsen. His family lived on Křížkova Street at Roudná. Jaroslav “Shorty” joined the Scouts troop Stopa (Track) in 1936. He played the trumpet in both the Scouts and the school orchestra. He did competitive swimming in the Czech Swimming Club, he was an active mountaineer and an enthusiastic skier. During the war he was sent to forced labour in Technische Nothilfe. As a Scout, he was an active participant in the liberation of Pilsen during the last days of the war. He was granted an exception by the Ministry of Education, allowing him to successfully pass two matriculation exams - at the grammar school on Mikuláš Square and at the Secondary Technical School of Construction in Pilsen. Soon after starting them he gave up studies at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University, he was denied student accommodation and could not afford to rent a place in Prague. He thus found employment at the bridgeworks of the Škoda Works. This gave him insight and experience in construction, and he decided to take up the career of a construction engineer. Despite having his background assessment recommend he be expelled from studies because of an “admiration of the American way of life”, in 1952 he graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague. He was allotted a job at Mining Projects Ostrava, and he even kept his place there at the drawing board throughout his mandatory military service. He then moved on to Mining Projects Pilsen. Background profiling during the tenure of President Novotný caused him to end up doing manual labour at Armabeton (a concrete producer). He headed the Department of Capital Equipment at the Škoda Works, which were then renamed the V. I. Lenin Works. He worked as chief building engineer at Stavoprojekt (engineering projects) for more than twenty years. He was a member of the nationwide committee for steel structures. From 1987 he worked at the 1st Brno Machine Works. In 1990, having reached pension age, he established his own building project company Statikon. He took part in numerous projects of both industrial and civil engineering, such as the Regional Police Headquarters in Pilsen (Ing. arch. Gloserová), or the former ROH (Revolutionary Trade Union Movement) Building on American Avenue in Pilsen (Ing. arch. Hrubec). His most recent finished project is the look-out tower on Mount Špičák in Šumava, which was opened to the public in 2014. Mr. Jaroslav Holler died in 2016
