I felt a commitment to the legacy of our fathers’ generation
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Otakar Holec was born on September 14, 1948 in Brno. His father and his three brothers ran a stone mining and processing company, which was nationalized immediately after the February coup. The entrepreneurial family background was not much talked about at home. As a girl, the mother went to the scout group and later got involved in the management of hiking groups and clubs herself, which she also inspired her sons to do. Otakar Holec graduated from secondary grammar school in Brno and entered the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at Brno BUT. In 1968, he participated in the restoration of Junák. During the holidays of the same year, he went on a work assignment to Great Britain, where he met his uncle Sláva Šulec, a war veteran and post-February emigrant. After August 21, 1968, he himself considered the possibility of emigration, but he preferred to return to Czechoslovakia and lead the Junák, later tourist section. In the seventies, he worked at the Institute for the International Biological Program at the Forestry Faculty of the Brno University of Applied Sciences and at the plant for the production of computer external memories of the Brno Zbrojovka. At the same time, he and his wife Hana Holcová devoted themselves to the management of tourist groups and instructor training. Otakar Holec became one of the essential personalities of the Lipnice Holiday School, which trained future camp leaders. He worked there until 1999. In 1993, together with his cousin, he sought the restitution of the family stone company, which was founded by their grandfather. It still operates today under the name Granit Holec. It focuses mainly on tiling and other uses of granite in interiors.
