Jenoptik: An East German Bright Light

Standing at a window in his office, Michael Mertin, chief executive of the optics firm Jenoptik (JENG.DE), gestures to a hilly landscape in eastern Germany. "Everything just evaporated," he says, referring to the dissolution of the Soviet empire in 1989. "A whole way of life, a whole way of producing had to be reimagined and reordered." The hills are now covered with modern office buildings, houses, and production facilities.

The past 20 years have brought enormous change to the town of Jena—the home of Jenoptik—and to the former East Germany as a whole. The transition hasn't been easy, and the region continues to lag behind its western neighbors economically. But some bright spots have emerged in the economy of the east, and Jena is one of them. Jenoptik dates from the late 19th century, when Jena was already a site of technical and intellectual prowess. More than a century later, it is a thriving optics and laser company and the second-largest employer in the city.