Joël Daubichon: A Career at Deauville Congress Centre

When Joël Daub­ichon speaks about the Centre Inter­na­tion­al de Deau­ville, he nev­er refers to it as just a build­ing. To him, the CID is a liv­ing, com­plex and demand­ing organ­ism, whose every corner he knows — even the most unseen ones.

Ori­gin­ally trained in car­pentry and join­ery, he joined the CID con­struc­tion site in the early 1990s, while the build­ing was still under con­struc­tion. For nearly a year, he took part dir­ectly in the cre­ation of this excep­tion­al facil­ity. A form­at­ive immer­sion. When the con­struc­tion phase ended, he chose to stay — a decision that would mark more than three dec­ades of commitment.

For 34 years, Joël Daub­ichon sup­por­ted the CID through all its devel­op­ments. As Tech­nic­al Coordin­at­or, he over­saw the site’s entire gen­er­al main­ten­ance: build­ing struc­ture, HVAC sys­tems, fire safety, and tech­nic­al net­works. A major respons­ib­il­ity, made even more demand­ing by the CID’s unique archi­tec­tur­al and func­tion­al design, unlike any oth­er in France.

Lead­ing a delib­er­ately com­pact in-house team, he coordin­ated nearly forty spe­cial­ized con­tract­ors, cov­er­ing all trades. His role went far bey­ond day-to-day man­age­ment: he anti­cip­ated, secured, main­tained and con­tinu­ously adap­ted the site’s facil­it­ies. In recent months, he also devoted a sig­ni­fic­ant part of his time to know­ledge trans­fer, care­fully and meth­od­ic­ally pre­par­ing his succession.

His role has now been taken over by Paulo Dos San­tos, who him­self brings 22 years of expert­ise as an elec­tri­cian and tech­nic­al man­ager with­in the CID. This intern­al con­tinu­ity ensures the pre­ser­va­tion of valu­able tech­nic­al know-how, rooted in a deep under­stand­ing of the build­ing, its con­straints and its uses.

This week, Joël Daub­ichon turns a major page in his pro­fes­sion­al life. As he leaves the CID for a well-earned retire­ment, he leaves behind far more than a pos­i­tion: a tech­nic­al leg­acy, a cul­ture of place, and a long-built sense of ser­vice. Dis­creet yet indis­pens­able, he is one of those without whom noth­ing would func­tion, and whose con­tri­bu­tion endures well bey­ond his departure.

Build­ing on strong know­ledge trans­fer and recog­nized intern­al expert­ise, the Centre Inter­na­tion­al de Deau­ville enters this new chapter with con­fid­ence, hon­or­ing the tech­nic­al her­it­age developed over the years.