Martin Herrenknecht

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Martin Herrenknecht (born June 24, 1942 in Lahr / Black Forest ) is a German entrepreneur. He is the founder (1977) and CEO of Herrenknecht AG, a manufacturer of tunnel boring machines .

Life and education

Martin Herrenknecht is the younger son of the Schwanau upholsterer Emil Herrenknecht and his wife Elsa. The upholstery was taken over by his older brother Dieter and is now in the third generation.

After graduating from the Max-Planck-Gymnasium in Lahr, Martin Herrenknecht studied at the State Engineering School in Konstanz and graduated with an engineering examination.

From 1964 to 1971 he worked as a construction engineer, project and construction manager at various companies in Switzerland, Canada and Germany. From 1971 to 1975 he was head of the mechanical engineering service on the large construction site Seelisberg tunnel , lot Huttegg, where an American tunnel shield was used. The world's largest tunnel boring machine (TBM) with a diameter of 11.80 m at the time, however, had great difficulties driving it. "Big John" often got stuck in the rock and was often broken. Herrenknecht therefore wanted to improve the underlying construction model with its own company.

Martin Herrenknecht lives in Schwanau- Allmannsweier , is Protestant , married and has three children. In 1978 he and Paulina Ariza Suarez from Colombia met while on vacation in Florida and married in 1982. Suarez speaks four languages ​​and has worked as a translator, tourist guide and telephone operator. She was also the carer for the grandsons of the former President of Cuba in Caracas , Fulgencio Batista.

Entrepreneur

In 1975, Martin Herrenknecht started his own business with the Martin Herrenknecht engineering office in Lahr. In 1977 he founded Herrenknecht GmbH , tunneling technology / Lahr . Since he did not get a loan from the banks, his mother Elsa helped him out with a loan with the minimum deposit of the nominal capital of 25,000 DM . In 1980 he moved the company to Schwanau and in 1998 he converted the GmbH into a non- listed AG. At the end of 2015, the company had a workforce of 4955 employees.

Herrenknecht is considered to be an “edgy” entrepreneur. "Herrenknecht's optimism is angular, gnarled and bursting with strength, like his drill heads ..." "But even with a rough tone, he is always interested in the matter, the project, the advance, the breakthrough. “Its nature fits the tunnel construction”, says a companion. It only goes forward. "

In 2015 Herrenknecht transferred his company shares to a foundation in order to avoid breaking up his company in the event of inheritance. According to Herrenknecht's will, a board of directors should initially manage the business. In addition, Herrenknecht endeavors in the long term to get his son into a leadership role. Herrenknecht postponed his resignation planned for 2019 and announced that he would only retire from 2020.

Herrenknecht regards the successful completion of the Gotthard Base Tunnel as the culmination of his life's work , the tunneling of which was completed on October 15, 2010, one year ahead of schedule. In view of the tunnel length (2 × 57 km) and the geological difficulties with several fault zones , he also speaks of the "premier class" or " Champions League " in the discipline of tunneling. The next big project, the 64-kilometer-long Brenner Base Tunnel , already sets a new record in terms of length as the longest underground rail link in the world.

Lahr airport

Herrenknecht was chairman of the supervisory board of the Lahr airport company . He tries to maintain and expand the local airport. Since 2013 he has been the leaseholder of the airport and managing director of Lahrer Flugbetriebs GmbH & Co. KG .

controversy

Opponents of Stuttgart 21 criticize Herrenknecht's commitment to the project, as his company won the tender for the planned tunnel construction. The Green politician Winfried Hermann accused Herrenknecht of being “too close” to Lothar Späth . Herrenknecht replied that his company was not dependent on this € 80 million contract, but that it was a matter of honor or a "shame" if Stuttgart 21 could not be built by German companies.

Memberships

Martin Herrenknecht has been a member of the CDU since 1982 . Herrenknecht expressed his "worries" in 2016 because Angela Merkel had "moved the CDU to the left" and there was "no more economic wing". At the beginning of 2019, he let his membership rest because the CDU had "moved too far to the left, powerless in the middle of society and powerless on the right edge".

He is a board member of the Near and Middle East Association . V., an organization for the promotion of German business interests in the Near and Middle East .

He is also a member of various scientific technology committees. He has been a member of the Senate of the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) since 2014 .

social commitment

Martin Herrenknecht supports a variety of local initiatives. Since the summer of 1998 he has financed half a pastor's position in order to prevent the local pastor from disappearing. The pastor should, however, "take great care of youth work".

The focus of his patronage lies in the field of education and science. Since 2008 he has financed an endowed professorship for technical petrophysics for the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) . Students at the Technical University Carolo Wilhelmina in Braunschweig receive scholarships for stays abroad to study at foreign universities as well as for internships abroad at construction sites or engineering offices. He donates 35,000 euros annually to support science classes at the Max Planck Gymnasium in Lahr .

Through his company he sponsors a number of top athletes and supports several charitable organizations.

Honors (selection)

   see. Source: 

Publications

Movies

  • The Herrenknecht tunnel drill - world market leader from Baden. Documentary, Germany, 2014, 29 min., Script and director: Joachim Auch, production: SWR , series: made in Südwest , first broadcast: January 8, 2015 on SWR, synopsis from ARD , online video from SWR.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Company history. In: herrenknecht-textil.de , accessed on April 9, 2017.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Martin-W. Buchenau: The master of the tubes. In: Handelsblatt , No. 200, 15./16. October 2010, p. 62.
  3. ^ Peter Bomans: The Herrenknecht car upholstery in Allmannsweier. In: Badische Zeitung , April 8, 2011.
  4. ↑ Urs Willmann: The man in the mountain. In: Die Zeit , No. 26, June 21, 2007, p. 2.
  5. ↑ a b c d CV. In: martin-herrenknecht.de .
  6. ↑ Ulrike Derndinger: Nobody knew what holidays were. ( Memento of March 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ). In: Badische Zeitung , August 9, 2014.
  7. ↑ Hans Weide: From Colombia to Allmannsweier. In: Lahrer Zeitung. March 25, 2014, accessed October 3, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Herrenknecht in numbers. In: herrenknecht.com , accessed on March 6, 2017.
  9. ↑ Kerstin Bund: Optimism: I make the world ... In: Die Zeit , January 26, 2017.
  10. ↑ Susanne Preuss: Tunnel drill with emphasis. In: FAZ , August 5, 2016, No. 181, p. 28, ( online quote ).
  11. ^ A b Bernd Ziesemer : German Politics - "This is a drama". In: The world . December 30, 2016, accessed on March 6, 2017 (interview with Martin Herrenknecht).
  12. ↑ Jörg Braun: Herrenknecht makes his son fit for leadership. In: Lahrer Zeitung , July 30, 2018.
  13. ^ Guest from Schwanau: Martin Herrenknecht, "Tunnel-König" and entrepreneur. ( Memento from April 9, 2017 in the archive.today web archive ). In: SWR TV , Landesschau Baden-Württemberg , January 12, 2017, see the online video of the Landesschau.
  14. ^ Dpa : Gotthard, Brenner or Bosporus: No tunnel without Herrenknecht. In: Tiroler Tageszeitung , June 16, 2017, accessed on March 12, 2020.
  15. ^ Corporate Citizenship. Examples from Germany. ( Memento from February 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). In: Initiative Freedom and Responsibility / WirtschaftsWoche , 2004.
  16. ↑ Planned airport investment in Lahr. The Black Forest is arguing about the Silk Road , spiegel.de from September 4, 2019
  17. ↑ Airfield: Herrenknecht continues , schwarzwaelder-bote.de of November 27, 2014
  18. ↑ Dietmar Neuerer: Possible conflict of interest: Mappus, S-21 and the “Spätzle Connection”. In: Handelsblatt , October 11, 2010.
  19. ↑ Georg Meck: The tunnel drill. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , September 25, 2009.
  20. ↑ Martin Herrenknecht: Why I am putting my CDU membership on hold. In: Focus , January 19, 2019, No. 3.
  21. ↑ a b c Education and Science. In: herrenknecht.com , accessed on March 6, 2017.
  22. ↑ Benno Stieber: Martin Herrenknecht - The great ditch. ( Memento from February 11, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ). Portrait in the Financial Times Deutschland , October 31, 2008, p. 1.
  23. ^ Klaus Rümmele: Martin Herrenknecht. With head and collar. In: lookKIT , ISSN  1869-2311 , Karlsruhe Institute of Technology ( KIT ), 2011, issue 4, (PDF; 10.5 MB), p. 58.
  24. ↑ Technical petrophysics. In: KIT , accessed on March 6, 2017.
  25. ↑ Sports and social issues. In: herrenknecht.com , accessed on March 6, 2017.
  26. ↑ Honorary doctorates. In: Technical University of Braunschweig
  27. ^ Wiebke Ehret: Werner-von-Siemens-Ring for tunnel pioneer Martin Herrenknecht. In: Informationsdienst Wissenschaft (idw), December 13, 2016.
      Press release: Engineer and entrepreneur Martin Herrenknecht receives the Werner-von-Siemens-Ring. ( Memento of March 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ). In: herrenknecht.com , December 14, 2016, with a detailed description of the moving ring.
  28. ↑ Rainer Scharf: Brief portraits of the ring bearers , Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt , January 2018 ( online PDF 1.2 MB )
  29. ↑ Wolfgang Hirn: Martin Herrenknecht - one of the best in the German economy. This man is tunneling under the world. In: manager magazin , 2017, issue 7, online: October 31, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Herrenknecht, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Lahr / Black Forest