Hugo Thiemann

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Hugo EW Thiemann, photo 1995

Hugo Ernst Wilhelm Thiemann (born February 2, 1917 in Heiden AR ; † June 10, 2012 in Geneva ; resident in St. Gallen since 1931 ) was a Swiss engineer and thought leader. He was a co-founder of the Club of Rome .

Life

Hugo Ernst Thiemann's parents immigrated to Switzerland from Germany and Austria. He attended schools up to and including Matura in St. Gallen. He lost an eye early. This was followed by studying electrical engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), where he graduated in electrical engineering in 1939 and graduated in 1947 as Dr. sc. tech. PhD with a dissertation in applied physics . There he was Fritz Fischer's assistant at the Institute for Technical Physics at ETH Zurich and from 1941 headed the development of the Eidophor large image projection.

Thiemann was married to Marianne Beatrice Sturzenegger from 1946.

Further phases of his professional activity were the commercialization of Eidophor by the company Dr. Edgar Gretener AG, then from 1953 the founding and management of the European branch of the US contract research organization Battelle Memorial Institute in Carouge near Geneva, 1968 founding member of the Club of Rome and from 1974 General Director for Research and Development of Nestec SA in Vevey, a subsidiary of Nestlé , until 1985. He then worked as a consultant for many companies.

After living and working in French-speaking western Switzerland for years, he died there at the age of 96.

Services

The Eidophor large-scale projection system patented by Prof. Fischer has been further developed over years of development work at the Department of Industrial Research (AfiF) at ETH. For the first time, it enabled large-screen projection of real-time television images. Thiemann not only made contributions to the development of the device, but also took care of the transfer of the project from the university to the Dr. Edgar Gretener AG, founded by his ETH colleague Edgar Gretener , later GRETAG, as well as for marketing.

After a demonstration and a lecture on eidophor in the USA, the famous physicist Robert Oppenheimer spontaneously offered him a position at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton (New Jersey) .

In 1953, Thiemann preferred to take up a position at the newly established European branch of the US Battelle Memorial Institute in Carouge near Geneva. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed Director General of the contract research organization Institut Battelle Genève . Thanks to orders from companies such as Philips , Brown Boveri , Sulzer , SNCF , SSIH and Nestlé, he expanded this institute into a renowned R&D institute with up to 750 employees. During this time he published his assessment of the future of industrial research in Switzerland. During this time he took part in the founding meeting of the Club of Rome in 1968 and became a member of its executive committee. The epoch-making study The Limits to Growth was published by this organization in 1972.

Nestlé became aware of Thiemann's abilities as a thought leader and organizer through research assignments to the Battelle Institute. In 1974 he was appointed head of the subsidiary Nestec SA to head the R&D activities of the entire group with the rank of general director. Initiatives developed at the time included drinking water treatment and bottling, as well as new ready-to-use coffee products, now known as Nespresso . He also established the Rive Reine Conference as an interactive advanced training event for Nestlé top management. His employment relationship was extended beyond the normal retirement age by the newly appointed CEO Helmut Maucher .

After his retirement, Thiemann became a member of various consulting organizations, including from 1994 to 1999 as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Geneva Consulting & Management GC&M SA in Geneva.

Honors

Thiemann was named a Fellow of the IEEE by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for his services .

The ETH Lausanne awarded him the degree of Dr.-Ing. honorary (Dr. hc). The University of Geneva also appointed him Dr. hc ès sc.

Thiemann was an honorary member of the Club of Rome and since 1988 an honorary member of the Society of Former Polytechnicians (GEP).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Hugo Thiemann in the Munzinger archive , accessed on August 21, 2012 ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  2. ↑ Jürg Lindecker: Technical research and reflection. On the death of Hugo Thiemann. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, June 13, 2012, p. 10
  3. ↑ Hugo Thiemann: TV pictures in the cinema - GRETAG impresses Hollywood greats with the Eidophor . In: Franz Betschon et al. (Ed.): Engineers build Switzerland - first-hand history of technology , pp. 439–445, Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-03823-791-4
  4. ↑ site battelle.org
  5. ^ Hugo Thiemann: Objectives and limits for industrial research in Switzerland. In: Festschrift for the 60th birthday of Prof. Dr. hc E. Baumann. Hasler Works Foundation. Working Group for Electrical Communications Technology (AGEN), Zurich 1969, No. 10, pp. 6-9
  6. ^ Geneva Consulting & Management Group website
  7. ↑ In grateful remembrance of Hugo Thiemann. Club of Rome, July 2012, accessed January 30, 2019
  8. ^ Hugo Thiemann on the ETH Zurich website from September 30, 2005
personal data
SURNAME Thiemann, Hugo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thiemann, Hugo Ernst Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss engineer and thought leader
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Heiden AR
DATE OF DEATH June 10, 2012
Place of death Geneva