Jacques Kuhn

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Jacques Kuhn (born February 15, 1919 - † December 30, 2016 ) was a Swiss entrepreneur and inventor. He was the developer of the "Duromatic" pressure cooker for the Kuhn Rikon company , of which he was managing director from 1969 to 1984. In the 1960s he supported the establishment of the Rikon Tibet Institute .

Life

Jacques Kuhn was born in Alsace . His parents returned to the Canton of Zurich in 1926 . In Rikon , his father Heinrich took over the competing copper and steel pan manufacturer Gebr. Kindlimann. Heinrich Kuhn died of a brain tumor as early as 1932 and Jacques' older brother Henri succeeded him.

Career in a family business

With a degree in mechanical engineering , Jacques Kuhn joined the family business in 1947 and took on responsibility for technical and operational matters. Immediately after the war, the young engineer, who specializes in sheet metal working, visited factories in the USA that made cookware. He brought ideas such as assembly line production with him to Switzerland. In 1949 he developed the "Duromatic" pressure cooker.

In 1969 Henri Kuhn died at the age of 55. Jacques Kuhn took over the sole management. His principle was: "If you want to lead well, you have to like people." Around 1975, Kuhn Rikon patented and launched the “Durotherm”, a double-walled saucepan that was also a serving bowl . In 1984 he finished his operative work in the company, which passed to the third generation.

Commitment to Tibetans in exile

After attending a benefit event following the Tibetan uprising in 1959 , the Kuhns took in a group of Tibetan refugees in Rikon. In October 1964, the first 22 refugees arrived in the Zurich Oberland, and they soon started working in the pan factory. During the boom at the time, they covered the need for workers and were housed in newly built apartments. Here, too, Jacques Kuhn combined economic pragmatism with philanthropy.

To compensate for the loss of their homeland and to make it easier to get used to the western environment, Jacques and Henri Kuhn turned to the 14th Dalai Lama . In 1967 he sent five Buddhist monks from India to Rikon, where the Monastic Tibet Institute was opened in 1968 on building land owned by the Kuhn family. During his time as Managing Director of Kuhn Rikon, Jacques Kuhn was Vice President of the Board of Trustees , which was chaired by his sister-in-law Mathilde Kuhn-Ziegler. From 1998 he was President of the Foundation for seven years, then Honorary President until his death.

The Dalai Lama visited the Tibet Institute several times on trips to Switzerland, where he thanked Kuhn, who was himself a Reformed Christian , for his commitment. He called him "Pola" (grandfather).

Co-author of the Tösstal crime novels

At the age of 87, Jacques Kuhn married his Austrian wife Roswitha, who headed the library at the Tibet Institute for 16 years. She was previously active in literature. From 2013 they wrote three detective novels together , in which the village police officer Noldi Oberholzer investigates in the Tösstal .

After a short stay in hospital, Jacques Kuhn died at the end of 2016 at the age of 97.

Works

  • Jacques Kuhn: Why a Tibetan monastery in Rikon? Writings of the Tibet Institute Rikon No. 10, Rikon 1996.

Books by Kuhn

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Thomas Widmer: Der High Pressure Man , Tages-Anzeiger , January 8, 2017, accessed on January 22, 2017.
  2. ↑ a b c Christoph Wehrli: Tüftler, Patron, Freund der Tibeter , Neue Zürcher Zeitung , January 8, 2017, accessed on January 22, 2017.
  3. ^ Obituary by Kuhn Rikon Switzerland
  4. ↑ Appreciation by the Tibet Institute Rikon
  5. ↑ Andrea Freiermuth: Liebes-Krimi , Migros-Magazin , September 16, 2013, accessed on January 22, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Kuhn, Jacques
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss entrepreneur, inventor and author
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1919
DATE OF DEATH December 30, 2016