Wilhelm Grebe (Manager)
Wilhelm Grebe (born January 26, 1933 in Aurich ; † February 3, 2019 ) was a German aviation manager. He was managing director of Cologne / Bonn Airport from 1965 to 1979 and director of Hanover Airport from 1980 to 1998, making him Germany's longest-serving airport director before he retired.
life and career
Wilhelm Grebe was the son of a senior government councilor. He spent his childhood in Berlin until 1945. At the end of the war he moved to Lower Saxony, graduated from the municipal high school in Holzminden and then studied civil engineering with a specialization in transport at the technical universities of Braunschweig and Hanover. After passing his diploma exam in 1959, he was employed as a research assistant at the Institute for Transport at the TH Hannover , where he received his doctorate in 1961 with a dissertation on European air transport.
Grebe began his professional career in 1961 as assistant to the director at Hanover Airport , Friedrich-Wilhelm Petzel . He then worked for Deutsche Lufthansa in Frankfurt, where he was head of airport facilities and assistant to the board member Prof. Süssenguth until the end of 1964.
On November 1, 1965, the supervisory board of Flughafen Köln / Bonn GmbH appointed him managing director of the airport company and thus Germany's youngest airport director. Under his leadership, the first modern post-war passenger terminal in Germany was built, which was inaugurated in 1970 by Federal President Gustav Heinemann . In the 1970s, the airport was expanded to become the second largest air cargo hub after Frankfurt, a position that it has held in Germany to the present day.
In 1968 Grebe received a teaching position at the Institute for Transport at the University of Karlsruhe , where he held weekly lectures on air transport operations and planning for air transport systems until 1980. In 1973 he was appointed honorary professor by the Baden-Württemberg Minister of Culture. In addition to his main occupation, Grebe was also a member of the administrative advisory board of the German Aerospace Research and Research Institute ( DFVLR ) in Cologne from 1978 to 1987 , and from 1982 onwards he was also chairman of its personnel and finance committee.
In 1979 Hanover Airport contacted Grebe to ask whether he would be the successor to Airport Director Prof. Dr.-Ing. Piper, who retired in 1980 due to age, would run. Since his third five-year contract for Cologne / Bonn expired at the end of 1979 and negotiations for a further extension had not yet been concluded, Grebe agreed. The supervisory board of Flughafen Hannover-Langenhagen GmbH then appointed him on May 1, 1980 as airport director now in Hanover.
In the 18 years that followed, Hanover Airport underwent major expansion in line with traffic developments. A modern air cargo center, another large aircraft hangar and an administration building for the Hapag-Lloyd aircraft yard, a new plant for overhauling aircraft engines for MTU, spacious parking facilities for passengers with more than 13,000 parking spaces and a new air traffic control tower were built. The extension of the northern parallel runway to 3800 m enabled the airport from 1990 to also carry out unrestricted take-offs with large aircraft over intercontinental distances. Negotiations with the Maritim Group about the construction of another airport hotel with over 500 rooms, which went into operation in 1993, were also concluded. The planning and construction of a third passenger terminal with the S-Bahn station below were both the culmination and completion of his work for Hanover Airport.
Grebe was a member from 1982 to 1992 and from 1987 chairman of the administrative advisory board of the Federal Agency for Air Traffic Control. From 1987 to 1998 he also worked as an honorary commercial judge at the Hanover Regional Court .
Since 1998 Grebe spent his retirement in Isernhagen near Hanover.
Awards
- Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon (December 30, 1992)
Fonts
- Study of the traffic needs of German airports and their consideration in the European air traffic network (= aviation research reports of the Federal Minister of Transport , Volume 18), also dissertation from December 9, 1961 at the Faculty of Construction at the Technical University of Stuttgart, Düsseldorf: VDI-Verlag, 1963
- Karl Albert Reitz, W. Grebe: The drive-in airport. Concept for modern airport buildings , [Cologne]: Deutsche Lufthansa AG, ground service department, [1963]
Individual evidence
- ↑ Compare the obituaries in the daily newspaper [[Neue Presse (Hannover) |]] , family announcements from February 16, 2019, p. 6
- ↑ a b se: Former airport manager Grebe is dead , in: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung of February 16, 2019, p. 21
- ↑ Office of the Federal President
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Grebe, Wilhelm |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German airport director |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 26, 1933 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Aurich |
| DATE OF DEATH | 3rd February 2019 |