Wilfried Ensinger, who founded Germany-based plastics processor Ensinger Group, died May 23. He was 87.
"With the loss of its founder, the company says farewell to a passionate engineer, creative inventor and dedicated entrepreneur," a news release by Ensinger Group said. "Even in the decades following his retirement from the management board, [Ensinger] was fully committed to the welfare of the company and its employees."
Wilfried Ensinger started his career as an apprentice toolmaker and a "master craftsman," the release said. He also worked as an operations and factory manager for different companies that specialized in mechanical engineering, precision mechanics and the plastics processing industry.
Ensinger founded the company out of a garage in Ehningen, Germany, in 1966. Later, the company moved its headquarters to Nufringen, Germany, where it expanded production capacity and produced components though "the machining of stock shapes," it said.
"Wilfried Ensinger never rested on his laurels," the release said. "Constant development of products and production processes and the cultivation of employee potential were his guiding principles."
In 1997 he gave up operational management of the company and increased his involvement in community and social projects. He and his wife founded the Wilfried and Martha Ensinger Foundation, which sponsors social, cultural and scientific institutions in Germany and elsewhere.
As president, and later honorary president of the Böblingen District Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ensinger helped to reform the committee and improve in-company training. The University of Stuttgart also gave him the title of honorary senator.
At the end of 1977, Ensinger Group supplied aluminum window manufacturers with the first series-produced insulating bars made from glass fiber-reinforced nylon 6/6.
A second production plant built in Cham, Germany, in 1980 enabled the series manufacture of profiles and other product lines. The corporate group's biggest subsidiary was established in the U.S. in 1986. Since then, many overseas branches were created in Europe, South America and Asia.
The Ensinger Group develops, manufactures and sells of compounds, semi-finished materials, composites, technical parts and profiles made of engineering and high-performance plastics. Ensinger Group uses production techniques such as extrusion, machining, injection molding, casting, sintering and pressing. The family-owned enterprise has 2,600 employees at 33 locations "in all major industrial regions with manufacturing facilities or sales offices," the release said.