Businessman award 2006 for Hans B. Bauerfeind, 11/07/2006
The President and Chief Executive Officer of Bauerfeind AG, Hans B. Bauerfeind, is Thuringen’s businessman of the year for 2006. The award presentation took place on October 14 during the 13th Thuringen Industry Ball in Kaisersaal Erfurt. Prominent guests included Thuringen’s Minister for Economic Affairs Jürgen Reinholz and the President of the Association for Mid-Sized Businesses (BVMW), Mario Ohoven. Thuringen’s State Minister President Dieter Althaus was the patron.
The German mid-sized company still doesn’t know its own strength, declared Hans B. Bauerfeind at the conclusion of the award presentation. It isn’t the big corporations, but the medium sized companies that offer the most training program openings and keep the economy going. “The mid-sized company is a sleeping giant,” stated the businessman, who has already won the business person award for the area of Greiz and therefore was automatically nominated for the Thuringen BVMW businessman award.
With the award, the Association for Mid-Sized Businesses honors business people who act as role models through their contributions to the economic development of the Free State and social engagements. The idea to honor businesspeople came, incidentally, from Henry Ford. He wrote the following quote: “We aren’t successful because we have an idea. We are successful because we and many others believed in this idea and acted on it.” The goal of the non-partisan association, founded in 1975, is to overcome the misunderstanding between the economic significance of the approx. 150,000 small and mid-sized companies with 4.3 million employees on the one side and their influence on the shape of the economic conditions on the other.
Bauerfeind AG, as one of the leading producers of medical products such as compression stockings, supports, orthoses, orthopedic insoles and prosthetic parts, is one of the larger mid-sized companies in Thuringen and was recently ranked 32nd among the 100 largest Thuringen companies, with 750 employees, a headquarters in Zeulenroda, almost 50 trainees and sales of 200 million Euro (2005).
