The Endress+Hauser Group is mourning the passing of its founder, Dr. Georg H. Endress. The entrepreneur died on Dec. 14 after a brief, grave illness a few weeks before his 85th birthday, surrounded by his family in Arlesheim, Switzerland. Employees of the family-owned group around the world reacted with sorrow at the news. Their deepest sympathies are conveyed to his wife Alice Endress-Vogt and the couple’s large family. The core of Endress’s work is the establishment of the Endress+Hauser Group, an international company for industrial measurement and automation engineering with more than 8,300 employees worldwide.
“I wanted to prove to myself, my family and the world that I could carry an idea through to success,” Endress once stated in reply to the question of why he became an entrepreneur. “When we were expecting our third child, my wife challenged me to do something, so I became an entrepreneur.”
Endress was born in Freiburg, Germany, on Jan. 9, 1924. His father was the director of a factory. Seven years later, the family moved to Zagreb, Croatia, where Endress started school. He completed further schooling in Basel, Switzerland, and then took an apprenticeship as a mechanic and finally studied engineering in Zurich. After working for several companies in Switzerland, Endress moved to England and a company which manufactured a new type of electronic level measurement device.