Win Labuda
Born as the son of a Danzig merchant and grandson of a shipbuilder, the different influences of his ancestors were happily combined in his nature. Orphaned early, he initially trained as a mechanic at Siemens & Halske AG and later as a technical merchant at the German branch of the British AEI Group.
At 26, he founded an import business for electron tubes in 1964. But it was only the year 1974 that marked a major turning point in his life: he visited Edward Paley (1924-2012), developer of the first cleanroom wipes and owner of Texwipe Inc. Paley's theses on purity as a precious commodity for future-oriented industries convinced him. He decided to dedicate himself to researching wiping cleaning methods. For several years, he sold Texwipe wipes, but in 1979 he founded his own company, Clear & Clean GmbH, and began manufacturing his own cleanroom products. His goal was to produce in Europe, as Paley did in the USA. From 1986, the number of large cleanroom operators in the German-speaking world grew, and almost all of them eventually became customers of Clear & Clean.
In the late 1980s, Labuda established a testing and research laboratory in Lübeck that is unmatched. Over the years, he has authored more than 40 technical papers, holds ten patents, and has introduced four testing methods along with the respective instrumentation for testing HiTech cleaning agents. He has organized two major symposia on cleanroom technology, and precisely on his 65th birthday, he handed over the management of the company to his Japanese wife, Yuko. Since then, he has lived by the Baltic Sea and writes technical-scientific essays.
What did you want to become as a child?
Motorcycle racer.
What was your first car?
A used DKW F8.
What do you look forward to?
A weekend with wife Yuko, a good dinner, controversial discussions.
Which achievements are you particularly proud of?
Yuko's microphotographic work and the CDs we published for young artists.
Which technical achievement do you admire the most?
The invention of the corkscrew.
Who would you like to swap places with for a month?
Someone who weighs only 70 kg.
In which country would you like to have a second residence?
In France.
Who would you like to have met?
Donatello and Rodin.
Which book would you recommend at the moment?
"Journey to the Beginning of Time" by Win Labuda.
What is your favorite food?
Boeuf Bourguignon, a glass of Richebourg, Peach Melba, Segafredo.
What is your favorite music?
Schumann's Symphonic Études op.13, Benjamin Britten's 3rd Cello Suite, but also cool jazz.
What was the best advice you ever received?
"The structures of electronic components will become smaller, but the contaminants will remain, and from this, great new industries will emerge." Edward Paley, Texwipe Inc., September 1974.
Do you have a motto?
Only cultivate the field you can walk across with a cheerful mind.
Win Labuda
Managing Director, CTO
Tel.: +49 451 389 500
Fax: +49 451 389 5020
E-Mail: win@labuda.net
CLEAR & CLEAN
Werk für Reintechnik GmbH
Niels-Bohr-Ring 36
D 23568 Lübeck
