"75 Years of the Dorfner Group – A Story of Courage, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship"

Impressive development from a small craft business to an international multi-service provider – Managing Director Peter Engelbrecht: "We look back with pride and forward with confidence."

Nuremberg – "Risen from the ruins" – this headline appears over the first chapter of the Dorfner chronicle, created on the occasion of the company's 60th anniversary. On March 1, 1949, master builder Hans Dorfner founded his small craft business in Nuremberg, at a time when the traces of World War II were still omnipresent in the Franconian metropolis. What followed closely resembles a "business fairy tale," as the current Managing Director Peter Engelbrecht likes to call it.

With a ladder, a water bucket, and simple cleaning tools, Hans Dorfner set out and offered his services to Nuremberg's businesspeople. Successfully, because soon the customer base expanded, and the brave young entrepreneur was able to hire his first employees. The construction boom during the rebuilding years accelerated the growth of the small company immensely. A look at the numbers from those years demonstrates this impressively. From 1949 to 1954, sales increased from 2,867 to 66,399 Deutsche Marks.

Early Diversification

"Hans Dorfner not only laid the foundation for our corporate group," says Engelbrecht, "but also acted with foresight over seven decades ago by continuously expanding his service portfolio. For example, he established himself as a 'floor grinding business' and made building cleaning a service. Today, business economists would call this diversification." In subsequent years, the responsible actors successfully pursued this strategy. Today, the Dorfner Group is an international multi-service provider in facility management – with a turnover of over 300 million euros (2022) and nearly 11,000 employees in Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic, 75 years after its founding.

Clever Chess Move

The period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s is known as the years of Germany's economic miracle. It was a steady upward trend. Dorfner developed into a medium-sized company. A man played a significant role in this success – Karl Heinz Rohrwild, the son-in-law of the company founder. Rohrwild had previously worked as an industrial master and assistant to management in a large Nuremberg company. He recognized the great potential of the still young service company and would significantly shape its future from then on.

"Karl Heinz Rohrwild," recalls Peter Engelbrecht, "was a fortunate find. He had visions and the ability to inspire and motivate people." One of his cleverest chess moves, in Engelbrecht's view, was bringing in absolute experts in sales, technology, and finance – Peter Reichel, Helmut Schintag, and Karlheinz Werth – into his team.

Entry into the Healthcare Sector

In 1977, Hans Dorfner died at the age of only 64. Karl Heinz Rohrwild now had to take over the sole leadership of the company. By then, the activities had already expanded far beyond Nuremberg. In 1969, the first branch was established in Selb in Upper Franconia, followed later by others in Würzburg and Deggendorf. An important driver of this development was the entry into the demanding hospital cleaning sector. Today, the Dorfner Group is one of the leading building service providers in healthcare and currently services around 300 clinics, rehabilitation facilities, and senior homes.

Growth Boom in the 1990s

In the early 1990s, a new, unexpected growth spurt began for the company due to German reunification. The new federal states opened promising new markets – especially in Thuringia and Saxony. The existing branches in Upper and Lower Franconia, which had previously been somewhat on the periphery geographically, suddenly proved to be strategically advantageous starting points for activities in the eastern part of the country. Peter Reichel, who was appointed managing director in 1979, recognized the opportunities immediately and accelerated the expansion of new locations. The first branch in Jena was already opened in 1990. The economic success is also reflected in concrete figures. From 1984, sales increased from 15.2 million to nearly 60 million Deutsche Marks by 1994.

Geographical Expansion

Alongside geographical expansion, which led the company in 1996 to Austria and in 2006 to the Czech Republic, the expansion of the service portfolio also contributed to positive development. In addition to core cleaning services, catering was added in 1994, followed by technical building management later on.

Family Continuity

During the early 1990s, Helmut and Karlheinz, the two sons of Karl Heinz Rohrwild, joined the company. After the tragic death of their father in 2005, the eldest son, Karlheinz, took on the role of managing partner alongside Peter Reichel. In 2013, the current Managing Director Peter Engelbrecht succeeded Peter Reichel. Together with the other managing directors Harald Griebel, Holger Lösch, and Sinan Akdeniz, the 56-year-old, who has been part of the family business since 1998, remains at the helm to this day.

Transformation into the Future

Peter Engelbrecht sees the Dorfner Group well prepared for the future. The master plan formulated for 2033 outlines short-, medium-, and long-term goals in the key areas of action for the Dorfner Group – digitalization, organizational structure, sustainability, and the entire field of knowledge transfer and personnel work: "In recent years, we have worked very intensively to make ourselves maximally resilient and ready to act at all levels. Facing the huge challenges posed by geopolitical developments such as wars, economic and raw material crises, the current situation in the labor market, or the impacts of climate change is of central importance. At the same time, focusing on digital transformation is at the top of our agenda."

An additional project that Engelbrecht and his colleagues have been heavily involved in is the intergenerational securing of the Dorfner Group's future. Since 2022, the traditional company has a new shareholder: the Karl Heinz Rohrwild Foundation. The foundation's name preserves the memory of the former owner, Karl Heinz Rohrwild. The previous shareholders, Doris, Helmut, and Karlheinz Rohrwild, decided to transfer their shares into the family foundation to ensure the company's continuity. For Karlheinz Rohrwild, the grandson of the founder and son of the foundation's namesake, this was a historic step. "Like the family itself," says Karlheinz Rohrwild, "the family foundation is something eternal. It provides us all with maximum security in the long term."

For Peter Engelbrecht, this decision marked the beginning of a new era in the company's eventful history. "After the rebuilding phase after the war, the growth period around the turn of the millennium, and the successful transformation into a modern enterprise, we can look back with pride and move forward with confidence. There could hardly be a better starting point for our anniversary year." The celebration will take place in July – with employees, customers, business partners, and many prominent guests.