50 Years of Richard Wöhr GmbH

50-Year Logo RW

(Left to right) Son Marco with Simone and husband Jürgen Wöhr, Stefan with wife Petra and children Timo and Julia Wöhr, Gisela with Richard Wöhr

Richard Woehr GmbH - Headquarters Website

Richard Wöhr GmbH can look back on 50 years of business activity in Höfen in 2017. Much has changed since the company founder Richard Wöhr – vigorously supported by his wife Gisela – laid the foundation for his globally active family business in his garage at the Schönberger residential building as an industrial painter. Around 90 employees – including eleven apprentices – are employed in the anniversary year and were given a team-building weekend in the Allgäu as a gift in August.

"Always influenced by the traditions of the Swabian Black Forest and its craftsmanship spirit, our parents with their diligence, discipline, courage, and entrepreneurial foresight have exemplarily mastered the step into independence with all its highs and lows," reflects Stefan Wöhr. Together with his younger brother Jürgen, he took over management of the family business in 1991, which rapidly developed from a commercial industrial painting company registered in the trade register on October 1, 1967, into a globally exporting supplier of versatile industrial components.

Initially serving mainly manufacturers of 19-inch as well as radio and television technology, as well as mechanical engineering and the metal industry, the 1980s saw the addition of the plastics industry as well as medical and laboratory technology. To this day, the latter has grown to about 50 percent of sales, and electronics/electrical engineering and telecommunications have also gained importance. In 1971, the family business underwent its first necessary expansion with a new building in the Höfen industrial area Gräfenau, and six more followed to this day. After their entry, the two sons also successfully pushed forward their own ideas, opening up new business fields in enclosure and keyboard manufacturing as well as surface and system technology. These included the continuous development of input systems, enclosures made from renewable raw materials, keyboards with antibacterial surfaces, EMC and ESD shielding techniques, the development and production of touchscreens and related input technologies, as well as glass processing and optical bonding techniques in a cleanroom, for which ZIM funding was also available.

The machinery park has accordingly grown to the current 8,700 m² of production, storage, and administrative space in Höfen and since 2012 also in the Gewerbegebiet Beermiss in Bad Wildbad-Calmbach. In the same year, the first foreign branch was established in Atlanta, USA, primarily for the distribution of standard products. Additionally, in 2009, the company KM Gehäusetech GmbH & Co. KG was founded, under whose brand today mainly development, production, and sales of system solutions for the industrial and medical environment are carried out.

In addition to his achievements around his entrepreneurial life’s work, Richard Wöhr has also been actively involved in various voluntary activities for decades. Both earned him the State of Baden-Württemberg’s badge of honor in 1998, the Future Medal of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce Nordschwarzwald in 2001, and the Staufer Medal of the State of Baden-Württemberg in 2012. To this day, he plays several instruments, which also influenced his two sons and their families, as they are all actively involved in the Schönberger Stubenmusik and the Schwarzwälder Trachtengruppe Schönberg.