Time­line – 50 years of ebm-papst

1963: The “Behr fan”

The first product to be launched at ebm was the “Behr fan”. At the same time, radial fans for range hoods were threat­ening their exis­tence due to bearing fail­ures. The solu­tion was the 68 motor with ball bearing, which was already avail­able as an oil burner motor.

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1972: Expan­sion of inter­na­tional pres­ence

ebm is already firmly estab­lished at the Hannover Messe. Now the company is signif­i­cantly expanding its pres­ence inter­na­tion­ally as well. A booth with the ebm logo can be found at a total of nine trade fairs.

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1975: First EC motor

ebm develops the first EC motor – three decades before offi­cial policy makes energy saving a major issue. Although the EC motor is still viewed crit­i­cally inter­nally due to its high produc­tion costs, the computer industry is already demanding energy-saving compact fans – and the effi­ciency of around 65 percent speaks volumes. By compar­ison, a compa­rable shaded-pole motor achieves just 15 percent at this point.

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1977: High volume argu­ments

In the 1970s, ebm’s busi­ness boomed. As a result, space at the plant was becoming scarce. To ensure quick success in tough nego­ti­a­tions for new building land, Gerhard Sturm is forced to use high-stakes argu­ments. Success justi­fies the means.

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1980: Own bus fleet

Initially, Gerhard Sturm drove employees to work person­ally in his Ford Taunus, but now his own bus fleet takes over. This is easy on the employees’ wallets and also on the envi­ron­ment.

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1988: Federal Cross of Merit for Gerhard Sturm

“We have been awarded the Federal Cross of Merit,” chants the entire work­force proudly when Gerhard Sturm is presented with the award to mark the company’s 25th anniver­sary. He himself empha­sizes that he only accepted the cross on behalf of the employees. Everyone cele­brates exuber­antly together.

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1996: The leap to Asia

Expan­sion in Hungary is followed by the big leap to Asia: In Madras, India, the new building of the ebm-NADI joint venture cele­brates its inau­gu­ra­tion. Mean­while, the first small sales office opens in Shanghai – which will quickly develop into a larger loca­tion thanks to the tire­less efforts of the employees.

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1999: First ebm marathon

The starting signal is given for the ebm marathon. The company is the main sponsor of the event for the first time. 432 runners start the race. 13 years later, there are already 3,500 – including top athletes. ebm also takes respon­si­bility for the “Jugend forscht” compe­ti­tion for young researchers and hosts the regional event. Both events were largely initi­ated by Thomas Philip­piak.

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2003: Change of name

In October, the manage­ment reveals the secret: In the future, all compa­nies of the ebm Group will operate under the name “ebm-papst. The Black Forest company Papst had already been taken over in 1992, and the Alcatel SEL plant in Land­shut was added in 1997.

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2009: Green­Tech

A new logo as a sign of the corpo­rate culture: Green­Tech. The philos­ophy behind it goes back to Gerhard Sturm’s orig­inal company prin­ciple: “Every new product we develop must outper­form its prede­cessor econom­i­cally and ecolog­i­cally.”

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