Eugen and Karl Hehl receive SPE Business Management Award

In recognition of their life's work and their outstanding services to the plastics industry, the American Society of Plastics Engineering (SPE) has awarded the Business Management Award for 2007 to the two Arburg Managing Partners Eugen and Karl Hehl. The prize-giving took place on 6 May during an evening reception, at the Millennium Hotel in Cincinnati/Ohio, which was held on the occasion of the SPE Annual Technical Conference (ANTEC).

Arburg Partner Eugen Hehl had travelled to Cincinnati together with Renate Keinath, Managing Partner Human Resources Management, Herbert Kraibühler, Managing Director Technology & Engineering and Friedrich Kanz, Subsidiary Manager, Arburg USA. Renate Keinath accepted the award on behalf of her father, Karl Hehl. The award consists of a sculpture featuring the recipient's name, year of award and location as well as an honorarium. The highly-esteemed award was presented by SPE President Tim Womer.

The Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) is an organisation with global activities and about 20,000 members, which endeavours to promote scientific and technical know-how in the plastics industry and machine construction field. The SPE honours are awarded annually to individuals who have made significant contributions to the plastics industry. These honours are awarded in the context of the ANTEC Technical Conference, the world's largest conference for the plastics technology sector with about 700 scientific and technical meetings and presentations. Eugen and Karl Hehl were honoured for building Arburg into a globally recognised and leading company in the manufacture of injection moulding machines.

In their brief acceptance speech, Eugen Hehl and Renate Keinath emphasised the significance of the honour and their great pleasure at receiving the award. From 1960 onwards, Arburg began delivering its Allrounder injection moulding machines to the USA, explained Eugen Hehl and many thousands of these machines were now in operation throughout the entire country. Together with the domestic market, America counts as one of Arburg's largest markets. In the future, the company will also continue to strongly focus on this important market and thus pay tribute to its significance. This is not least evidenced by the two Arburg Technology Centers (ATC) in Irvine/California and Chicago/Illinois, which are currently being established to provide optimised customer support and are due to open this year. At the end of his acceptance speech, Eugen Hehl concluded that the company and also both Managing Partners wished to express their personal thanks to Society of Plastics Engineers for honouring his work and that of his brother Karl.