Wild Heerbrugg
The company Wild Heerbrugg AG was founded on 26 April 1921 as Heinrich Wild, Workshop for Precision Mechanics and Optics of Heinrich Wild, Jacob Schmidheiny (1875 ) and Robert Helbling in the district Heerbrugg the community Balgach in the canton of St. Gallen. From 1921 to 1990 she was a leading manufacturer of optical surveying instruments, laboratory and stereo microscopes, rice witnesses and instruments for photogrammetry.
History
Over the years, the company changed the name of Heinrich Wild, Workshop for Precision Mechanics and Optics on Sale Aktiengesellschaft Heinrich Wild's Geodetic instruments Wild Heerbrugg AG. In 1986, a merger with Ernst Leitz Wetzlar GmbH for Wild Leitz Group. With the emergence of Leica Holding B.V. In 1990, the name game disappeared. After Leica Camera was spun off in 1996, the remaining group separated in 1997, Leica Geosystems AG, and Leica Microsystems. The word - figurative trade mark of WILD still lives on in the WILD GmbH. The former Austrian WILD manufacturing base in international market, the WILD group has been formed with 380 employees and 80 million annual turnover after the acquisition by the Liaunig industrial holding company.
Origins
On April 26, 1921, the company Heinrich Wild, Workshop for Precision Mechanics and Optics in Heerbrugg Swiss was founded by three personalities:
- The surveyor and inventor Heinrich Wild from Glarus
- The officer and entrepreneur Jacob Schmidheiny (1875 ) from Balgach
- And the geologist Robert Helbling from Flums.
Their focus was the construction of optical-mechanical measuring instruments under which soon enjoyed the Theodolite by several patents of Heinrich Wild particular reputation (especially the types T1 and T2). In 1923 the company of the company was changed to ' sales Aktiengesellschaft Heinrich Wild's Geodetic instruments.
Later instruments for photogrammetry were produced, the Wild T4 uses a special tool for astro- geodetic measurements.
In the course of further innovations led to conflicts, so wild H. 1932 left the company. He brought from then on his ingenuity in the company Kern & Co in the Aargau cantonal capital Aarau one, which grew into a serious competitor of Heerbrugg operation.
The original operation was in 1954 transformed into a Wild Heerbrugg AG. The developed yet wild Theodolitreihe proved so successful that the names were retained T1 to T3 for newer constructions until about 1980. From 1972, a cooperation of Wild Heerbrugg AG and Ernst Leitz Wetzlar GmbH was created.
Further development
In 1987 came the merger of Wild and Leitz for Wild Leitz group. On May 13, 1988, the above-mentioned Aargau company Kern & Co. AG was taken and founded the Wild Leitz AG on 1 January 1989. Already on August 16, 1989 more companies like Cambridge Instruments, Reichert & Jung, and Bausch & Lomb were added. 1990, including the well-known camera manufacturer Leica Holding BV Founded group, inter alia, in cooperation with electronics companies went into the GPS market.
1996 Leica Camera AG was cleaved, 1997 the division into Leica Geosystems and Leica Microsystems. Today it are several legally independent companies emerged. In continuation of Wild Heerbrugg Leica Geosystems produce (since 2005 as part of the Swedish company Hexagon AB ) geodetic instruments, Leica Microsystems microscopic devices, Vectronix (since 2003 as part of the French company Sagem, then saffron ) Military products and SwissOptic AG (part of the Berliner Glas Group ) optical components. An overview shows the breadth and market positions of the resulting business.
Active WILD group
In 1995 from the Leica Group leached WILD Austrian production site was the basis of the WILD group. Under the WILD Logo wild group is concerned still with " Opto- Mechatronics". Corporate purpose is the contract manufacturing and development of precision optics, precision mechanics and electronics for medical and technical optics.
Companies in the WILD group:
- Wild GmbH
- Photonic Optical Devices GmbH & Co KG
- WILD Electronics & Kunststoff GmbH & Co KG
- WILD Technologies s.r.o.