Franz Krautkremer, President Of Schottel, Awarded Medal Of Merit

Franz Krautkremer, president of the international Schottel- Group, has been awarded the Federal Medal of Merit for his services to the German economy.

Mr. Krautkremer celebrated his 25th anniversary with the firm on June 1, 1977. When he began his activities at Schottel-Werft in Spay/Rhine, the company was small and was just putting its first prototype of the Schottel- Rudderpropeller through its trial runs. Mr. Krautkremer very quickly recognized the possibilities for the future which this propulsion system, developed by the company founder Josef Becker, offered by virtue of the great variety of applications open to it.

That the Schottel-Rudderpropeller achieved worldwide fame, and to all intents and purposes created the generic term "The Schottel," is to be attributed to Mr. Krautkremer's marketing strategy.

In The Hague, he established the first subsidiary, Schottel- Nederland B.V., where today in a modern factory the same production program is carried out as in the main works in Spay/Rhine.

The North American and East Asian markets are supplied by this subsidiary. The founding of subsidiaries in Hamburg, Basel, Vienna, Paris, London, Miami, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and Singapore served to further expand the world market for the Schottel-Rudderpropeller. This international organization of the Schottel-Group was systematically completed by more than 30 agencies at all other important ports, so that today the international Schottel-Group offers an efficient worldwide sales and service organization.

This forward-looking planning made it possible for more than 15,000 Schottel-Rudderpropellers with a total capacity of over 5,000,000 hp to be delivered worldwide.

Schottel-Rudderpropellers are built as a combined steering and propulsion system with a power range from 10 up to 3,500 hp per unit.

Schottel-Werft has now begun the development of a Schottel- Rudderpropeller of 6,000 hp. It thereby advances into a field of achievement in which no ship propulsion system has existed which permits utilizing the propeller thrust for steering of the vessel by turning of the propeller.

The development work necessary for this is supported by funds from the federal government.

The international Schottel- Group today encompasses about 1,000 employees.

Other stories from June 1977 issue

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