The owner families and staff of machinery manufacturer Engel Group (Schwertberg / Austria; www.engelglobal.com) are mourning the deaths of senior directors Irene and Georg Schwarz, who passed away within days of each other in late March and early April at ages 86 and 88. The couple managed the business for decades, and laid the foundation for the success of the group, which today employs more than 5,000 workers worldwide.

Irene Engel was part of the group from the very beginning, joining the company her father Ludwig Engel founded in Schwertberg in 1945. She held a number of positions at Engel over the years, including bookkeeper, financial director, controller and director of human resources. After she married Georg Schwarz in 1951, the trained machinist and mechanic also joined the company.

The couple took over Engel’s management in 1965, following Ludwig Engel’s sudden death. At the time, the company had just 380 employees. The family decided early on to set up foreign subsidiaries, opening two production plants in North America, and began developing the company’s own robots – setting the course for the system solutions business, established in the 1980s.

In 1997, the couple handed operational management to the third generation of the family. Engel is currently in the midst of the next general transition (see Plasteurope.com of 02.03.2016) – a process in which both Irene and Georg Schwarz were also involved. Even beyond their 80th birthdays, the couple remained actively involved in the business, overseeing the step into Asia at the turn of the millennium, when Engel established production plants in South Korea and China (see Plasteurope.com of 24.06.2004).

“For Engel, the deaths of Irene and Georg Schwarz mark the end of an era. They leave behind a void that cannot be filled,” the company said in a statement.