The co-entrepreneur and wife of the company founder Erwin Sick has shaped the company to this day.
Stuttgart A special eyewitness to the economic miracle turns 100 this Tuesday. Gisela Sick only celebrates in a small circle, in the educational center in Waldkirch, which is named after her. There in Breisgau, where the family business founded by her late husband Erwin Sick 76 years ago is based today. Today, Sick is the leading sensor specialist. And Gisela Sick played and still plays a formative role in the development of the company with her attitude and values.
Born on November 8, 1922 in Aachen, the co-entrepreneur can look back on an impressive life’s work. “Gisela Sick had a decisive influence on the family business and courageously led it into an international future after the death of her husband in 1988. We are very grateful to her for that,” says Mats Gökstorp, the current non-family Sick boss.
From 1990 to 1999, Gisela Sick was a member of the company advisory board and later of the supervisory board, of which she is still the honorary chairman. Even at the age of 100, she still follows the development of the family business with great attention and passion.
Take control of foreign business
After the horror scenarios of the Second World War, this took a fundamental turn: The Sicks never again wanted to develop products for military purposes in their optics company, but only to develop products for the benefit of people. The principle still applies today. So far, the war in Ukraine has not changed that. Following the founder’s pacifist orientation, the company cut its business in Russia.
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If you want to fully understand the company, you have to go to the history. The company founder, Erwin Sick, who was born in 1909, worked as a trained optician and precision mechanic before the war at Askania in Berlin. There he developed a photoelectric “joystick” that could be used to remotely control aircraft.
In 1939 he wanted to study electrical engineering – but the Nazis refused the worker’s son the scholarship needed to finance it because he didn’t want to join the SA or the party. He went to Steinbeil and Sons in Munich and developed target optics for the military. He was still not allowed to study. He suffered from this, but his job in the wartime industry spared him the front.
>> Read also: Sensor specialist Sick sticks to it: “We don’t produce for military purposes”
Gisela Sick fully supported her husband when he founded the “Erwin Sick Company, Photoelectric Specialty Equipment” in 1946. In the beginning she coordinated both the small company and family life in a 20 square meter small barrack without electricity and running water. Her husband focused on the inventions.
Gisela Sick began to devote herself to the growing business. She personally accompanied the founding of the subsidiaries in Japan and the USA. In addition, she devoted herself to training and further education, the promotion of young people and the well-being of employees.
Globally unique quantum sensor
The move from Munich to the Black Forest in 1954 and two years later to Waldkirch heralded the steady growth of the company: from 150 employees in 1960, the group now has more than 11,000 employees. They generate well over two billion euros in sales with intelligent sensor technology.
Sick laser detectors identify trucks at tollbooths, sort baggage at airports and position containers on overseas ships. They protect the Mona Lisa in the Louvre in Paris from theft and industrial workers from injury.
The intelligent Sick sensors are used in automated productions all over the world. Together with Trumpf, the medium-sized company is developing the world’s first industrial quantum sensor. It is said to be the most sensitive sensor of all time.
>> Read also: From the perfect coffee to the quantum computer – this is how Trumpf wants to improve its chips
On the occasion of her 80th birthday, Gisela Sick founded the Gisela and Erwin Sick Foundation in 2002 in order to extend her commitment to education beyond the company. An important project of the foundation is the Gisela Sick Bildungshaus. The house stands for a holistic education and training concept. It enables young people to get education, music and healthy food.
Gisela Sick is happy to have placed her life’s work and that of her husband in the hands of future generations: “There’s nothing you can do about getting older. You have to see that the legacy is passed on to the next generations at an early stage,” she says. “We did that very well. I am proud of my family, who are committed to good causes both within the company and beyond.”
More: The non-family boss Mats Gökstorp is supposed to keep the sensor specialist on the road to success