Street named in honor of Manfred Fuchs, deceased founder of OHB
Oberpfaffenhofen, December 18, 2015. The street leading to OHB System AG’s new facility in Bavaria at the Oberpfaffenhofen research center has today been named in honor of the company’s founder Manfred Fuchs, deceased. With his activities and visionary ideas, he left a strong mark on European space flight over a period of three decades. Prof. Dott.-Ing. h.c. Manfred Fuchs passed away in April 2014 aged 75 years.
The mayor of the community of Weßling, Michael Muther, unveiled the sign bearing the street’s name “Manfred-Fuchs-Straße” this morning. “I am very pleased that we are able to honor such an important businessman by naming this street in his memory. As mayor, I welcome the arrival of such a renowned company as OHB, which will be ideally enhancing Oberpfaffenhofen as a traditional center of research. I wish OHB every success at its new site and many more exciting chapters in the company’s success story,” Muther said. The community council of Weßling recently passed a resolution approving the naming of the street.
Marco Fuchs, the CEO of OHB SE, sees the street’s name as acknowledgement of his father’s lifetime achievement. “I am sure that my father would have liked this building. He would doubtless have made use of the architecture, which encourages communications, as well as the direct proximity of the German Aerospace Center, DLR. With our new site in Oberpfaffenhofen, we are superbly positioned and, looking forward, will be able to integrate highly sensitive optical instruments for space at our clean rooms.”
OHB System AG’s modern production buildings and facilities in Oberpfaffenhofen provide employment for 360 people. Staff have been moving to the new building step by step since December.
Manfred Fuchs was born in Latsch, Italy, in 1938. After completing his studies of aircraft engineering, he commenced his career at space technology company ERNO in 1961 and then joined a small company called Otto Hydraulik Bremen (OHB) owned by his wife Christa. Together, they laid the foundations for the extraordinary success story of the present-day OHB SE, which has a good 2,000 employees in Europe and South America.