CENTA celebrates founder Gerhard Kirschey’s 90th birthday

CENTA Antriebe Kirschey has marked the 90th birthday of its founder Gerhard Kirschey with a surprise gift at his party. A visionary inventor of industrial couplings, Gerhard received a special acrylic picture of the entire workforce at CENTA’s Haan facility near Dusseldorf, all sending their best wishes.

Gerhard founded CENTA in 1970, building a company with a reputation for innovative couplings, which are designed to reliably connect two shafts together and transmit power. CENTA is a specialist in flexible couplings for use in ships, generators, wind turbines, off-highway vehicles and other heavy-duty engineering applications.

A passionate inventor, Gerhard’s legacy of successful designs and numerous patents has led to the development of many modern CENTA products.

The acrylic picture was presented by: Jörg Lindemaier, Mmnaging director at CENTA; Thomas Prümm, works council chairman; and Christa Guthof, works council member.

Jörg said: “Our team continues to feel a strong connection to the founder and would like to express this with a personal gift on his big birthday. While we have always been a forward-looking company, delivering new couplings that unlock advancements in power transmission for our customers, we wanted to take a moment to celebrate our past.”

From its beginnings, CENTA has grown into a worldwide market leader, providing couplings with torque ratings from 10 Nm up to 20 million Nm. Gerhard oversaw a lot of this growth, but by 2009, had passed management of the company to his sons Bernd and Harald. In 2018, the company was acquired by Regal Rexnord, a leading provider of engineered products that energy efficiently convert power into motion. Today, CENTA is among the brands of Regal Rexnord Powertrain Solutions.

“We are continually growing the company, providing opportunities for apprentices to join our team and working on the couplings of the future,” Jörg added. “From everyone at CENTA, a very happy birthday to you Gerhard.”