Wilfried W. Zschalich

At an age of 78 years, Wilfried W. Zschalich has passed away on the 3rd January 2019. With the death of the senior partner, HEROSE has lost the man that, with his farsighted decisions in the middle of the 1990´s, laid down the foundation stone for the success of the company today. As Wilfried Zschalich began his occupation as controller at HEROSE in the Hamburger Stresemannstraße on 1st January 1971 at an age of 30 years, nobody would have thought – at the least himself –, which moving, exciting and finally, successful development of the company would take: from a ship fitting manufacturer that was threatening to fail at the end of the 1980´s to one of the global leading companies in the valves industry today.

Born on the 3rd June 1940 in Hastenbeck (district Hameln/Pyrmont), after completing his A-levels, Wilfried Zschalich studied business administration. Being employed as a newly appointed graduate merchant between 1964 and 1970 in an auditing company in Hamburg, he then changed to T. H. Rose KG in the Stresemannstraße. The company HEROSE, founded in 1947, was a sole sales company then that sold products of T. H. Rose KG and HERO Armaturenwerk GmbH in Bad Oldesloe – both companies that from which the company originated from today. Basically, ships fittings made from red brass as well as safety and globe valves were produced for mechanical engineering and building services.

As Wilhelm Klauke, the sole shareholder of T. H. Rose KG, 1973 deceased, Wilfried Zschalich took over the management and the executor. Difficult ownership structures did not allow important decisions for the future to be made for a long time.

In the middle of the 1980´s, there were only few in the trade that gave the small consolidated companies around HEROSE any chance. But the company manoeuvred itself through. At the end of 1987 the production location of T. H. Rose KG in the Hamburger Stresemannstraße was abandoned and relocated to HERO at Bad Oldesloe, the administration department followed in 1992 and rented an office in the Bad Oldesloe Mohr shopping centre.

The major change came in 1996 as family Zschalich took over the company and began with bold investments. The deceased senior partner had long recognised that the future of HEROSE was in cryogenic engineering – and started up. At the end of 1996 we moved into the new HEROSE building in the Elly-Heuss-Knapp-Straße. This was not only for organisational reasons: the old HEROSE factory in the Oldesloer Straße was "dripping with oil". We could only convince our customers that HEROSE could also manufacture cryogenic valves free of oil and grease in the new halls. It was uphill from there. With the founding of HEROSE Limited in 1998, the company presence was increasing in many parts of the world. Today, the export share of HEROSE is at about 75 percent and the company with its almost 400 employees at present export in more than 100 countries.

At the beginning of 2011, Wilfried Zschalich withdrew from the managing board and handed over the company to his son Dirk, who had already also managed the company as managing partner since 2004.