Celebrating 100 years! Today, we fondly remember Herbert Doerken, on, what would have been his 100th birthday! (Jan. 4th). In 1986, Herbert was GUHDO USA’s founding majority partner. From post-World War II onwards, he was the driving force behind GUHDO Werk’s comeback to become one of Germany’s leading manufacturers of wood cutting tools, shipping product worldwide!
Celebrating a genuine man, and a good man, we miss him! His memory and his mission live on!
Herbert was dedicated to his customers and customer service was the very foundation of his business philosophy. At the end of World War II when the company was picking up the pieces remaining after the ravages of war, he quickly surrounded himself with a competent team at his saw blade and machine knife factory headquartered in Wermelskirchen Germany and forged strong alliances with other cutting tool manufacturers to create a complete cutting tool program under the GUHDO brand for the wood industry needs. This allowed the company to deliver any tooling needs GUHDO’s customers had without being limited to circular saw blades or machine knives. Within a few decades, the company posted impressive results with several hundred employees, millions in sales and more than 50% export of their product throughout the world.
In 1986, a partnership was formed with 3 leading GUHDO Germany managers and Karin Deutschler, in the US, to establish GUHDO USA. Until his death in 1994 he remained active in his German company…was even known to personally go into the shipping department after hours to pull and pack up a rush shipment that needed to be dispatched that evening!
Pictured below is a bottle of Calvados, a gift from Herbert’s “private stash” of his favorite apple brandy “after dinner” drink, given to GUHDO USA’s (dba GDP Tooling since 2015) current President, Karin Deutschler over 20 years ago… this bottle has been saved for a special occasion! Today is a special day indeed! If he were here, we would raise our glass of Calvados and say “Auf Dich! Herbert!” (here’s to you, Herbert!)
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