The recently deceased inventor, pioneer and entrepreneur Walter Reist not only equipped the NZZ with the innovative technology of his Ferag, but also printers around the world.
Walter Reist was a gifted inventor and developer as well as an industrial pioneer and prominent entrepreneur. In just a few years, Ferag AG (Fehr&Reist AG), which he founded, developed into one of the world’s leading companies for mailroom technology – today one would speak of intralogistics – in newspaper and magazine production.
Within just a few years, Walter Reist was able to win many of the leading publishers around the world as customers for his systems. These included newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph and Pravda. Well-known media moguls such as Robert Maxwell, Franz Burda and Rupert Murdoch frequented his company headquarters in Hinwil.
Ferag AG, which was founded in Dietlikon and moved to Hinwil in 1963, quickly developed into a model company in the Zurich Oberland and employed up to 1,500 people, together with around 20 sales companies on all five continents.
Walter Reist’s success was based on three pillars: his inventive and developing spirit – around 3,000 patents go back to him – his ability to create a new market in the industrialization of newspaper production, and his understanding of entrepreneurship.
difficult childhood
Walter Reist was a classic self-made man. His difficult youth in Schaffhausen and Schlatt TG was marked by the early death of his mother, hard work on his stepmother’s farm and the special time of the Second World War. Under the most difficult circumstances, the trained machine fitter continued his education to become an engineer at the evening technical school.
When he worked as chief designer at the Daverio company in Zurich, which built transport systems for mills, he invented the lubrication-free transporter for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Since the Daverio company showed no interest in this invention, Reist decided to set up his own business. He bought back the patent and founded Ferag AG with a partner.
This invention and all others made it possible for publishers to produce ever larger print runs in less time, revolutionizing newspaper production. Conversely, the company has also felt the decline in newspaper production in many countries in recent years.
Ferag grippers in the now closed NZZ print shop in Schlieren.
The young developer and entrepreneur began to think about the nature of entrepreneurship early on. Questions about what entrepreneurship actually is or what drives an entrepreneur have occupied him throughout his life. Above all, holistic, lively entrepreneurship was important to him, in which people play an equal role in addition to economic and technical aspects. For him, the entrepreneur had to be part of society and work for the community. He largely exemplified these ideas at Ferag.
Entrepreneur Forum Lilienberg
In order to discuss and support the topic of entrepreneurship more broadly, he set up the Lilienberg Entrepreneur Forum in Ermatingen in 1989. Since then, the Lilienberg has lived as a platform for encounters between business, politics, society and culture, but also as a seminar center for numerous companies.
For his work as a successful entrepreneur, developer and inventor, but also for the promotion of entrepreneurship, Walter Reist received an honorary doctorate from ETH Zurich in 1993 as a personality with practical experience. On June 7th he died at the age of 95 in his home in Hinwil.