Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Welschof was chairman of the founding committee and founding director of the Institut für Agrartechnik Bornim e.V. (ATB) from 1991 to 1992. On December 22, he celebrates his 90th birthday. We congratulate!
ATB owes a lot to him...
The political changes in 1989/1990 marked a completely new era for the research at the campus in Potsdam-Bornim. In this time of transformation, Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Welschof, as chairman of the founding committee and founding director, played a decisive role in shaping the development of the ATB from a newly founded institute to an excellent research institution. Under his directorship, beginnings were successful: research was successfully reorganized in terms of program and structure, and the future-oriented research concept was finally confirmed by the Wissenschaftsrat (German Science Council). Even after his retirement from the directorship, he accompanied the development of the institute as chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board from 1993 to 1999.
Gerhard Welschof grew up on the family farm. After studying mechanical engineering in Braunschweig, he moved to Hohenheim University as a research assistant in 1957. In 1962, he received his doctorate in the field of pneumatic conveying from what was then the Technical University of Stuttgart.
At about the same time, he began working with industry. Welschof started his very successful career, during which he gave significant impetus to tractor construction, in 1961 as group leader for technical calculations at the International Harvester Company (IHC) in Neuss. After just two years, he became chief engineer for global testing, head of the tractor development department in 1971, shortly thereafter a member of the management team, and in 1976 he was appointed a member of the Worldwide Tractor Committee of the IH Group. In 1979, Welschof joined Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz AG (KHD), where he became head of development for its agricultural technology division in 1984 and was appointed to the management board in 1986. From 1988 until his retirement in 1990, he was responsible for the strategic planning division.
Welschof has always been committed to young scientists and has communicated his knowledge and experience from industrial research and development in numerous lectures. However, a career change to a university was out of question for him. In 1967, he received a call to Weihenstephan to take up the chair of agricultural engineering, which was linked to the management of the State Research Institute. He declined the call.
The impressive record of his life's work also includes his dedicated contribution to various committees. From 1970 to 1992, he was member of the advisory board of the VDI-Fachgesellschaft Agrartechnik, later its chairman and on its board of directors. From 1981, he was a member of the board of trustees of the FAL, from 1986 to 1990 on the board of the LAV, and from 1993 to 1997 on the executive committee of the KTBL. In 1992, he took over the chairmanship of the VDI Society for Agricultural Engineering succeeding Prof. Matthies and Prof. Göhlich. With foresight, he successfully shaped the merging of the Max-Eyth-Gesellschaft für Agrartechnik (MEG) and the VDI-Gesellschaft Agrartechnik in 1994.
In 1996, Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Welschof became the third agricultural engineer, after Prof. Dr. G. Fischer (1940) and Prof. Dr.-Ing. H. J. Matthies (1989), to receive the VDI Medal of Honor for his outstanding achievements.
In 1993, in his farewell speech at the ATB, he formulated five theses on scientific self-image, which have lost none of their topicality. "You have to run to at least stay on the spot, otherwise you will fall behind" applies today more than ever. Existing goals have to be questioned and discussed again and again, cooperations have to be pushed forward in a stimulating way - as a prerequisite for successful, future-oriented research.
The employees of the ATB congratulate Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Welschof from the bottom of their hearts and wish him many more good years in the midst of his family!