Kaspar Winkler

It was in 1889 that Kaspar Winkler, then just 17 years old, made his way from the village of Thüringen near Feldkirch in the Austrian province of Vorarlberg to Zurich. One of eight children, he was already used to going away, as even from the age of nine his impoverished cobbler father used to send him to work in the summers on a farm in south Germany, as was typical at the time.
 
It was while he was looking after cattle that something flew into his eye, an incident which left him blind in the eye affected and he subsequently had a glass replacement one fitted. He went on to train as plasterer in Bregenz before going on to Zurich. It so happened that much building work was going on in the city and hardworking masons like Winkler were much sought after. In 1895 he left to work in the Ticino for four years but then returned to Zurich where he set up his own business, which, after a few years he sold at a profit. At around this time, too, he began to experiment with additives to building materials and even employed the services of a chemist. In 1910 he set up his second business, Kaspar Winkler & Co, marketing a quick-setting waterproofing admixture he had invented, calling it Sika 1.
 
However, the years leading up to the First World War were not easy and the company went into the red, a situation which led Winkler and his wife turn to religion and they became Catholics. It seems their prayers were answered in the form of the SBB opting to use Sika 1 in the lining of some 67 tunnels on the Gotthard railway line between Lucerne and Chiasso.
 
Further sales followed, resulting in Winkler, once a cowherd, now a successful entrepreneur, settling permanently in Zurich in 1920.
 
In fact more advanced developments of Sika 1 are being used in the construction of the new Gotthard Tunnel, known as NEAT (New European Alp Transit), at 57 kilometres the longest tunnel in the world.
 
Further success ensued during the Twenties and Winkler expanded his company to London, Paris in Milan. In 1928, his only daughter Klara married Fritz Schenker, a chemical engineer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Despite the dire economic climate of the time, both he and his father-in-law continued to expand the company, which, by this time, was known as Sika. It was Schenker's daughter Franziska who, in 1953, married Romuald Burkard, who held a doctorate in economics. It was he who, with his great entrepreneurial gusto and strong Christian values, successfully led the Sika company until 1971, when he retired. It was also he who was behind the renowned "Sika Sprit", through which staff were not simply regarded as employees but as part of a larger Sika family.
 
It was not until 1960 that the company moved to Baar and, from 1990 onwards, the company became a flourishing global concern, with shareholders in Switzerland and abroad benefiting from its incredible growth. Burkard protected the company from hostile takeovers by introducing a dual share structure and transferred the family's voting shares into the Schenker Winkler Holding, with the opting-out clause inserted in 1998.
 
In the years which ensued, it became clear that none of his children was interested in working for the company. The older son, Urs, trained initially as a joiner before becoming an interior designer. As to the daughters, one became a seamstress, another a nurse and another a teacher in a kindergarten. As for the younger son, Fritz, he studied economics and it was the CEO of the company at the time, Walter Grüebler, who took over a sort of god-fatherly role, with the result that Fritz became active in the company in 2001, but he left of his own will in 2012, putting an end to any hopes Grüebler had he (Fritz) would one day be on the board.
 
Since the death of the Romuald Burkard in 2004, it has been said that there has been no-one in the family to stand up against the increasing influence of the managerial team. For the remaining years of her life, Franziska Burkard went along with what the managers wanted and her children did not interfere. It was only following her death in December 2013 that it all changed, with her descendants subsequently seeking out a possible purchaser.
 
As the journalist who wrote this article concluded, the company that Kaspar Winkler set up through tireless effort and hard work has now become the subject of much contention, fought over by opposing teams of lawyers and advisers.