Bernd Gombert, Head of Mechatronics at Schaeffler was today awarded the Federal Cross of Merit with Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany. Bernd Gombert is among the “recognized top performers of our country and is among those who set a standard in terms of enthusiasm, motivation and cooperativeness”, according to the Bavarian State Ministry of Sciences, Research and the Arts.
“There’s no such thing as no can do” is one of Bernd Gombert’s motivations. The 49-year-old engineer has been responsible for the mechatronics corpo-rate unit at the Schaeffler Group since December 2008. He had already made a name for himself as an inventor and entrepreneur previous to this. He has initiated over 180 patents to date. These include inventions that have long become indispensable in our daily lives. For example, instruments for minimally-invasive surgery, x-by-wire systems for the automobile industry or the scroll wheel and numerous innovations such as optoelectronic measuring systems for computer input devices.
Gombert is the founder of various successful companies. These include LogiCad 3D, which is today a subsidiary of Logitech, the world's largest manufacturer of computer mice, the Seefeld Technology Park near Munich and the Mechatronics Development Center (ezm), which is also based in Seefeld. “Real innovation cannot be held back”, says Bernd Gombert. “This applied to the needle cage invented by Georg Schaeffler in the same way as for several other products developed by Schaeffler that still form the back-bone of the company brimming with innovative force”.
The Federal Cross of Merit is the highest of several awards presented to Mr. Gombert. For example, in 1995, Gombert was one of the first Europeans to receive the JARA Award (an award from the Japan Robot Association) and was also awarded the first Hermes Award (international technology prize of the Hannover Messe) as well as the Rudolf Diesel gold medal (the oldest medal for commercially successful inventions and innovations). Martin Zeil, Bavarian Minister for the Economy, Infrastructure, Transport and Technolo-gies honors Gombert for his "extraordinary engineering achievements and entrepreneurial initiative”.
Furthermore, the family man’s professional career includes his role as direc-tor of mechatronic development at the Institute for Robotics and Mechatron-ics of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) as well as CTO at Logitech and Siemens VDO.
Dr. Peter Gutzmer, Executive Vice President of Technical Product Develop-ment and Bernd Gombert’s boss is very happy about the award. “We are proud to have an employee with such innovative force among us”. Bernd Gombert is expanding the Schaeffler Group’s expertise in mechatronics. Mechatronics plays a key role for Schaeffler, who is a supplier to the automo-tive industry worldwide. “Ultimately, networking individual components with each other will become important in future. Bearings are becoming intelligent and part of the information chain”, explains Dr. Peter Gutzmer. “And what applies to bearings applies more than ever to complex modern systems that Schaeffler offers the automobile industry”.
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