2008.04.17

Last February 25th, Wilhelm Christ, technological development manager of Then Maschinen GmbH for a long time, has been awarded the Wirtschaftsmedaille des Landes Baden-Württemberg. The medal of honour is awarded for special professional or entrepreneurial contributions to the economy of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Just two years after he joined Then, with offices at Schwäbisch Hall, in 1966, Wilhelm Christ developed his first dyeing machine, considered revolutionary at the time. It was a high-temperature dyeing jet with total immersion of the piece, conceived primarily for the treatment of some synthetic fibres just introduced on the market.
By the mid-70s, he started researching solutions which allowed for saving water and energy, and Wilhelm Christ was the first person to develop a partial immersion jet dyeing technique endowed with horizontal chamber for fabric depot and a new sort of jet, as well as a number of machines with circular deposit chamber. All systems were very successful on the market.
In the meantime, Wilhelm worked hard on the design of a yarn dyeing plant and above all, development of yarn dryers with which he also obtained revolutionary results.