The Pegasus is the business prize of the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, which is awarded annually in several categories to the most successful Upper Austrian companies. The award winners, who can look back on a long list of successes, are exclusively selected by a top-class jury.

From apprenticeship to successful entrepreneur

Karl Kletzmaier completed an apprenticeship as a machine fitter at VOEST and then attended the HTL St. Pölten on a scholarship. In the 1960s, he met Gunther Krippner as a technician in what was then Austria's largest computer center at VOEST. Krippner started in 1968 with a one-man operation, in which Karl Kletzmaier initially collaborated and joined permanently in 1970. If you hear about successful start-ups founded in the backyard today, then KEBA already set an example at the end of the 1960s: The two-man operation became a globally active company in the field of automation, which has been characterized by a high level of customer orientation, special flexibility and great innovative strength since its founding. Even today, investment in research and development has a high priority at KEBA and is above average at around 17 percent.

Internationality is the key to success

Karl Kletzmaier has always been passionate about working abroad: He saw the opportunities in export and the possibilities that existed for KEBA in other countries very early on - long before globalization became a general trend. So it is not

It is not surprising that currently more than 85% of KEBA products are exported and that KEBA is represented worldwide from the USA to Europe and Asia with its own subsidiaries. The company is still headquartered in Linz-Urfahr, where, together with the second production site opened in 2013 in Industriezeile, 750 of the total of over 950 KEBA Group employees work. A further 700 employees work in the CBPM KEBA joint venture in China, which was established in 2007.

Kletzmaier, who is regarded as an excellent networker, was also always very involved in economic policy, for example in the Council for Research and Technology, which he chaired for many years.