On August 1, entrepreneur Urs Bühler passed away at the age of 82. With his passing, Bühler loses a figure who reportedly significantly shaped the company as an owner, chairman of the executive board, and chairman of the board of directors since 1970, overseeing more than five decades of its development. In 2014, Urs Bühler proactively ensured the succession and continuation of Bühler as a family business by transferring the company shares to his daughters Karin, Maya, and Jeannine Bühler.

Born in 1943 in Uzwil, Switzlerland, Urs Bühler spent his youth there. He attended the Kantonsschule am Burggraben in St. Gallen and later studied mechanical engineering at ETH Zurich. Joining Bühler in 1970, he held various positions both domestically and internationally, until being appointed CEO in 1986. In 1994, he also took over as chairman of the board of directors. From 1990, Urs Bühler was the sole owner of the company. Throughout his career, he held numerous external mandates, including the boards of the Swiss Bank Corporation, Sulzer Group, and Winterthur Insurance, and was on the board of Swissmem for 30 years, significantly contributing to Swiss industrial history.

In 2001, as part of succession planning, he transferred operational responsibility of the Group to Calvin Grieder, who also took over as chairman of the board in 2014. That same year, Urs Bühler prudently arranged the succession of ownership by transferring company shares to his daughters Karin, Maya, and Jeannine Bühler—the fifth generation of owners. The Uze AG, founded in 1892 and managing the family's real estate, was already transferred to his daughters in 2011.

“We are committed to the legacy of our father and predecessors and will continue to run Bühler as a family business. The strategic focus on innovation, training and development, and sustainability also has our full support,” emphasize the three daughters.

During his more than 50 years at Bühler, Urs Bühler has shaped the company to this day, ensuring its successful development through numerous long-term decisions, the company says. These include the company’s internationalization, its global expansion, the entry into new technology fields such as extrusion, and the early adoption of modern information and automation technologies.

His guidelines of never compromising on innovation are well-known and still valid, Bühler notes. This focus on innovation is evident, for example, in the Urs Bühler Innovation Fund (an innovation advisory board consisting of recognized experts, which Urs Bühler attended with enthusiasm and commitment), the construction of the Cubic Innovation Campus, and the recently opened Bühler Energy Center. Under Urs Bühler’s leadership, the mechanical engineering company evolved into a broadly positioned and global technology group, offering a comprehensive range of solutions for the food and mobility industries, the company says. His lifework laid the foundation for Bühler to be positioned to aim to meet current and future challenges.

Despite his successes, Urs Bühler remained a modest, reserved, and empathetic person, the company shares. In addition to technology and business, his great passions included equestrian sports, skiing, and a holistic approach to the health of humans and animals, the latter being reflected in the Health Balance AG, founded by Urs Bühler in 2004.

Related: Bühler adapts to global cocoa processing on the rise