KNF USA
Nothing is impossible – you just have to take the risk. That is Erich Becker’s motto from the very beginning. And so it is only a matter of time until he is compelled to expand the company into the land of opportunity. KNF establishes a sales office in Princeton, USA, in 1977. But more adventures await the company than expected.
Erich Becker takes a very systematic approach to tapping into the American market. He chooses the location near New York by sticking pins into a map to mark the various local industries, and it is in Princeton that he identifies a cluster. He initially rents some premises for KNF in an industrial complex. Before doing so, however, he spends several years painstakingly researching the competition and market demand. The decision to set up a production facility in the USA is also a logical step, because the risk of currency fluctuations is reduced and, on the other hand, KNF’s pumps have to meet specific legal and technical requirements to be sold in the USA. Yet every step in this huge, unfamiliar country with a foreign culture, a different language and even different electrical frequencies and units of measurement demand a certain boldness.
This is demonstrated by Jürgen Strauss, who is appointed plant manager in 1978 and flies across the Atlantic for the first time in his life – despite speaking hardly any English. On arrival at KNF’s new location, he is greeted by a chaotic scene of empty boxes and disassembled pumps with missing parts. At this point, KNF has just three employees in the USA. Over the next few years, Jürgen Strauss not only brings order to the production facility, he also ramps up business, recruits new staff and puts the company location on track for growth.
By the late 1980s, the foundations have been laid – KNF has gained a foothold in the USA and has started to capture the market with its special applications. The customers soon include large corporations from the medical equipment and environmental engineering sectors as well as other industries. For example, KNF diaphragm pumps begin to be used by Chrysler in automotive manufacturing and at Fermilab, the renowned research center for particle physics near Chicago.
KNF quickly outgrows its original rented premises in Princeton and purchases the company’s first manufacturing location in Trenton in 1993. At this point, 50 employees work for KNF Inc. The USA later suffer a recession following the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. In 2007, Martin Becker and eventually his brother Paul Becker move to the USA to restructure operations and to pave the way for new growth. Today, 140 employees from almost 20 different countries work together in Trenton and successfully sell KNF’s bespoke pumps to customers in North and South America. And KNF has many more plans in the pipeline for the land of opportunity.
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