In the presence of Lothar Späth, former State Premier of Baden-Württemberg, and Swiss entrepreneur Moritz Suter, the 'Prix Bartholdi' Upper Rhine university prize was awarded to Mr Endress last month.
Georg H Endress propagated the idea of a cross-border region all of his life and realised early on that the future and competitive capability of a company depended on the availability of highly qualified and well-trained junior staff.
With his apprentice and engineer training in foreign languages and intercultural competencies at the Endress+Hauser sites of Maulburg in Germany, Cernay in France and Reinach in Switzerland, Georg H Endress (1924–2008) embarked on new paths as early as the middle of the 1980s. Later he launched the Biovalley Initiative, a Swiss-German-French life sciences network. He also worked in the German 'Regiogesellschaft', an association coordinating cross-border activities in the Black Forest and Upper Rhine region.
During his lifetime, Georg H Endress received many awards: in 1984 he got the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany; in 1990 he became an Honorary Doctor of the University of Basel; in 1994 an Honorary Senator of the University of Freiburg; and in 2000, he received the Insignia of a Knight of the French National Legion of Honor.