800 People Bid Farewell to Dr.-Ing. h. c. Günther Cramer

On January 24, about 800 people attended a public Memorial Service for Dr.-Ing. h. c. Günther Cramer at the Kongress Palais in Kassel. The company founder, long-standing Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of SMA Solar Technology AG and founder of the Günther Cramer Foundation died in Kassel on January 6, 2015, at the age of 62 after a long, difficult illness.

Speaking at the memorial service were Prof. Dr. Klaus Töpfer, executive director of the IASS Potsdam; Pierre-Pascal Urbon, SMA Chief Executive Officer; Peter Drews, co-founder of SMA; Yvonne Siebert, a member of the SMA Works Council; Dr. Günther Häckl, a member of the German Solar Industry Association executive board; Dr.-Ing. Martin Hoppe-Kilpper, managing director of the Competence Network deENet; Bertram Hilgen, Lord Mayor of Kassel; and Prof. Dr. Rolf-Dieter Postlep, president of the University of Kassel.

Klaus Töpfer, who often stood side by side with Günther Cramer to campaign for renewable energy, praised him as a persuasive personality and a pioneer of the global energy transition. “Günther Cramer had a goal and a vision. He saw clearly his responsibility to society. We will continue to make inroads in realizing his vision, as there is a lot of work to be done to bring this vision to where Günter Cramer always wanted it to be,” said Klaus Töpfer.

“Günther Cramer always dared to go one step farther than others, creating a life’s work that paved the way far into the future,” said SMA Chief Executive Officer Pierre-Pascal Urbon. “This extraordinary achievement would have been impossible without his courage, his persuasiveness and contagious zest, or the team that followed him with such enthusiasm. It is now our task to continue his life’s work. We will not do so without a struggle. But as when sailing on stormy seas, we must stay the course. Günther Cramer, an experienced sailor and captain, would not have had it any other way.”

About SMA
The SMA Group generated sales of more than €930 million in 2013 and is the global market leader for solar inverters, a key component of all PV plants. SMA offers innovative key technologies for future power supply structures. It is headquartered in Niestetal, near Kassel, Germany, and is represented in 21 countries. The Group employs more than 5,000 people worldwide. SMA’s broad product portfolio includes a compatible inverter for every type of module on the market and for all plant sizes. The product range includes both inverters for grid-connected photovoltaic plants as well as off-grid and hybrid system technology. The product portfolio is supplemented by comprehensive services and operational management of utility-scale PV plants. Since 2008, the Group’s parent company, SMA Solar Technology AG, has been listed on the Prime Standard of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (S92) and also in the TecDAX index.

 

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