When making sales calls, he would park his battered Volkswagen Beetle out of his prospect's field of vision and hike the rest of the way to the front door to make his pitch. And having long ago abandoned his VW, the father of three often shuttles by helicopter between his company's German plants. Yearly film output now is 75,000 tonnes and increasing. Orbita is a global operation with additional European production facilities in France and Italy, and a U.S. plant near Chicago. It has a dual turret winder and automatic roll handling.
Plans are under way to buy two more such lines during the next two years.
He says planned growth and strictly adhering to corporate philosophy are key. Founding the company, located in the chemical belt of East Germany, was a high-risk undertaking, but Runkel says he's become used to taking chances in the interest of growing the business. In 1989, shortly after German reunification, Runkel acquired a state-owned combine that had been using antiquated equipment to produce all types of plastics products, without any perceivable purpose or plan. Runkel took over part of the existing property and revamped and built a new facility manned by a startup crew of 120. He invested heavily in new equipment and remanufactured many of the existing eastern-made blown film lines.