When two important anniversaries coincide, you have to honour them with a proper celebration. And therefore, Interstuhl celebrates during the last days the 70th birthday of Werner Link and the 50th anniversary of the company. The festivities started on Thursday 28th April with the official ceremony together with 1200 guests. In addition to the speeches, the main event was a music play that lasts 45 minutes and that takes us through the company's history and the life of Werner Link. On Friday, there were special lectures and activities for our customers. And on Saturday, we has an open day to which all citizens are invited. The highlight of this day was the inauguration of the "Interstuhl Path" at 11.00 o'clock.

Werner Link was born in Tieringen in 1941, during the Second World War, as the son of the forgemaster Wilhelm Link. Werner Link's childhood in the post-year period was full of privations and a lack of schooling opportunities, but nothing inhibited his practical skills and clear-sighted ambitions to become the youngest master car mechanic in Baden-Württemberg. In 1961 economic and structural changes led father and son to manufacture sewing machine stands and simple work chairs. Although the name of Interstuhl was not introduced until a few years later, the company was born at that time.

The future needs a past, which is why the identification with a region can be a key element in the development of a business. Werner Link and Interstuhl are inseparably associated with Tieringen in the Swabian Alb. The path from being a small firm to becoming a global company took them from merely dealing with metal agricultural equipment to deserving international esteem for their competence in manufacturing chairs. Looking back, the course taken appears inevitable and simple, but in fact it could only have been mastered by exceptional courage and great vision. It was the conviction and conscientious approach of the entire Link family that led it to successfully embark on the journey from blacksmithing to chair manufacturer in 1961. Based upon the absence of a source of supply of seating for sewing machine manufacturers, the Link family painstakingly developed a business model which has been built up over the decades and today thrills the world with leading edge seating furniture.

The company expanded in several stages. First came the relocation and enlargement of the company by the move to Brühlstraße in 1969. Further building projects followed in quick succession in the seventies, as well as the establishment of an increasing number of branches abroad. In 1995 the brand name of Interstuhl also became the company name. The production surface area in Tieringen now totals 56,000 square metres. The company has been certified in accordance with ISO 9001 (Quality) since 1993 and in accordance with ISO 14001 (Environmental Management) since 1996. Around 36 per cent of output is currently exported. Joachim and Helmut Link - members of the third generation of the family - now manage the company and take their commitment to preserving jobs at the site very seriously. Over the years the company has set up a number of milestones along its route: the expansion of the high-rack bay warehouse, the construction of the new Research and Development Centre, numerous investments in storage and production facilities and finally the Interstuhl Arena.

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