Obituary: Rehau founder Helmut Wagner
Helmut Wagner, the founder of Rehau Verwaltungszentrale AG, died Jan. 24. He was 95.
Wagner began the business, which is now the holding company of Rehau Group, in 1948 with three employees and one extruder in the German town of Rehau. They began by producing shoe welting, garden hoses and automotive components.
The product line kept growing. Within 10 years, Rehau also was extruding vinyl windows and magnetic gasket systems for refrigerator doors.
Over the decades, the company added production for car bumpers, cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) pipe radiant floor heating, medical tubing and components, unplasticized PVC windows, polypropylene sewer pipes, a brand of PEX pipe called PEXa for geothermal systems, and more.