A pioneer of the printed circuit board has passed away

On January 1st 2017 Werner Peters, founder of Lackwerke Peters GmbH & Co. KG has passed away at the high age of 85.

As early as in 1956, Werner Peters developed, together with the two other pioneers of the printed circuit board Fritz Stahl of Ruwel and Hermann Seul of Isola, Germany’s first printed circuit boards manufactured in serial production, thus heralding the beginning of the PCB industry in Europe.

Many of his product novelties, such as the first non-bleeding solder resist or the newly invented peelable solder resists, were considered to be significant milestones in electronic production, not only in Europe but also in the rising “tiger states” of that time in Asia, i.e. South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

By taking over the Niederrheinische Lackfabrik in Krefeld in the year 1970 and its orienting towards special lacquers for electronics, Werner Peters started his success story as an entrepreneur. Later on, in 1984, after years of steady expansion and international growth, the company moved to a larger and newly built location in Kempen.

Ever since, Werner Peters and his innovative medium size family-owned company have been committed to the City of Kempen for their unique site of production.

Besides his volunteer work in managing boards, technical committees and the board of directors of the industry associations VDI/VDE and VdL or ZVEI in particular, he was involved in promoting young talents and local cultural events.

Since the year 2000 Lackwerke Peters has cooperated with the Luise-von-Duisberg high school on a partnership basis where educational projects are complemented by operational practice.

Moreover, Werner Peters started to support Kempen’s high-class cultural programme in the1990s, being one of the co-founders of the promotional society for culture and business.

His lifetime achievement, the Peters Group, is now managed by his daughter Brigitte Schwartz and his son-in-law Ralf Schwartz as the second generation; they have taken over management responsibilities in 1995 already and pursue his company philosophy and the fundamentals of his thoughts.