Official inauguration of Freimut-Lock-Strasse

08/12/2011

The municipality of Ertingen names road after an honorary citizen.

Ertingen, 29.07.2011 – He created jobs, helped young people to learn a skill and navigated his fathers company into a world leadership position. Mind you, it was not just his entrepreneurial achievements that prompted Ertingen to name a road after Freimut Lock. Their decision was also guided by his tremendous dedication to the good of the community.

Since Friday, there has been a new road name in Ertingen’s industrial area. The Mayor of Ertingen, Alexander Leitz, ceremonially renamed the section of the road known as Im Saemen that passes in front of the Lock company premises, now proudly known as Freimut-Lock-Strasse. Invited guests included members of the local council as well as employees of Lock Antriebstechnik and their families. Following this, the company celebrated its annual summer festival. This renaming of a road was how the municipality chose to honour the life and memory of its esteemed honorary citizen and entrepreneur.

Freimut Lock was born in Tübingen in 1933. After completing his apprenticeship as a machine fitter, followed by a course of study in mechanical engineering, he joined his father’s company at the age of 23. At that time, Lock Antriebstechnik was a small artisan business with a workforce of five and annual sales equivalent in present-day terms to less than €100,000. Freimut Lock continued to develop the company with his dynamic energy and technical expertise. By 2002, when he handed over the running of the company to his son Frank, the workforce had grown to sixty. Right up until his death in 2006, Freimut Lock was closely involved with the company.

Having said all that, it was not just his entrepreneurial success that prompted Ertingen’s municipal council to rename a road in his memory. “SME entrepreneurs are the backbone of the economy. That is equally true here in Ertingen. But Freimut Lock, over and above all that, made a point of taking the time to step up to the block in support of others, and to make a personal contribution to the local community“, said Ertingen’s Mayor,  Alexander Leitz, in praise of the commitment shown by Lock.

As well as the jobs and training opportunities that Lock created in Ertingen, he also supported the interests of Ertingen in a wide and diverse range of different ways. Between 1968 and 2004 he was a member of the local council, and for 20 of those years, he was First Deputy Mayor. He also committed his energies to the community in a myriad forms – as founder and chairman of Ertingen Tennis Clubs, as a supporter of the foreign aid campaigns  of ‘Ertinger Missions- und Afrikahilfe or as sponsor of the research centre for school-age pupils in Bad Saulgau. In recognition of his great personal services, Lock was not only awarded the Goldene Ehrennadel of the municipality of Ertingen, but also the German government’s Bundesverdienstkreuz public service medal in 2004.