This year, Holp GmbH is celebrating its 45th anniversary. “Unspectacular,” say some, “unbelievable,” say others, because the company’s innovations are based on the practical construction machinery experience of Franz and Günter Holp. The senior can look back on an incredible 65 years and the managing director on 40 years of practical machine experience.
Many advertise with the slogan “From practice for practice”, although it is not entirely clear where the concrete practical experience that goes into the respective product comes from. At Holp, it is completely different, because here it is very clear that father Franz and son Günter definitely have the DNA of excavator drivers and that the two of them literally have hydraulic oil in their blood.
Always at work since the 1950s
Franz Holp, who founded Holp Erdbau GmbH 45 years ago in 1979, had been working on construction machines since 1957. He grew steadily into the job of machine operator, gained experience on different machine models and also knew all of their technical details. Franz Holp was involved by Liebherr in the development of its B series of crawler tractors because, thanks to his intensive practical experience, which he had gained in his work and later as an entrepreneur in earthmoving, he always knew exactly which features were really needed in practical use on the machine.
Even when the company had long since been handed over to Günter Holp, Franz had no intention of retiring. He continued to pursue his passion and, by the time he was 88, had gained an incredible 65 years of construction machinery experience on crawlers and excavators before he had to leave the machine operator’s seat – albeit only after his fourth hip operation and very reluctantly.
Machine enthusiasm is in the DNA
Franz Holp passed on this enthusiasm for construction machinery to his son Günter, who completed his first hours of work on a crawler tractor in 1980 at the age of 14 and continued to drive machines during his training as a bricklayer. Due to back problems, Günter Holp completed further training as a micro-electronics technician before he was drawn back to construction machinery in 1991 and joined his father’s company, which began using excavators in addition to crawlers in 1992.
Günter Holp soon developed a new trench-digging bucket to enable him to carry out daily work in earthmoving operations more efficiently. This was in use from 1993. The background was a requirement from the forestry industry: they were looking for an attachment for cleaning trenches that could be used to do this task while driving, which would save time and money compared to a trench cutter. The bucket is now in a museum – but it was the basis for Günter Holp’s first patent, the VarioLöffel.
Earthworks and inventions
In parallel to the day-to-day business of the earthmoving company, which Günter took over from his father as managing director in 1997, he was always working on new attachments that would make the machine operators’ everyday work easier. In 1997, for example, a patent was filed for the VarioBucket, followed in the following years by MultiGrip and KranFix, until the RotoTop came onto the market in 2007 and the success story of pure rotation began. To date, despite an ever-increasing focus on mechanical engineering, Günter Holp has also accumulated a good 40 years of experience with construction machinery.
Even today, he is not afraid to swap the office for the cab in his free time and carry out excavation work for friends and neighbors. Günter Holp still likes to demonstrate how the RotoTop and the other attachments work to people he talks to on construction sites, at events or in the test arena, even if this is usually done by the dedicated members of the team. This makes it clear to everyone: Anyone who drives an excavator at Holp has the DNA of an excavator driver and knows exactly what is important in daily practice.
