Hans Oberrauch died on 9 May 2024 aged 83 years. He founded Finstral and turned the company into one of Europe’s leading window manufacturers; he also chaired the board of directors for many years.

Hans Oberrauch was the son of a carpenter and a trained joiner. Together with Max Lintner, he founded Finstral in 1969 on the Ritten plateau near the city of Bozen. In doing so, he was backing what was a revolutionary new idea at the time: PVC windows. His courage was rewarded because, together with his younger brother Luis, who joined the company a little later, he succeeded in turning Finstral into one of the leading manufacturers of windows, entry doors and glass walls in Europe.

Time and again, Hans Oberrauch managed to set trends and launch innovations with Finstral. At the end of the 1970s the company was a driving force behind the certified slide-on installation process, laying the foundation for Finstral’s strength in window replacement that continues to this day. Since the mid-1980s, Finstral has been offering modern composite sash solutions and aluminium-PVC material designs. From 2001, Finstral established modern, frameless window sash models featuring innovative adhesive technology. In 2012, Finstral rolled out its consistently modular FIN-Project profile family, which still today forms the basis for Europe’s most diverse range of windows. Most recently, Hans Oberrauch initiated the newly introduced solution of a smart combination of windows with box-type windows using the FIN-Fix installation frame.

Along with his brother Luis, Hans Oberrauch also developed the company itself, unafraid to take courageous entrepreneurial decisions. Back in the 1970s, it was decided that Finstral would extrude and develop profiles itself. The 1979 opening of a production plant in Bad Lauterberg, Germany, saw the company’s first expansion abroad. Finstral also established its own insulation glass production, opened its own wood-processing facility and is now also active in aluminium powder coating. Today, Finstral has 14 production plants in Italy and Germany and distributes the finished elements both in direct sales and via some 900 partners throughout Europe. Finstral employs a total of around 1,600 people.

Hans Oberrauch always saw himself as a down-to-earth craftsman, demanding much both of himself and of his employees. Yet at the same time he always had an open ear and great sympathy for their concerns. When, on the occasion of the company’s 50th anniversary, he was asked whether he had actively had to develop a corporate culture for Finstral, he replied: “No, not really. From early on we learned in the carpentry shop how to deal with people. Our aim was always to be good employers, producers, suppliers and partners. That is very important to us.” Nevertheless, he always kept a close eye on the development of the organisation. Following strong growth in the 1990s, the brothers professionalised and extensively restructured the company. On the one hand, they laid the foundations for future growth, while at the same time they ensured that the cooperative culture of the early years would continue to this day. Hans Oberrauch and his brother Luis also initiated the handover to a new generation with considerable foresight, trust and merit, bringing their children into the company at an early stage and gradually giving them more responsibility. In 2020 his son Joachim became Finstral chairman, while Hans’s nephew Florian joined father Luis as vice-chairman of the board of directors: daughter Verena and niece Kristin Oberrauch are also on the board. Hans Oberrauch and his brother Luis thus ensured continuity in the management of their South Tyrolean family business.

Hans Oberrauch was also a passionate art collector, and it is thanks to his passion that the company now has an extensive international collection of contemporary art. He said: “My collection is like the society we live in – diverse.”

Hans Oberrauch died in Bozen on 9 May 2024 aged 83 years following an illness.