Wilhelm Haller

As an apprentice with Messrs Hengstler, a German manufacturer of electromechanical counters, Haller became aware that the fixed concepts in organizations could not live up to the needs of the developments in the working world.

In 1964, he went with his family to New York where, together with Paul Buser, he founded the Hengstler subsidiary Hecon Corporation and, amongst other things, invented the key counter, which gained a US patent in 1966.

To reach a wide public with his flexible working hours concepts and to make them popular, Haller created the Swabian / English slogan 'I laik Gleitzeit' (I like Flexitime),[4] which became the subject of discussion for many and was seen as bumper stickers on many cars.

[citation needed] In order to achieve his goals faster and better and to give the employees a share in the success, Haller founded the company Interflex Datensysteme with three others of like mind which continually developed to become European market leader (it was later taken over by Ingersoll Rand).

He saw himself as the student of the philosopher Martin Buber, whose influence is apparent in Haller's book Das Dunkle Feuer demonstrated in this translation of an extract: We overlook, and too often suppress, the fact that salvation is actually to be discovered in the shadows.

This way leads to the wilderness, down into hell, into the caverns, into the dark lap of Mother Earth, where wheat corn dies and from which only thus fruit can be born.