Anton Lerchbaumer

"In almost all reports about Haselsteiner, you can read that he came to the construction company Isola & Lerchbaumer – short: Ilbau – in Spittal an der Drau (Carinthia) in 1972 as a tax consultant and met his future wife there. The story sounds good, but it is not true. The truth is rather: He had already fallen in love with Ulrike “Ulli” Lerchbaumer, who comes from a dynasty of Carinthian construction entrepreneurs, during his studies. All male representatives of the family bore the first name Anton. Ulrike’s father was already the sixth Anton Lerchbaumer. The first had founded a craft business in the construction sector in 1835, which is why the founding year of Strabag SE is also given as 1835 in the English version of Wikipedia. In 1954, at the peak of the economic boom following the end of the Second World War, which was to go down in history as the economic miracle, the construction company Lerchbaumer became Ilbau through the entry of a new partner."

"Back to Haselsteiner’s entry into Ilbau: In March 1974, Anton Lerchbaumer unexpectedly died from complications that arose after what was supposed to be a routine surgery for a stomach ulcer. “Only then did I have to decide whether I wanted to join the company. My father-in-law would have always liked that. I didn’t want it to avoid a potential conflict with him.” Lerchbaumer did have a son, who has since passed away. But at that time, he was only 17 years old and thus far too young to become an entrepreneur. So the 30-year-old son-in-law took over the company, which was already a nice medium-sized enterprise with 440 employees at the time – regionally leading, but only number 30 in the already small Austrian market. This was about to change quickly. The new boss had little experience in construction but an unmistakable instinct for business, entrepreneurial foresight, and above all the necessary bit of courage to implement his ideas and visions: “It’s much less romantic than one might think. Since I had already been on the supervisory board for two years, I knew the company quite well. I agreed because the need was urgent and someone had to step into the breach.”"