Mark, you’ve been the head of Graepel North America for 20 years and built up the operation from the ground up. How did that come about?
It sounds like a bigger undertaking than it felt at the time. I’d been with Graepel in Germany since 1997; I’d completed a dual degree program and then worked my way through various departments: production, controlling, and sales. For a while, I commuted between Löningen and Seehausen. Then we realized that business in the U.S. was starting to grow. Business plans were drawn up, and the board at the time asked me if I could imagine moving over there, initially as a point of contact, perhaps with a small warehouse. That was a huge opportunity for me.
And your wife, Heike?
Of course, I asked her. We were in our late twenties at the time, still without children, relatively unencumbered. We thought about it for a few months—and then we did it: in 2006, we packed our bags and set off for Nebraska.
ABOUT THE PERSON
Mark Zumdohme
Grew up: in Lastrup near Löningen, Lower Saxony
Education: Dual degree program, Löningen University of Cooperative Education / Vechta University of Applied Sciences; MBA
With Graepel since: 1997 (Löningen and Seehausen), 2006 Founder and first employee of Graepel North America
CEO since: 2014
Location: Omaha, Nebraska, USA
Family: married to Heike Zumdohme, three sons
Volunteer work: Honorary Consul of the Federal Republic of Germany in Nebraska
Involvement: Member of the Nebraska Diplomats; Member of the Board of Directors of the German-American Chamber of Commerce Midwest (GACC Midwest)
Award: Nebraska Diplomat of the Year 2023
Mark, you’ve been the head of Graepel North America for 20 years and built up the operation from the ground up. How did that come about?
It sounds like a bigger undertaking than it felt at the time. I’d been with Graepel in Germany since 1997; I’d completed a dual degree program and then worked my way through various departments: production, controlling, and sales. For a while, I commuted between Löningen and Seehausen. Then we realized that business in the U.S. was starting to grow. Business plans were drawn up, and the board at the time asked me if I could imagine moving over there, initially as a point of contact, perhaps with a small warehouse. That was a huge opportunity for me.
And your wife Heike?
Of course I asked her. We were in our late twenties back then, still without children, relatively unencumbered. We thought about it for a few months—and then we did it: in 2006, we packed our bags and set off for Nebraska.
Why Nebraska of all places?
It wasn’t a gut decision. We looked at the Midwest because that’s where our most important customers were: agricultural machinery manufacturers in Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, and Nebraska. All within a day’s drive. We got the decisive tip about Omaha from CLAAS, who had been there ten years before us. They had nothing but good things to say.
What ultimately convinced you?
The people. At the top of our pros-and-cons list for Nebraska were: good work ethic, good people. The Nebraska Department of Economic Development has been with us from the very beginning, not only providing information on which properties are available, but also: Where can you live? Where do you go shopping? Where do you buy a cell phone? A comprehensive, worry-free package that felt very personal. And you’re already pretty far from home. That support hasn’t wavered with every expansion we’ve made since then.
You started out as a one-man operation. What did the early days actually look like?
Renting an office, setting up a phone line, getting started. I was on my own and did cold calling—just calling people who didn’t know us yet. What surprised and motivated me time and again was the openness of Americans. It’s hard to get appointments when nobody knows your name. But once you get your foot in the door and can show what Graepel does and is capable of, you gain trust relatively quickly. And then we found key people at John Deere and Caterpillar who simply said: We believe you can pull this off. That was the spark.
And then, at some point, the time came when Mark the salesman had to become Mark the entrepreneur.
That was in 2010. Suddenly, the projects I had secured in the years prior had to go into mass production. We shipped two used hydraulic presses from Löningen. Dirk Schulte and Henry Claus came over from Germany with the presses and helped set everything up. A year earlier, Christian Kraemer had already joined us from Seehausen and taken over engineering. Suddenly we had a small team, machines were set up in a warehouse, and we were producing. The first part we manufactured entirely in Omaha. That was a goosebump moment.
Today, our customers see us as an American company. And that’s a good thing. What they value is this combination: local production and short delivery routes, combined with German engineering, quality, and reliability.
You built a company from scratch that now employs 65 people. What did you learn about leadership in the process?
The key was understanding when I had to stop doing everything myself. At the beginning, it was clear: it was just me. Then five people joined, all from Germany, all with a similar mindset. That was still manageable. But as soon as we started hiring Americans, I really had to let go. You need the right experts for the right areas and then you have to trust them. I’m interested in the result, not whether the path to get there looks exactly as I had imagined it. If I had remained a control freak, Graepel North America wouldn’t have the DNA it has today.
What role does training play at Graepel North America?
A major one. The American education system lacks that middle ground—the solid technical and vocational training that is taken for granted in Germany. After high school, there are two paths: straight into the workforce, often without formal training, or four years of college. For a manufacturing company like ours, neither option is ideal. We need people who can operate machines, who understand how things work, who think for themselves. So we introduced the ICATT program: a dual training model from the German Chamber of Commerce Abroad, two to three days of college, two to three days on the job, three years, with a diploma and a guaranteed full-time job. We were the first in the Omaha area to do this, perhaps in all of Nebraska.
How has it developed?
Slowly but steadily. We hire two trainees every year, always in pairs, because they support each other through the program. What makes me particularly happy: the model has caught on. More than 4,000 people are now enrolled in similar training programs in Nebraska. Community colleges have been massively expanded, state-funded, and cross-sectoral. This is a genuine cultural shift and proof that the German-American connection extends far beyond trade and politics. As Honorary Consul of the Federal Republic of Germany in Nebraska, I experience this every day: especially here in the Midwest, where so many people have German roots, this relationship is deeply rooted and resilient.
When you look back on these past 20 years, what are you most proud of?
My family, first and foremost. That sounds corny, but it’s true. We came here knowing no one. Now we’ve built a life here, a network, friends, a home. That’s not something to take for granted. Then there’s what we’ve built here. 65 employees who can rely on us and whom we can rely on. Good jobs, good wages. That creates prosperity, not just for the company, but for people. And the training program. That’s perhaps a German export hit that not many people pay attention to. But it works.
And where do you see Graepel North America in ten years?
We want to keep growing. We’ve set ambitious goals for ourselves: to grow by at least 7.5 percent every year. That might not sound like much, but over the years, it’s a challenging target. In the industries where we operate, we are far from being represented everywhere. The market here is just as big as the European one, maybe even bigger. We also want to eventually offer surface treatment technology ourselves. And then: perhaps a second location. Somewhere in the Southeast, closer to certain customers. Somewhere where it’s warmer in the winter.
