Wild Heerbrugg
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On 26 April 1921 the company Heinrich Wild, Werkstätte für Feinmechanik und Optik was founded in Heerbrugg from three Swiss technicians:
- the surveyor and inventor Heinrich Wild from Glarus
- the officer Jacob Schmidheiny
- and the geologist Dr. Robert Helbling from Flums.
Heinrich Wild (1877–1951), a leading designer of geodetic and astronomical instruments, was born in Switzerland and began his career as an apprentice surveyor. In 1908, having invented a military rangefinder and convinced Zeiss to manufacture it, Wild moved to Jena and became head of GEO, the new Zeiss branch responsible for surveying instruments. Wild returned to Switzerland after the First World War. In 1921, with the help of Swiss financiers, he established a Werkstätte für Feinmechanik und Optik in Heerbrugg, in the Rhine Valley. In the early 1930s, having recognized that he was not cut out to be a factory manager, Wild moved to Zurich, severed his connections with the firm in Heerbrugg, and designed instruments for Kern & Co in Aarau. His old firm became Wild Heerbrugg in 1937. It merged with the optical firm of Ernst Leitz]] of Wetzlar in 1987, acquired a majority interest in Kern in 1988, was renamed Wild Leitz AG in 1989, and became part of the Leica holding company in 1990.
Starting from 1996 the company was divided gradually again into smaller units. Thus 1996 the Leica Camera AG developed, in October 1997 the Leica Geosystems AG and on 1 April 1998 the Leica Microsystems AG. Today these three companies are all independent public companies. Leica Geosystems produced - in continuation of Wild Heerbrugg - the geodetic instruments and is the global market leader in these section.
