A 50 YEARLONG DEDICATION TO RESTORING NATURE
From the inventor of the "three-wheeled ditch slope mower", to
full-range supplier of water maintenance machines
"Up to the knees in water and wielding a scythe or a pitchfork" -
towards the end of the 1950s, this is what the clearing out and maintenance of
ditches, trenches and other waterways was all about. Anton Berkenheger, farmer
and chairman of the Meersbach Water Supply and Land Conservation Association in
the Haren/Ems district, set himself the goal of making this type of work easier
to manage and far more effective.
Some form of mechanization was therefore called for and in 1963 Anton
Berkenheger was thus awarded patent rights on his first invention: a
three-wheeled, ditch slope mower. He thereby laid the foundation work
for what today has grown into a fully hydraulic ditch mowing and cleaning range
of machines.
In 1964, Anton Berkenheger (farmer),
Gerhard Knoll (civil engineering contractor), and Josef Göcking (political
economist), founded the Anton Berkenheger & Co. KG in Haren-Erika,
with four employees. Soon after in 1968, the young, successful company was
already in need of larger headquarters and moved to a production hall in
Harener Hafen.
In 1977 the new construction of
the corporate headquarters in Haren-Emmeln was built. At first there were 1,500
square meters for the production workshops, the storage facilities and the
offices. Seven years later, another 1,500 square meters was added. The
production range underwent a consistent expansion as well: self-propelling
slope mowers, attachments for tractors, mowing boats, rough-terrain forklift
trucks, and spiral-bladed lawn mowers have been sold throughout Germany.
In the middle of the 1980s, the
Berkenheger name proudly stood for innovative and comprehensive, water
maintenance solutions.
By the early 1990s there was a
clearly increasing interest in the "BERKY" brand machines in foreign countries.
In July 2015 the subsidiary
company Rent-a-Berky GmbH was created to give customers from Germany the chance
to rent Berky machines. The Anton Berkenheger Group was founded.
At the end of 2015, the Anton
Berkenheger Group and the Senwatec Company made a merger agreement. Since then,
the Senwatec Company has become a subsidiary company of Berky. Because this
integration, our individual companies can offer solutions for the entire
industrial sector of water maintenance, providing a more synergistic solution
for our customers.
In May of 2016 the Managing Directors of Anton Berkenheger
Group met with Henning Clasen, the CEO of HENNING MARINE to discuss a future
partnership. In August of 2016 BERKY
USA, LLC was founded to provide the U.S., as well as the rest of North America
more direct sales representation and service to these markets. By representing BERKY, SENWATEC, and HENNING
MARINE, BERKY USA, LLC is ready to offer a wide variety of equipment from boom
mowers and mowing boats to amphibious dredges and aquatic weed harvesters. With nearly a century of combined experience
in a wide variety of fields BERKY USA, LLC can offer the best solutions to all
of your water maintenance problems!
In mid-2019, BERKY took over Gilbers Mähtechnik from Geeste. Gilbers specializes in the manufacture of attachments for mowing, mulching and chopping. Mounted on tractors and other vehicles, they are used in water and road maintenance. With the takeover, BERKY strengthens the attachments area and is gearing up for the future!
Today the Anton Berkenheger Group has 85 employees,
who are proud to be among the world's leading manufacturers of
Include machines and equipment for water maintenance.