Rainer Bartram, the Hamburg native who shaped Wintersteiger into an international company, died last month at the age of 85, just a month after leaving the company as chairman of the board. Wintersteiger was started in 1953 by Johann Wintersteiger and Fritz Walter, and at first made seeding machines. In the 1960s it started making machines for ski production. Bartram bought his first shares of the company in the early 1980s, acquiring a majority stake in 1989. In-between, he helped lead Wintersteiger to the top in its industry, from a rank of 15. Today the small Austrian-based engineering company is a global player, with more than 600 employees and turnover of €84.5 million in 2007. In the last 10 years, its sport division has doubled its share of the group’s total sales. Wintersteiger will continue to be run by its three chief executives, Walter Aumayr, Roland Greul and Markus Piber.