Editor's Note: This is one in a series of articles profiling a variety of value centers to help employees learn more about ITT Industries, its people and its products. Just a year after he took a job with a manufacturer in Stockerau, Austria, Ernst Vogel left to start his own company. He envisioned a promising future for centrifugal pumps, and decided to strike out on his own to make the top quality products that would bear his name. That was in 1909. Since then Vogel Pumps has expanded its product line to include a full range of end-suction and multi-stage pumps that reliably deliver water for residential, commercial, municipal, service, agriculture, irrigation and general industrial markets. The company also offers complementary products used in a wide variety of applications. Vogel Pumps was acquired by Goulds Pumps in 1994, and became part of ITT Industries in 1997. Since 2002 Vogel has been part of ITT's Water Technology Group (WTG) Europe, Middle East & Africa, together with Lowara, Vogel's sister company. The company has some 320 employees and annual revenues of approximately $50 million. Still based in Stockerau, Vogel enjoys a 30 percent share of the domestic Austrian market, which absorbs about 47 percent of the company's total sales. Vogel also sells water technology and industrial products in Western Europe and Eastern Europe, where it's working to expand some long-term relationships, especially in the new European Union member countries and in Russia. The company has maintained sales subsidiaries in Poland and Hungary for more than 10 years. Offering Complete Control Along with its pump portfolio, Vogel is perhaps best known for its superb variable speed controls, which it markets under the Hydrovar brand. Patented in 1996, Hydrovar is the world's first pump-mounted, microprocessor-based variable frequency system controller, which can instantly shut off the pump if demand drops to zero. "Hydrovar is a smart version of a frequency inverter, which is used to control the speed of a centrifugal pump," says Hannes Lauermann, Vogel's managing director. "The principle is to control the speed of the pump so its performance is just right for the demands being placed on it at any given time. In this way Hydrovar eliminates the production of unnecessarily high pump pressures. Not only does that reduce energy consumption by as much as 70 percent, it also reduces noise at the control valves and provides the user with constant pressure." While many companies offer pumps with frequency inverters, they all require an external panel to manage and control the various functions of the pump. That's not true with Hydrovar, which provides complete control from one unit mounted directly to the pump. In 1996 Vogel was awarded the ITT Geneen Award for Hydrovar's development. When a new sensorless version was introduced in 2002, Vogel received the Engineered for Life Award from ITT Fluid Technology. Now in use all over the world, the Hydrovar family is Vogel's fastest-growing group of products, thanks in large part to the company's continued focus on innovation. "New versions are under development to maintain our unique market position and hold on to the competitive advantages we enjoy," Lauermann says.			Vogel Pumps managing director Hannes Lauermann and a Vogel muti-stage pump with Hydrovar.