The Keeper of Innovation: A Front-Row Seat to 40 Years of Change
Takeaways
- For nearly 40 years, Ken Ruehrdanz grew with Dematic through multiple changes, embracing innovation and meeting customer needs.
- Ken’s work in multiple roles helped shift focus from selling products to delivering integrated solutions.
- As retirement approaches, Ken continues to pass on a customer-first, relationship-driven mindset.
Kenneth Ruehrdanz has had a unique vantage point, capturing and communicating Dematic’s evolution as an industry leader for most of his career.
The parallels between Ken Ruehrdanz’s career with Dematic and the evolution of Dematic itself are undeniable. Dematic has moved through many iterations of ownership and leadership — from Mannesmann Demag to Siemens and now in the KION era. Ken has grown his career and skillset, not just in knowledge and experience, but as the unofficial keeper of Dematic’s journeyed history.
“I’ve worked for one company this whole time, although it's been like working for five different companies,” Ken says with a laugh.
Just as Dematic adapted to a changing market and customers, Ken adapted to his changing roles. Each transition felt like an opportunity to work for a new company with different leadership styles, business strategies, and cultures. His learning mindset has been an asset throughout his career, providing resilience and adaptability through both successes and failures.
During his career, Ken has watched the company evolve through multiple ownership changes, emerging technologies, and shifting customer expectations. Rather than viewing change as disruption, Ken learned to treat it as an opportunity to improve, refine existing approaches, and challenge assumptions.
Each transition reinforced a lesson that still guides him today: Innovation isn't simply inventing something new — it’s learning how to evolve while staying focused on the problems customers need to solve.
An early lure to electronics
Long before automation became mainstream, Ken was captivated by technology that moved, communicated, and solved problems. Before Ken was even in the workforce, he recalls his curiosity with train sets and electronics. In 7th grade, he wrote an essay about his aspirations to become an electronic sales engineer.
“I was fascinated by anything that combined electronics and movement,” Ken recalls.
What started with model railroads and Heathkit electronics kits eventually led to a career helping customers understand some of the earliest automated solutions in the industry. After graduating from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, he joined suburban Chicago-based Barrett Electronics (perhaps not coincidentally, the inventor of the world’s first AGV in 1954) as a sales coordinator in 1979.
He joined Mannesmann Demag in 1986 as a senior sales engineer, moving to Grand Rapids for the role that would open the door to his career at Dematic.
In sales, he realized that success wasn’t as much about selling products as it was helping customers understand possibilities. He transitioned into marketing communications in 1993 and never looked back, building Sales Support Services as a mighty team of one, creating tools and stories to support sales success.
Embracing change — a systems approach
Though Ken has technically worked here for 40 years, the company changed names and owners a number of times. All that change ensured he wasn’t going to get bored, but it was his ability to embrace the change that allowed him to flourish.
“Businesses have to change more often these days because everything is evolving so fast,” he says.
Decades ago, the primary focus for both company and customer was on products — discrete parts that solved one piece of the puzzle at a time. But today, hastened by technology and global markets, customers need partnerships they can trust and systems that can adapt for agile solutioning. Over time, Ken learned to think beyond individual products and focus on solutions.
“What customers are really buying is a functional solution to a business challenge,” he says.
That shift in thinking, from individual products to integrated customer outcomes, reflects the essence of leading with innovation: continuously improving how we solve problems, converting experience into better solutions, and challenging traditional ways of working.
Innovation depends on relationships
“Innovation is certainly about technology, but it’s also about relationships,” Ken says. That’s one thing that truly sets Dematic apart: a focus on long term partnership-based customer relationships where Dematic is the trusted advisor with the skills, experience, and expertise to ensure that every system continues to operate successfully for its entire lifecycle.
As Ken’s skills in hosting customers and executives in Grand Rapids and first-hand knowledge about Dematic’s history grew, he became the knowledge-keeper and self-appointed company historian, connecting the knowledge to the larger story.
“This is really a knowledge and experience business,” Ken says. “We’re consultants and advisors. We start by understanding a customer’s business problem, then figure out the best technical solution.”
Retirement on the horizon
Now, as Ken eyes retirement, the baton he hopes to pass isn't simply institutional knowledge — it's perspective. He wants the next generation to understand what good looks like: how to think beyond products, how to focus on customer outcomes, and how to connect today's challenges to decades of innovation that came before. And he’s still excited about the future of innovation for everyone at Dematic.
“This industry, supply chain optimization and automation, is the place to have your career. It’s meaningful and important work,” Ken says. “If the intralogistics business is interesting to you and if you have a passion for process improvement, you'll have a very successful career here at Dematic.”
For Ken, pushing innovation forward isn't about slogans. It's about providing the next generation with the knowledge, context, and customer focus needed to continue building the future.
As Dematic continues to innovate and grow, the values that shaped Ken's career remain as relevant as ever: Understanding customer challenges, embracing change, and investing in the next generation. Learn more about the Dematic Solutions Center grand opening.