“Naturally, it is crazy to start an electric motor factory with just 2,000 kroner in capital, an obsolete lathe and a drill. But I put my sign up saying “P.A. Fisker, Elektrisk Fabrik”, bought some planks, partitioned a corner of the workshop off as my bedroom and made a wooden model of a 1 HP motor to power my machines. It is a start.” P.A. Fisker’s memoirs Founded on unsatisfied curiosity P. A. Fisker is bored in the teaching job his parents had destined for him. He spots the potential in the pioneering work being done within electrical power and applies to join the School for Electro Engineering in Copenhagen in 1898. Once qualified, his curiosity is still unsatisfied, and he sets off to see how electricity is being used abroad. He starts in Germany, moves on to the USA and ends up in Scotland before returning three years later - as he promised his mother he would. With 2,000 Danish Kroner* and an obsolete lathe, he moves to Copenhagen in 1906 and starts his farsighted production of small electric motors in a backyard workshop. Business goes well and within a year he is able to employ an apprentice and later goes into partnership with an old colleague, H.M. Nielsen, to form “Fisker & Nielsen”. Early brochures feature the telegram address that will later give rise to the company’s name: Nilfisk. *Equivalent to 20,500 US Dollars today
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