On June 30, Bernd Kullmann, the long-time chief of Deuter, the German backpack and sleeping bag company, had three reasons to celebrate: his 60th birthday a few weeks earlier, 30 years of service for the brand before retiring on the day that marked the end of Deuter's financial year. Staff and selected friends from the industry gave him a surprise party at the headquarters in Gersthofen outside Augsburg, Germany. The change of generations had been prepared quite a while ago: Deuter's parent company, Schwan-Stabilo, hired Martin Riebel, a former executive of Gore-Tex, back in March 2013. Since then he has been running Deuter as managing director while acting as co-chief of Schwan-Stabilo Outdoor (SSO) along with Kullmann. Technically speaking, SSO is the parent company of both Deuter and Ortovox, the German marketer of mountaineering and snow sports gear.
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