Bülent Bozkurt

“Economic development is the backbone of the ideal of a free, independent, ever stronger, ever more prosperous Türkiye.” Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Grand National Assembly, 1 November 1937

Bülent Bozkurt belonged to a generation that walked in the light Atatürk had shown. He believed in a Türkiye that develops through science, work and production, and devoted his life to Turkish industry producing on the same machines as Europe.

From Hereke to Reichenbach (1953–1963)

Bülent Bozkurt was born on 18 March 1953 in Hereke, a small town in Kocaeli province, the eldest son of Sabahat and Hasan Bozkurt. His grandfather İsmail Bozkurt had come to Hereke from the village of Kızderbent near Karamürsel to work at the Sümerbank textile mill. He attended primary school in Hereke until the fourth year and never forgot the sea, the orchards of Bağlariçi and his classmates.

In 1963 his father took a job at a textile factory in Reichenbach near Stuttgart; in September of that year his mother, his sister and his two brothers drove to Germany in his uncle’s black Opel. Nine-year-old Bülent started at the Reichenbach primary school without a word of German.

Apprentice at Traub, technician in Stuttgart (1968–1977)

After finishing the Hauptschule he applied to Traub, the world-renowned lathe manufacturer in the same town, and in September 1968, at fifteen, was accepted as a machine fitter apprentice: “I was the first Turkish youngster to enter that company, and it made me very proud.” Seeing how little training the foreign workers around him had, he made himself a promise: “Bülent, you will be better, and you will show that Turks can succeed too…”

After his apprenticeship he worked in machine maintenance at AEG’s electric motor plant in Esslingen. At nineteen he lost his mother; the same year the Esslingen court appointed him a sworn Turkish–German translator and he opened his own translation office. While interpreting in courts, police stations and factories he also chaired the Turkish youth associations of Reichenbach and Esslingen. He did not want to stay on the shop floor: “In overalls I would never get beyond repairing machines. I decided to go back to school.” He was admitted to the Stuttgart technical college, sold his car to pay for his studies and graduated in June 1977, aged twenty-four.

A year at German manufacturers, then Istanbul (1977–1978)

Richard Ehrngruber, Traub’s representative in Türkiye, wanted to hire him in Istanbul, but first required a further year of training in Germany. In 1977–78 he worked at Deckel in Munich, Jung in Göppingen, Scharmann in Mönchengladbach, Schütte in Cologne, Traub in Reichenbach and Mauser in Oberndorf. In July 1978 he loaded all his books into a Passat and drove to Istanbul; the same month he married Güler Hanım. For four years at Gamtaş in Karaköy’s Perşembe Pazarı he sold, serviced and installed Traub, Jung, Scharmann and Deckel machines, and came to know Türkiye’s industrial plants from Tofaş and Aselsan to Türk Demir Döküm and the Tank and Pallet Factory. He completed his military service as a reserve officer in those years.

Boztaş (1983–2016)

On 31 March 1983 he founded Boztaş Makina Sanayi ve Dış Ticaret A.Ş. in Istanbul. His principle was clear: high-quality, technological products should enter Türkiye at the most economical prices, so that first the country, then the investor and Turkish engineers would gain the greatest benefit. Rather than defend a foreign manufacturer’s pricing policy he chose to stand by the Turkish customer. One of the most important warnings he left to younger colleagues was that agency agreements with foreign manufacturers must be drafted to protect the Turkish party’s rights.

In almost forty years of representation he worked with leading European manufacturers such as Traub, Index, Tornos, Trumpf, Grob, Gehring, Hatebur, Chiron and Röders. Traub, where he had started as a fifteen-year-old apprentice, joined INDEX in 1997 and was represented in Türkiye by Boztaş from 2001 to 2007; the circle closed. He delivered plants to Türkiye’s leading industrial companies. In 1994 he was among the founding members of the German-Turkish Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AHK); he set up Boztas Deutschland in Ostfildern near Stuttgart. He was a regular at the TATEF and AMB fairs. Although he grew up in Germany he never took German citizenship: “I was born a Turk and I will die a Turk.”

His book

After heart surgery in Stuttgart in January 2009 he began, in his hospital room, to speak into a voice recorder his children had bought him: “I am not a writer… My aim here is to pass on to future generations some things they may find useful.” At that year’s TATEF fair he displayed the book’s chapter headings in the window of his stand. “30 Years of Experience in the Machine Tool Industry – Diaries and Travel Notes” was published by İkinci Adam Yayınları in 2010: childhood and the German years, his first job in Karaköy, factory visits, fair diaries, travel notes from Korea to Switzerland and the life of a representative between two countries. He wanted the book to appear in German as well.

The book closes with the “ten golden rules for buying a machine tool” he left to young engineers and investors; these principles are still the way Boztaş works today.

Today

Bülent Bozkurt passed away on 31 March 2016. Boztaş Makina is carried on by his family with the same principles: the same sector, the same manufacturers, the same sense of responsibility. This page is dedicated to his memory; pages from his Traub training report book and photographs from the Boztaş years are here — and it will grow with the recollections of those who knew him.