Karel Steverlynck was born in Vichte, Belgium, in 1888. After completing secondary school, Karel joined his father’s business and aged only twenty, founded a new weaving company in Vichte. When his father Aloïs died in 1912, Karel – or ‘Mr Charles’ as he was called – was forced to take the lead of the Steverlynck Textile Group. Unfortunately, WWI interfered with the planned company expansion. His weaving companies destroyed during the war, Karel started their reconstruction immediately after WWI. Together with his brother Baldewijn he founded the company ‘Groeninghe Dyeworks’ as well as a number of associated firms in 1919. He also cooperated in the expansion of a textile complex owned by his brother Juul in Argentina in 1928, and in a similar company of his cousin Leonard Steverlynck in Uruguay in 1932. In 1936 he became the general manager of Picanol and he would grow and lead the company to become a global player. Karel Steverlynck died in 1984. In many ways he was the ‘pater familias’ of Picanol and the strategist behind the company’s foundation and growth. Up to this very day, his name lives on in the name of the street where Picanol Group has its head office: at the Karel Steverlyncklaan no. 15 in Ieper.
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