Arne Bundgaard - The Story Behind HMF’s Founder
The story begins in 1945 with a young auto mechanic who dreamed of building something great. The young man borrowed some money from his family and sold his beloved motorcycle to buy a small bicycle and car repair shop, which he named Højbjerg Maskinfabrik (HMF). Since then, the company has expanded both nationally and internationally and much has changed. But today - 80 years later - HMF remains Denmark’s only manufacturer of truck-mounted cranes. We celebrate this by sharing the story of HMF and its founder, Arne Bundgaard Jensen: a man of ideas, innovation, and immense drive.
A Leader on the Floor
“Arne loved being on the shop floor,” recall Claus Pedersen and Jens Ove Bøgholm, two long-time employees we spoke with to learn more about Bundgaard’s life and leadership. They both started as machinists - Claus in 1976 and Jens Ove in 1982 - and experienced the company’s founder firsthand. According to them, Arne Bundgaard was not the type to hide behind a director’s desk. He wanted to feel his company, hear the machines at work, and see results take shape.
“He would always walk around the factory and talk to people - as long as the conversation was about HMF,” explains Claus Pedersen.
Because he was so often present on the factory floor, employees found it easy to share ideas directly with him - ideas that could, for instance, improve workflows or working conditions. This made it possible to get a quick answer on whether Arne liked the idea or not. If he did, it would be implemented right away, because Arne was not one to wait around before acting. But if he said no, that was final - Bundgaard was not easily persuaded.
And yet, there were exceptions. Sometimes, weeks or even months later, Arne would revisit an idea he had previously rejected, saying, “I’ve been thinking about it…” - and suddenly it was a good idea after all. It might have taken a small dent to his pride to admit he’d been wrong, but above all, Arne always wanted what was best for the factory.
Small Habits, Big Results
Among the employees, Bundgaard was known for his weekend routine:
When the workday ended on Saturday, a select group of employees would sometimes be invited to his home for a traditional Danish lunch with herring and schnapps around the director’s dining table. It wasn’t just for the social aspect- it was also a way to discuss work and potential improvements. This gave Bundgaard valuable insight into the factory’s operations from the employees’ point of view.
On Sundays, after breakfast and a swim in his indoor pool, he would walk from his villa through the yard into the quiet factory. Moving from workstation to workstation, he carefully observed the state of production. On Monday mornings, he would return with his remarks: “You’ve got a bit too much in stock,” or “You seem to be a little behind,” he might say. “He had a sharp eye for everything happening in the factory,” says Jens Ove Bøgholm.
During the summer holidays, the director also had a special tradition. He would stop by the factory with fresh breakfast rolls for the employees who were working through the holiday, sit down with them, and share his latest ideas and plans over Danish pastry in the summer warmth.
A Visionary Businessman
Arne Bundgaard was more than an inventor - he was a visionary businessman ahead of his time. Already in the 1960s, he introduced profit sharing at HMF - more than a decade before the concept became popular among social democrats. He believed that the company’s success should reflect the efforts of its employees.
In the early 1980s, Bundgaard bought another factory, marking a new chapter for HMF - this time in Galten. From then on, he visited the Højbjerg factory less often, but employees knew this wasn’t due to distance - it was due to ambition. Bundgaard was always thinking about the next step.
The same was true for his 70th birthday. While employees were preparing to celebrate him, Arne instead traveled to England and Germany to open two new subsidiaries: HMF Ladekrane and HMF UK.
“That was so typical of him - to celebrate himself by creating something new,” says Claus Pedersen.
An Inventor - Even in Private
Arne’s creativity didn’t stop at the factory gates. According to both Jens Ove Bøgholm and Claus Pedersen, the director was something of a real-life Gadget Man - even at home.
His residence on Oddervej in Højbjerg - a large architect-designed villa right next to his beloved HMF factory - was a true playground for his technical ingenuity.
“The first summer I worked here, Arne was experimenting with a new, automated system for catching ducks in the pond in his garden,” laughs Claus Pedersen.
To achieve this, Bundgaard built two motion-triggered traps with drop doors. When a duck entered the trap, the door would automatically close. The question, of course, was whether the duck was large enough to keep. To avoid walking all the way from the house to the pond, Arne devised an easier solution: he ran a cable from his living room TV to a camera by the pond, allowing him to monitor the trap from his armchair. If the catch wasn’t big enough, he could simply open the trap remotely and let the duck go.
“He really was a true inventor,” smiles Jens Ove Bøgholm.
Attached to the villa’s large kitchen, Arne built a sunroom that could be raised and lowered automatically using hydraulics -his area of expertise. The entire room could move one meter down to garden level and one meter up again. He also designed a retractable roof for his swimming pool, allowing him to swim both indoors and under the open sky.
At the time, the villa was state-of-the-art: complete with a wine cellar, open-plan kitchen, bathroom with a wall-mounted telephone, and even a koi pond in the living room - every detail tailored to the owner’s taste. When we visit the house today - the same one Arne lived in until his death in 2000 - most things remain as he left them. The hydraulic inventions are no longer functional, the deer and peacocks that once roamed the garden are gone, and the living room pond is dry. Yet the villa still exudes the spirit that defined Arne Bundgaard: determination, creativity, and an insatiable urge to build and innovate. Perhaps that’s why HMF still uses the house for training sessions today; even if it needs a bit of care, it remains a unique part of the company’s historical legacy.
The Legacy of Arne
When you talk to those who knew him, a clear picture emerges: Arne was a craftsman, engineer, and entrepreneur, all at once -a true inventor with a strategic mind. He was the factory leader who walked the shop floor every Sunday because he simply couldn’t stay away. The inventor who loved to create and think ahead. And the man who laid the foundation for a company that, 80 years later, still builds on his ideas, values, and determination.