Klaus Faber passed away on January 25, 2026 at the age of 91, in Key Biscayne, Florida. He was born on July 28, 1934 in Budapest, Hungary, to Irmel and Karl Faber, a German mathematics professor. At age five, Klaus moved to his mother’s hometown of Idar-Oberstein, Germany. He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Darmstadt, where he earned his PhD and met Ingrid, his future wife.
In 1966, Klaus’s first employer sent him to America on an assignment to close a failing company in Manchester, New Hampshire called Disogrin, a manufacturer of hydraulic seals. Instead of closing the company, he found a way to turn it around and ran the company for fifteen years, growing it to many times its original size. He prided himself on not laying off workers even during downturns, instead employing them to perform preventative maintenance until times improved. When Klaus was later offered a leadership role and board seat back in Germany, he declined it because he wanted his children to grow up as Americans.
In 1983, Klaus parted ways with Disogrin and started his own manufacturing business, Faber Industries. He produced timing belts used in automation, hydraulic seals, and machine tools in factories in New Hampshire, Mexico, and Germany. His German foundry toolmaker could machine metal so precisely that the artist Jeff Koons selected it to fabricate some of his larger-than-life sculptures in stainless steel.
Klaus loved sports of all kinds, especially the most adventurous: mountain climbing, cycling, skiing, and sky diving. He cycled thousands of miles on bike tours throughout Europe and North America and received the first parasailing license in New Hampshire. His favorite spot was his house on Lake Winnipesaukee where he sailed and water-skied with his family and friends.
In later years Klaus immersed himself in his love of history and adventure, often reading for over ten hours per day. In his late eighties, a tumor in his spine caused his legs to lose function and he was resigning himself to the confines of a wheelchair. A neurosurgeon at Dartmouth Medical Center saw a path to surgically remove the tumor. Soon thereafter Klaus was able to walk again and was mobile into his nineties, living some of his best years. He died peacefully in an instant walking to his car after a festive dinner with his wife and longtime friends.
Klaus is survived by his wife of 59 years, Ingrid Braun Faber, their daughter Lisa and grandsons Maxwell and Jackson of San Francisco, their son Scott (Melissa Taunton) and granddaughters Phoebe and Chloe of Tiburon, CA, and his sister Ulrike Schunk of Aalen, Germany. He is predeceased by his younger brother Dr. Bernd Faber.
A celebration of life will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations should be directed to Dr. Linton Evans’s neurosurgical research at Dartmouth Medical Center at https://go.d-h.org/faber, or sent via check made out to “Dartmouth Hitchcock Health” with memo “Klaus Faber, Fund 2-23229” to: Medical & Healthcare Advancement, One Medical Center Drive, HB7070, Lebanon, NH 03756.