János Petrenkó

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János Petrenkó
Member of the National Assembly
In office
2 May 1990 – 27 June 1994
Personal details
Born(1940-03-30)30 March 1940
Ózd, Hungary
Died3 March 2020(2020-03-03) (aged 79)
Political partyMSZMP (1962–89)
MSZP (1989–92)
Republican Party (1992–?)
Professionindustrialist, politician

János Petrenkó (30 March 1940 – 3 March 2020) was a Hungarian industrialist, inventor and politician,

fall of communism in Hungary
.

Career

Petrenkó was born into a mining family with eight children in

Hungarian Communist Workers' Party (MSZMP) in 1962.[2]

He co-founded his company PEKO Works at Arló in 1971, a small manufacture of high wear materials. Becoming a full-time private small entrepreneur, he owned the company from 1979 to 1989. He bought the rolling mill for heavy products section of the Ózd Metallurgical Works under bankruptcy proceedings for 100 million HUF in 1989, becoming the first private industrialist tycoon in Hungary following the transition to democracy. After lengthy legal and political wrangling, he took over the company under the name PEKO Steel Works on 1 January 1990.[2] He also founded and owned PEKO Business, an export-import trading house for the company. Petrenkó was also a noted inventor in heavy industry production, he had 187 technological innovations and 7 patents in metal drilling and plasma cutting until the end of Communism. Petrenkó was a founding member of the presidium of the National Association of Hungarian Manufacturers (MGYOSZ) since 1991. He was also a member of Communist-affiliated trade union National Association of Craftsmen (KIOSZ).[2]

Petrenkó retained his membership of MSZMP until its abolition. He became a founding member of the legal successor Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) in October 1989. He unsuccessfully ran as an independent candidate (supported by MSZP) in Ózd constituency (Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County) during the 1990 parliamentary election,[2] but was elected MP via his party's Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County Regional List.[1] Petrenkó left the Socialist Party and its caucus on 27 April 1992,[1] citing the existence of difficulty of boosting the economy, limited by party interests.[2] Petrenkó joined extra parliamentary Republican Party in November 1992.[3] He was a member of the parliamentary Economic Committee for a short time between October and December 1992.[1]

Personal life

Petrenkó married manager Magdolna Varga. They had two sons, Tibor (born 1966) and Tamás (born 1971); both of them were officials at PEKO Works in the 1990s.[2] Petrenkó died on 3 March 2020, at age 79.[4]

References

  1. ^
    Országgyűlés
    .
  2. ^ a b c d e f Horváth, Zsolt (ed.): Az 1990-ben megválasztott Országgyűlés almanachja [The Elected Members of the National Assembly of Hungary, 1990], Országgyűlés, Budapest, 1992. p. 313.
  3. .
  4. ^ "Meghalt Petrenkó János volt parlamenti képviselő" (in Hungarian). 24.hu. 2020-03-04. Retrieved 2020-03-28.