The Offical

Biography_________________________________________________

Hi all, the official biography or just my story.

As a child I was fascinated by space, yes something completely different from what I am doing now. I wanted to be an astronaut as so many kids from my time wanted. As a young teenager I found out that the quickest way to become an astronaut was to be a pilot, and most of these pilots would be selected out of the military.

So when I turned 16 I went to the air force base in Soesterberg to do the admission test, which I was convinced past without any mistake, I was so sure of myself. When the test results came back, they didn’t show them to me but simply told me I didn’t the pass the instruments test.

I actually did know my instruments quite well as I was always interested in engineering and science and till this day I'm convinced I didn’t pass because I was too young (16) and a bit rebellious.

They did tell me that going to a university and get at least my propaedeutic certificate in aerospace technology would help me for a next test. At that point I knew I had to go to the Haarlem University and not Delft so I could live near the beach (and also so I could get my 'P' as quick as possible and try again). So I started my studies in Haarlem in 2001. But I quickly changed my planned path. As a teenager I had one big hobby and that was being a deejay, or try to be a deejay in my own bedroom. During my studies I met a guy that is still a good friend of mine who was an actual deejay and helped me to make the step from bedroom to dancefloor.

This nice deejay career that helped me in so many ways during my studies and later in travelling did not at all help me with becoming an astronaut. At this point I started to realise that I had to make a choice. Or better, I had to accept that I made the choice of continuing my studies, becoming an engineer and also a deejay, but leave the space missions behind me.

All set up to become an engineer and for a good few years a professional (international) all-round deejay. Deejaying wasn't  my childhood dream, but it could have been, if I knew what a deejay was back then.

During my first internship as an engineer-to-be I had a consultant roll within a small aerospace business in Eindhoven. It was there that I found out that being an engineer was not enough for me but I should focus on (improvement) management or consulting within technical businesses. The company was developing a new type of aircraft, where I did the engineering of the predesign and strategic advise. After the first pre-design I recommended some design changes, after my assignment was complete they were working with the new changes.

Although the engineering is very interesting, I found the thrill of making big strategic decisions and improving the business direction or processes more interesting. However during the second internship at a major offshore company in Delft I graduated and they offered me a good job. Although I wanted to travel the world and continue for my master first, I accepted with the deal to make that world trip after I finished some projects.

The projects kept coming and coming and I worked there for a good 3 years, as an engineer but also  worked on a sideproject to reduce the engineering time (specific the translation of the calculation results to the reports), before I decided it was time to quit. I wanted to travel and there was no future for me in management anytime soon. It is 2011 and I'm ready to go to Australia and next stop New Zealand.

I would love to talk about my travelling experience but I will save that for my friends and family or maybe when we ever meet in real live. I did however work in Australia in sales and when I came back in the Netherlands in 2013 I wanted to combine my technical background with the sales experience I developed and so I started working in Schiedam as an Account engineer at the Service department from Huisman Equipment.

In the role as Account engineer I was responsible for the relationship management between Huisman and Subsea 7. A great experience where I could combine my love for engineering with sales and  whereI could lead my own small projects after it was sold. Also

working with almost all disciplines within the company made me love my job.

When the oilcrisis of 2014 hit the company in 2015 I was offered a move to a great company Huisman was working with. I've gotten a job offered as Regional Service Manager (Libia) but I started in the region of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda als Libia was not save.

It was great working at Damen where I could further develop my skills in strategic account management, but also (project) management.

Unfortunately after 1.5 year, the effect of the same oil crisis also hit Damen and as Libia was still I no go I had to leave.

This gave me a great opportunity to even further develop my skills in strategy and project management as I could start within Kloekcner Metals.The idea was to start a project of change where we could introduce a new way of working with clients and better serve them all within the main Kloeckner strategy.

... To be continued