“I graduated from teacher-training college, but in the 80s there were hardly any jobs for teachers. Through my uncle, who was a freight forwarder at the time, I got a tip about a vacancy at Wagenborg. I joined the company’s admin department in 1983 and I’ve now been with Wagenborg for more than 35 years. After an internal application process, I was hired as crew manager in the personnel/crewing department. I’ve now been working for many years as corporate HR consultant for the various divisions.

Freedom and responsibilty

With Wagenborg you get a lot of freedom and responsibility. If you see an opportunity for improvement or development and you come up with a useful proposal, you’re given every opportunity to work on it.

Down-to-earth

Basically, not all that much has changed in those 35 years. We’re still a down-to-earth Groningen company with modest and committed employees. At the start of my career you treated the whole office to cake when it was your birthday. Nowadays I just treat our own HR department!

Enthusiasm

What I’ve enjoyed most is seeing how so many colleagues have developed personally during their time with the company, both on board, in the harbour, and at the office. It’s nice to see how people are still full of enthusiasm after working here for more than ten years. I really like that.

Broedertrouw

My favorite ship is the Broedertrouw. She was Wagenborg’s very first ship, and without her, there would never have been all those hundreds of successors."