My professional experiences

I started my career at the Royal Dutch Navy in 1977 were I worked as mechanic, and later petty officer mechanical services, on board of Her Majesties ships. Almost nine years later I became an operator at the Amercentrale power plant in Geertruidenberg. I worked in the 5 units, where the largest unit was the coal power Amer 8
with a capacity of 640 MW.

At the end of 1990 I accepted a position at the KEYSTONE manufacturing plant in Breda, my first commercial business experience. Keystone was an American owned stock market listed company that developed and manufactured industrial valves. This environment was quite a difference to the (semi) governmental organizations I had worked at until then. After a short adjustment period, I enjoyed the dynamics, the possibilities, the responsibilities and the space given for individual initiatives. I started at Keystone as the manager of quality control and 4 years later I became the operations manager. In 1997 the company was taken over by Tyco.

In 1998 I joined Lamb-Weston/Meijer in Kruiningen where I worked as the manager of maintenance and repair. The Kruiningen site was, at that time, the largest frozen potato producing plant in Europe, and also produced potato flakes. Around the millennium change the company was involved in a huge production expansion and professionalizing project. The 24/7 production schedule, the large number of projects, the specific demands of the food business and high end customers made this an interesting and exciting experience with many opportunities to learn and grow.

From the food business I stepped into the world of turnkey production automation systems at VDL-Steelweld. The vast majority of the projects at Steelweld were related to the automotive business. Again this was a rather specific market ; "sexy" products in a very competitive business which was dominated by a few large players. Due to the complexity of the process and product the organization was not so much production but specialist driven. I worked for Steelweld as the manager of planning and control and as such I was responsible for the loading the plant, streamlining production and monitoring the both the physical and financial progress of projects.

In 2001 I joined NedTrain, the maintenance division of the Dutch Railroad company, and started as plant manager of their train component overhaul and repair plant in Tilburg. The repair and overhaul plant handled almost 100.000 train components per year with its 250 f.t.e. and a range of subcontractors. In the early nineties the railroads officially changed from a civil servant structure into a privatized (semi commercial) structure but by the year 2002 the whole business was still struggling with that change. My job at the component plant was to secure the component delivery and to help the plant change into a 'normal' commercial enterprise. This, for example meant setting up production control systems, increasing productivity and efficiency, flexing the workforce, cutting costs, addressing some cultural issues, etcetera. In 2007 I was, in addition to being plant manager in Tilburg, appointed as program manager of the new build plant. The old component plant in the city center will need to close in year 2011 and the NedTrain board asked me to make a re-investment plan for a new build plant and to prepare the people and organization for this move. It was intensive but rewarding to work on this golden opportunity to build a new plant. The new plant is now being built in an industrial zone at the outskirts of Tilburg (Loven). The last 6 months I worked for NedTrain as plant manager of Ematech, the NedTrain repair and overhaul site for electric (traction) motors and generators. While managing the plant I performed a small reorganization and started up the integration process of Ematech into the new build component plant in Tilburg.

In 2010 Jacobs – Interim management and consultancy was born, the company with which I offer you managerial, technical and operational services.