What do you do when there's a disruption and you don't have television for two days? Looking back at old photos it seems, because recently Piet Rensen with Peter Dekker Installaties was sent an old picture of himself together with Jan Vellekoop on a pile of building profiles. Theo Zwinkels, a chrysanthemum grower, found and took it. "It was a greenhouse of 3-3.5 hectares, in a time we went from one chrysanthemum grower to the next", Jan and Piet reminisce together.
Piet Rensen and Jan Vellekoop on a stack of profiles at the greenhouse under construction at Theo Zwinkels
"It was my quickest sell ever", remembers Jan. "I knew Theo well and the trust was there, so it was settled in 10 minutes." It was a busy chrysanthemum time, in which Theo was not the only one building. "A lot of growers scaled up from 1 to 3 hectares, so it all went fast. Me as a service man and Piet as executor made quite a few kilometers."
Piet and Jan in 2020, not stopping yet
Piet adds: "I'm not so keen on photos, but in the top one, I think Theo took it himself, the glass wasn't even on and we were bickering about what to do with the screen. A darkening screen went in, so the daytime could be shortened in summer."
In the office and on the road
Nowadays, Piet organizes from the office in Naaldwijk, taking care of the service department, and Jan takes care of sales. Twenty years ago, the time of the picture, that was different. Piet was a building developer after having started as a contractor, and Jan did actual physical work in service. It's something he can laugh about, and his colleagues like to tease him with.
More amiable
"Such a picture, that's nice", says Jan, "but it also means you're ageing. Which I don't mind, because as long as my head keeps working, I'll go on with what I'm doing. Sales is the best thing there is, although a lot has changed. Drinking a beer with some growers you knew, that doesn't happen anymore. Back then everyone didn't really have anything, and you were all a starting entrepreneur. It was just more amiable."
Left at the right kilometer marker
It was also the time that scaling up started and they started looking abroad. "We already were in Germany and the rest of Europe, but just before the turn of the century we crossed the ocean for the first time", Jan reminisces. "I'd been there privately, but never for business. You didn't have GPS yet, you'd just take a map and go. They said to take that one exit at that one kilometer marker and then go for another hour to the site. Nowadays no one would do that anymore."
Climbing
Piet can be found at the office, since about ten years, after driving 80,000 to 90,000 kilometers every year. "When Peter Dekker junior went from organizer to director, I took his old job. That ended the time of going from one site to another. I do think back to that time, but the greenhouses are too big and high for me nowadays."
Around the turn of the century, greenhouse building was a lot less mechanized, and you'd really have to climb. When traffic issues got worse, too, I wound up at the office and I hope to stay there until my retirement in April 2021. This year 4 days a week and next year 3 days a week."
Note
Jan will go on longer, and still goes 'truly everywhere'. "In the beginning I went to Korea. I had, so to speak, just learned where that was. The signs all had unreadable text and at the airport you were picked up to disappear for three weeks. The younger generation finds that hard to believe now, but it was really like that. Facetiming, rebooking your flight, that just wasn't possible then. You came equipped with a note, and that was that."
This was the first in a series of stories from the archive. PDI hopes to find more old pictures this year, so stay tuned.
For more information:
Peter Dekker Installaties
www.pdinl.com/nl/
Jan Vellekoop
jan@pdinl.com
Piet Rensen
piet@pdinl.com