1993 his father died

His father suddenly died at the age of 46. He was 23 years old, studying at the Logistics University in Venlo. He left immediately to join his mother in the family business. All his classmates believed he would never return school again because he would probably restart his father’s business.

Since the bankruptcy in 1980, the family rebuild the company successfully. Besides transport of building materials with 7 trucks, his mother ran a small trading shop in gardening articles. With his father gone now, there was no other option than to jump on his father’s truck and keep the business running.

So he skipped university and worked mostly 18 hours a day. He realized soon that if he wanted to finish university, he had to change something drastically. He also knew his mother couldn’t run the transport business alone.

Besides, they were making money with the trade of garden articles and losing it partly with transport business.

He crashed once: it took him almost 2 days to unload 40 tons of lymestones. This happened in Almelo in 1994