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A conversation with Toon Hoebeke is a wonderfully interesting way to spend an hour of your time. He is part of select group of people who get to celebrate their 50-year work anniversary with Damen. As a result, his stories of what working at Damen and the Royal Schelde Shipyard (in Dutch: Koninklijke Maatschappij de Schelde) was like go all the way back to the early 1970s. Although his stories are diverse in subject matter, they do share a common theme: change.
14 August 1972 marks the first day of Toon’s working life: he was just fourteen years old when he started in De Schelde’s in-house education and training programme. To say this programme was big is an understatement. Toon has a company newsletter from his early days at the shipyard; it contains an article about that year’s graduating pupils. What is most impressive is the number of students and the broad range of disciplines they have studied: “There were about 100 graduates who were trained in welding, argon-welding, lathe working, pipe fitting, section building, model making and electrics,” says Toon.
Toon has handled and viewed every DSMS component - from the smallest O-ring to the largest cylinder liner.
The large number of students reflects just what a huge influence De Schelde had on the city of Vlissingen and the surrounding area. “There used to be about 5,000 people working at De Schelde: it was really part of the city,” Toon adds. In what seems inconceivable in today’s economy, besides building ships, De Schelde also acted as a housing corporation for its employees. “For years I lived in a house owned by the shipyard, actually from the yard’s retirement fund`. My rent was taken out of my wages. People came here from all over the country to work in Vlissingen. For example, my neighbour came from Amsterdam. You would be given a house with your job. You cannot imagine that happening today.” The work culture was also very different to what we think of as normal in today’s workplace. “Things were a lot stricter then. 50 years ago, no one came to work late. The younger generation had a totally different mentality to what I call today’s ‘smartphone generation’.”
Toon Hoebeke’s career at the Royal Schelde Shipyard started on 14 August 1972.
Toon has had various job functions during his long career. After two years of training in the company education programme, he worked at the Machinefabriek manufacturing ship engine parts as well as various industrial equipment. And then, in 1999, De Schelde was sold. “Lots of people had to move to Rotterdam in order to keep their job. Luckily, I was offered a job at the ship repair yard in Vlissingen-Oost. I did this for a number of months, but because of my experience at De Schelde, I was asked to come and work at Schelde Marine Services (SMS) by the then director Carel Flipse. That’s when I became the Quality Controller for all the incoming parts and components.”
It is this role that he has fulfilled since then, including during the takeover by Damen in 2000, thus adding the ‘D’ to SMS to establish Damen Schelde Marine Services. Until a couple of years ago when his successor started working there, Toon has had the full responsibility of Quality Controller of incoming goods at DSMS. “I have done this job for more than 24 years, checking all the products that we have ordered before they go into the warehouse. I do this by checking between the actual product with the production drawings.” Walking through DSMS’ huge warehouse of stock, it is amazing to think that every part – from the smallest 8mm O-ring to the largest 3-metre-long cylinder lining – has passed under the eyes of Toon. In a world of ever-increasing automation, this is a job that can only be done by a human being. “It takes knowledge and experience,” agrees Toon.
4 July 2024 – the same day as the annual DSMS summer barbecue – will be Toon’s final day at work. His retirement plans include volunteering at his local tennis club and at the Zeeland Liberation Museum in Nieuwdorp. “I was in the national service with the founder of the museum, so I know him for many years, and there is lots of work to do there,” says Toon. “It is a very interesting museum; it is definitely worth a visit if you haven’t been before.”
We wish Toon a long and happy retirement.