International Perspectives: Ag Leader Europe Opens New Facility
The present staff of Ag Leader Europe had the first full staff meeting at the new office in August 2012.
{image1}
(left to right) Service Manager, Gerrit Emmens; Support Manager, Sybren Rispens; Sales Manager, Paul Rose; General Manger, Hans Stiekema
Ag Leader Europe is renting an office building in the Netherlands. The Netherlands, also known as Holland, is where the Dutch live. The Netherlands are located at the North Sea. At the west coast of this sea is England. East of The Netherlands is Germany, south is Belgium, and more south is France.
The location of the Ag Leader office is:
Sluisweg 11,
6582 AG Heumen,
The Netherlands.
I invite you to use Google earth and see the building in street view. You will notice the building is a former TNT Post office.
The TNT color of orange is dominant. This still exists partly in the interior. The village of Heumen is located just south of the city of Nijmegen. Nijmegen is a city in the east of the Netherlands, near the German border. It is considered to be the oldest city in The Netherlands and celebrated its 2000th year of existence in 2005. The municipality is part of a bigger metropolitan area together with the city of Arnhem with 736,107 inhabitants. The density of population is 3,1/km2 (8/sq mi)
In World War II, Nijmegen was victim of being frontline. The objective in Nijmegen was mainly to prevent the Germans from destroying the bridges over the river Rhine.
Nijmegen is host to the famous Radboud University, founded in 1923 as the first Catholic university in the Netherlands. The university has about 17,700 students and 4,350 staff. The university and the history gives Nijmegen a unique profile.
The landscape and surroundings of Heumen and Nijmegen are dominated by influences of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). This is a period when Nordic ice sheets were at their maximum extension. During this time, vast ice sheets covered much of northern Europe, just until Nijmegen. This causes hills up to 50 meters, for the Dutch in their flat country these hills are considered as “mountains”.
The office: The building has a size of 20 (front) x 15 meters. {image2}
The former open space where the postmen were sorting the mail will be used for training distributors on actual local agricultural machinery. For this reason a big overhead door has been installed. This training room has the size of 13 x 10 meters. Also on the ground floor are storage and two office rooms. That is enough for the time being.
On the grounds of the office are 18 private parking places. As former post office the garage-box for post-bikes is big. Offices on the first floor have been merged, and are a nice training facility for up to 15 attendees. Also on the first floor is the canteen. Very practical is the presence of a nice hotel, just around the corner.
Staff of Ag Leader Europe is looking forward to welcoming many trainees at the training center, and being helpful in servicing and supporting EMEA distributors to profit most of the Ag Leader products.