Willem van Rhijn

By early 1989, Willem had grown tired of being a plumber. He wanted something different and reached out to Bert Heemskerk. His question, "Do you have something for me?" was met with a positive response within just one hour. A job as a line driver in England had just opened up. After only two weeks of training, Willem was on his own. With no (yet) understanding of flowers, he had to rely on stickers to label the packages with their names.

In these early years, things went very well. Soon the Mercedes 409 was swapped for the much larger Mercedes 1114. In fact, things were going so well that extra deliveries in boxes were started on Thursdays to the biggest customers.

The blow came in September 1992. On 'Black Wednesday', the value of the British Pound fell from HFL 3.50 to HFL 2.80 in a single afternoon. A low point! To absorb this, it was decided at A.Heemskerk BV. decided to try to sell a lot more (at a lower exchange rate price). The trucks became trailers and Willem also went full steam ahead with this. Turnover took off and the number of customers grew steadily. Partly due to this change, Willem became the main supplier for many of his customers.

In 2000, Willem was joined on the car by a Channel Four journalist and cameraman. As he was one of the first users of the Euro Tunnel, British TV wanted to make a documentary about the Tunnel's usefulness in necessary quick deliveries. The result of two days of filming is a clip of less than 20 seconds which can still be seen on Discovery Channel to this day.
A client of Willem's had the honour of supplying flowers to a huge wedding (Arab Sheikh) in Sardinia. It became a truck full and Willem personally went to deliver it. Many fond memories Willem has of the firm's staff parties. Not one has he skipped. These are a fun way for Willem to meet his colleagues in a different way.

The arrival of the website, with internet sales as a result, did change the way of selling for Willem. Less line driving, but doing a lot more deliveries. Yet this did not have a major impact among Willem's customers. A number of customers from the first hour are still satisfied customers. Partly because of the passion and commitment Willem has had for his line for over 33 years.