Saint-Gobain Cultilene is celebrating its 45th anniversary. To mark this milestone, we’re travelling back in time with various current and former employees. They’ll share their memories and wisdom, as well as their visions for the future. In this edition, we hear from Hans Ansems, Jack-of-all-trades in the Cultilene factory in Tilburg since 1994.

Hans Ansems started out as an artist. But after selling a few paintings in the 1990s, he ran into issues with the social security department. Eager to become independent of benefits, he turned to a good friend for help. That friend was doing the accounts at a company in Tilburg at the time and found Hans a job there. The company was called Wibro, which would later be taken over by Cultilene. Thirty years later, Hans is still a firm fixture on the staff.

Before starting his new job, Hans had a couple of requests. He says: “I wanted to earn as much as what I was getting from social security, which was just over a thousand guilders (roughly 450 euros) a month. I also wanted to have time to work on my art. At Wibro, I could earn what I needed by working from 8:30 till 1 every day. That was ideal, because that gave me enough income and I could work in my studio in the afternoons.”

Experimenting 

Hans started his career in the production department, where most things were done by hand at the time. “One of my tasks was putting plugs into trays,” he recalls. “I got really fast at it. Later, I also made experimental products that customers had come up with. Everything had to be sawn by hand. It was dusty and hard work, but I loved putting those ideas into practice.”

As the years passed, more and more manual work became automated. So when a new management team came along a few years later, they started looking for a new role for Hans. He explains: “They bought a sweeping machine to keep the factory clean and thought: who should we put on this? I got the job. From then on, I was head of cleaning, or as I like to call it: aesthetics manager.”

The large machine has since been replaced with a smaller one. Hans continues: “The factory used to be much bigger, so I had a big sweeper. When the factory was made more efficient and space was saved, they got a smaller one. I liked the big one better, but this one is fine. And I don’t mind doing an extra turn up and down to get everything really clean.”

More structure 

Hans has fond memories of the early years, when the company had – in his words – something of the wild west about it. “Anything went. On Fridays we’d swap the lemonade in the vending machine for beer and hang out together drinking for hours. We had such a good time with our colleagues. I remember once when the Scottish guys who were working for us turned up for a Christmas drinks party in kilts. We could hardly believe what we were seeing! Those were great times.”

Despite the laid-back atmosphere in the early years, working at Wibro also brought an important change into Hans’ life: more discipline. He explains: “As an artist, I used to go out a lot and sleep in late. But when I started working at Wibro, I had to get up every morning. This gave me more structure in my life. It really helped me, because it has also brought more discipline to other parts of my life.”