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. This time it’s the turn of Derko den Otter, who worked at Cultilene as an export manager from 1997 to 2007. 

Whenever he’s at a trade show where Cultilene is exhibiting, Derko always makes a point of visiting his former employer’s stand. Despite leaving us many years ago, he still feels a strong connection to the company. The same goes for the horticultural industry, which was completely new to him back in 1997. After graduating from business school in Amsterdam, he first worked as an export manager with a Norwegian multinational that made phosphates for animal feed.

He held that role for ten years until the company was acquired by a competitor, which prompted him to take a new step in his career. He recalls: “Then I came across a vacancy for an export manager at Cultilene. Cultilene was still a small company at the time, which was something Joost Morsink, who had just been appointed director, wanted to change. I jumped at the chance to work on putting Cultilene on the international map.”

Karaoke in Japan
Derko became Cultilene’s first export manager. “I had the freedom to define my role from scratch,” he says. “There were already some markets in which Cultilene was doing business, but essentially, the whole world was open to me. In those early years, I worked a lot on building new export markets. I travelled through Scandinavia, the German-speaking countries and parts of southern and eastern Europe. But I also went to North America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. I have wonderful memories from those trips.”

Derko’s travels were packed with interesting experiences. “In Finland, I found myself in a sauna with our distributor after a day at a trade show,” he recalls. “And in Japan, I went to a karaoke bar with the local distributor and even experienced a traditional bathing ritual. There were nerve-wracking moments, too. For instance, I went to Mexico with Kim Harding at a time when there were a lot of kidnappings taking place. When our contact took us to a restaurant for lunch, we saw an AK47 in his car. And in New Zealand we had technical issues during a domestic flight. Luckily, I always lived to tell the tale!”

The thrill of the fax
Besides his many travel memories, Derko also remembers with great satisfaction the work he did in opening up new markets for Cultilene. In my time, most communication was via fax,” he explains. “There was nothing better than getting a fax headed ‘Purchase Order’. I was pleased with every order, but I was particularly proud when we broke into the Japanese market. That wasn’t easy, so when we succeeded, it was a real highlight.”

An important lesson Derko learned in his work as an export manager is that patience is a virtue. He explains: “Breaking into new export markets takes time. At first, all you’re doing is investing. For instance, it took four years from our first approach to a major horticultural distributor in New Zealand to finally breaking through in that market. It went on to become a key market for Cultilene. You need to be patient, but it pays off in the end.” 

Thanks to his persistence, Derko helped make Cultilene fit for the future during his tenure. “The idea of being ‘fit for the future’ wasn’t a thing back then,” he explains, “but we were all working hard on the company’s growth and expansion. In that sense, we were making Cultilene ‘fit for the future’. I hope my efforts in building up new export markets and taking various professional training courses contributed to that.” 

Back burner
Even though his time at Cultilene was a while ago, Derko still holds fond memories of the company. He recalls some valuable words of wisdom from Joost Morsink, director at the time: “Joost always inspired me. One of the things I remember is that when he had to make tough decisions he would say, ‘Let’s put it on the back burner for a bit.’ That was sound advice which prevented us from acting impulsively and allowed us time to think things over and make well-considered decisions.”

Derko still keeps a watchful eye on the industry, too. “I now live in Zwolle, near a horticultural area,” he says. Whenever I visit a greenhouse, I always check to see if they are using Cultilene. I also still keep up with developments. I’m excited to see what Cultilene will achieve in the coming years. I’ll definitely be keeping tabs on it. Because you know what they say: once a grower, always a grower.”