| | Company History | |  Damen Dredging Equipment has a long history as a (family-owned) company. Cornelis de Groot, the founder of the company, started his career in the dredging business working for his father, who was a dredging contractor. In 1940 Cornelis de Groot took over the family business.
Times could not have been worse as soon Holland was involved in the second world war. However, he managed to continue his work. For his first contract he bought an old bucket dredger and converted it into a suction dredger. With this conversion he laid the foundation for the later activities of his company: construction and maintenance of dredging equipment.
In July of 1943 his home and office were seized by the German army, which made it very difficult to keep the business going. After the war in 1945 business was booming as C. de Groot was helping to rebuild Holland. The main problem was the lack of material and spare parts for the dredging equipment but his ingenuity always kept the equipment and therefore the business running.
Initially he rented equipment from others but as his order book grew so did the range of equipment he bought. This equipment needed maintenance, which he wanted to take in hand himself. This becoming increasingly difficult he moved to Nijkerk, one of the many small towns along the shore of what was then the IJsselmeer, in 1952. This new yard was to be a turning point in the activities of the company of Cornelis De Groot. The company evolved more and more from a dredging contractor to a repair and construction yard for dredging equipment.
In the 1960's Cornelis de Groot realized that there was a growing need for transportation of sand over long distance for the construction of motorways. He designed soil pumps and booster stations for this purpose. In particular his GP40 and GP50 soil pumps were very successful. Due to the continuing growth of the company he moved to a more suitable location where you still find us today.
At this site a factory and an office were built. Now there was room for maintenance and repair and at the office engineers started with the design and development of a new range of equipment such as suction dredgers and a whole array of innovative solutions for the problems of the customers.
In the 1970's De Groot entered the worldwide market selling dredging equipment in for instance Bangladesh, Egypt, Sudan, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Zambia and Kongo. While other companies struggled to survive in the early 1980's, De Groot did well, due to its innovative designs and solutions.
At the retirement of the owner in 1988 Damen Shipyards had confidence in the future of De Groot and became 100% owner. Until the end of the year 2003 the company continued to work under the name De Groot Nijkerk Dredging Equipment. From the beginning of 2004 the liaison with Damen was reflected in the company name, Damen Dredging Equipment.
Damen Dredging Equipment continues to design innovative solutions for the dredging-related problems our customers are faced with. Some examples of this are the Punaise and the DOP submersible dredge pumps. With this long history of experience in designing and building custom made dredging equipment, we are able to offer you a wide range of products of proven quality. | |
| | DAMEN DREDGING EQUIPMENT
Edisonstraat 32
PO BOX 1021
3861 NE NIJKERK
The Netherlands
Phone
+31 (0)33 2474040
Telefax
+31 (0)33 2474060
E-mail
info@damen dredging.com |
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