Gonnie

At the end of 2007 it was enough. Every year a kilogram extra weight, the fat began to bother me. So from the beginning of janary 2008 we altered our lifestyle. We are eating less calories, but the main thing is we make weighed portions. The first months i stopped taking candy or cookies and no beer. The result was 15 kg less in the summer of 2008, and it felt really good.

Left a picture of 75 kg in november 2007,
                      at the right it is only 60 kg in augustus 2008.




Something about work:

In 1981 i started on the laboratory of the Food Association (Keuringsdienst van Waren) in Amsterdam.
April 1986 a carrier move brought me to Pharbita in Zaandam. Pharbita was a generic farmaceutical company. I started as a quality control analist. The owner of the company, the wholesaler Medicopharma, went bankrupt and another wholesaler OPG bought Pharbita.

From then on the company was called Pharmachemie, Zaandam. OPG changed its strategy and sold all its production facilities to TEVA, a farmaceutical company from Israël.

TEVA decided the factory in Haarlem was enough for their dutch production and sold Zaandam to Brocacef.
Brocacef is another dutch wholesaler, that needed a building to continue their production facilities from Maarssen. From april 1999 we were called Magnafarma, as the production of Brocaef was named.

The german family Merckle bought the stock of Brocacef and withdrawed it from the stockmarket. They also owned a german wholesaler: Phoenix and a generic factory: ratiopharm. In februari 2004 they decided to split up the wholesale and production. Magnafarma was renamed ratiopharm.

In 2009 the factory is for sale again, after a financial problem for the Merckle family. It is unknown what the future holds. I still work at the Quality Control laboratory, although i promoted to senior analist.
At the 6th of april 2009 management of ratiopharm announced they are shutting down the factory in Zaandam at the end of the year. So i am looking for a new challenge. From january 2010 i will be working at PROXY laboratories. A contract laboratoy that works mainly for the pharmaceutical business, performing all kinds of tests from quality control to research and stability tests.

Besides the four days i work every week i like to walk. Maintaining this website also takes a lot of my time. But sometimes i manage to read a book, or make a crossword puzzle. And on the days we are both not working we like to travel. The world is too large to see in one lifetime, but we are trying....

More about our hobbies: our travels, cycling with Tom or walking with Gonnie.