Coming of Age

20th April 2021

Van Walt has just celebrated its 40^th birthday.  It’s a milestone but one which came and went with little fanfare. Not because it’s unimportant but because we continue working to the core values that we have always worked to and yet…. Things keep on changing and usually for the better.

We got to where we are through hard work of course but also because we’ve been gifted with loyal colleagues. They work hard and combine that with an element of fun and a feeling of proprietorship. They share some traits and yet they’re very different: Some are conservative, some extrovert, some innovative and it is the mixture of all these talents that has put us on the map over these last four decades.

Some of the  ladies in our UK office celebrating International Woman’s day. There’s more of them but unfortunately the rest are still sequestered by the pandemic and working from home.

What our fortieth is showing is that we have suddenly really come of age. We have several of our own products now, such as our class leading telemetry systems and more are on their way. Even this year we will be launching two exciting new own designed products. Not bad for a pandemic year. And we don’t forget the expansion and developments of our offices in Spain, New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland.

Van Walt HQ, Surrey, United Kingdom

Van Walt New Zealand

Van Walt Spain

Van Walt South Africa

Van Walt Ireland

Aside from our own products and services we’re also coming of age by solidifying and increasing our business activities with our favourite partners: Geotech Environmental in Denver, Seametrics in Seattle, IMKO and Ecotech in Germany and, as of a few weeks ago, AMS in Idaho. We have an amazing relationship with these companies. They understand us and we understand them. Invariably, if we have an issue or a problem we’re met with a “how can we help”. It makes us feel good and we know in advance that we can always work things out.

The Van Walt designed and manufactured DataHub and DataSlave 

Exciting developments in progress for 2021

For 40 years we’ve built up a reputation as a supplier of sampling equipment, from the humble hand auger to window sampling systems and so we are delighted that we’ve come of age also as far as those tools are concerned. Our new relationship with AMS brings new devices and as the weeks progress we will introduce these to you, starting with a telescopic auger and progressing through to hand augers capable of capturing the sample in a liner within the standard auger head. There’s a dozen or so of innovative sampling solutions and we’re delighted that we’ve been able to add these to our programme. Even as we speak a substantial quantity of AMS materials are being manufactured and shipped to us so we have a good selection in UK stock.

And so we move on to the next 40 years with many of the “old timers” but also with many new.

Bring it on say I.

I’d like to finish with some words I recently received from my colleague Ramon Quiles who works in our Spanish office:

“The world is changing, and new generations are coming with strength. They have different ways of understanding business and give only a relative value to experience. We have the option of the confrontation against the new or riding the wave of the new ways to work. The good news are that we are in a good position to surf the wave of the future, with a good combination of experience and motivated youth: long experience in the business (you, Yvonne, and let me include myself in the group), long experience in and out of the business (Tracey, Montse, Andrew), youth and experience in the business (Ikky, Jess, Lewis, Jani, John, the guys from NZ and let me include Gimena) and experience out of the business combined with youth (David, Rosie, Conor).

This makes that we must listen more to younger people with fresh ideas, before they get contaminated by our influence. Many of their ideas will be crazy, but some of them will succeed. Our role is to be beside them, guiding and mentoring, and even allowing them to deviate from what we consider the “right path. The future is theirs, so we must motivate them to run their own ideas while theirs fit into our core values.

The New Generation

The New Generation

 Vincent van Walt, April 2021