Joan Gelderman (Oldenzaal, 14 December 1877 – ibid., 5 October 1975) was an Oldenzaal textile manufacturer and politician. He was educated at the Dutch School for Industry and Trade in Enschede and to learn the trade he worked as a labourer in textile factories in Lancashire. In 1905 he was admitted to the family firm H.P. Gelderman & Zonen; when the firm was converted into a public limited company in 1935 Gelderman joined as director. He remained active in the family business until old age, in the last years, from 1960 to 1963, as delegated commissioner.
In addition to his management position, Gelderman held commissionerships at several companies. He was, among other things, chairman of the commissioner of the Dutch Railways and Heemaf and commissioner at the Royal Dutch Cotton Spinning Mill, the Tilburg Cotton Spinning Mill and the Central Employers Risk Bank. As an entrepreneur, he played an important role in the field of trade policy and in the difficult cooperation between textile companies. He was successful in this thanks to his special modesty and great amiability. Gelderman was politically active as a member of the municipal council of Oldenzaal (1910-1919) and the provincial council of Overijssel (1927-1928). After that, he had a seat in the First Chamber of The Netherlands for the Liberal State Party from 1928 to 1946. He was also the first chairman of the newly established Chamber of Commerce for Twente and Salland from 1921 to 1928. His prominent position in the East was evident from his appointment in 1945 as Economic Commissioner of the province of Overijssel. And of course from the chairmanship of our foundation awarded to him in 1948.
Hans van Mourik Broekman (Haarlem, 19 August 1906 – Boekelo, 8 December 2004) studied chemical engineering at the Delft University of Technology (1933). He then joined Shell, where he spent a long time abroad with his family, including in South Africa, Curaçao and Argentina. From 1949 he worked for the Royal Dutch Salt Industry (KNZ), where he rose to the position of president and later chairman of the supervisory board. Under his leadership, KNZ grew through mergers and acquisitions into the company that formed the basis for Akzo.
In addition to this management position, Van Mourik Broekman held supervisory positions at several companies, including Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN), Algemene Kunstzijde Unie (AKU), Philips, Koninklijke Rotterdamse Lloyd and Thomassen & Drijver-Verblifa. In 1958 he succeeded Joan Gelderman as chairman of the Foundation for Technical Higher Education in the North and East of the Netherlands. As one of the figureheads of the Foundation he was an obvious candidate for membership of the preparatory committee for the Twente Polytechnic Institute in The Nethderlands. After the official establishment of the THT in 1961 Van Mourik Broekman was appointed curator, a role he fulfilled until the dissolution of the Board of Curators in 1972.
Pijl Kroese (Medan, 1 December 1907 - Almelo, 9 December 1979) studied commercial science at the Netherlands School of Economics in Rotterdam (1935). After graduating, he joined the N. V. Textielfabriek Holland in Enschede. This was exceptional: it was not often that an outsider obtained a managerial position in the Twente textile industry. Kroese therefore referred to himself as ‘anspölsel’ (wash-up) in this respect. From 1943 onwards, he worked for the Koninklijke Stoomweverij N. V. in Nijverdal.
Kroese was very interested in the possibilities for cooperation within the textile industry; in 1945, he obtained his doctorate from the NEH on this subject with the dissertation ‘Vormen van Samenwerking in de Nederlandsche Katoenindustrie 1929-1939’. This was not merely an intellectual interest: Kroese was at the cradle of the merger concern Koninklijke Nijverdal-Ten Cate and became chairman of the board of directors himself. Kroese held supervisory positions at several companies, including the Dutch Railways, Robeco, ABN, Vredestein, Koninklijke Zout/Organon, the Holland-Amerika Lijn and Thomassen & Drijver-Verblifa. Kroese was also active in the world of scientific education. He was curator of both the Netherlands Economic College and the Twente Polytechnic Institute. Together with Van Mourik Broekman, among others, he was one of the driving forces behind the Foundation for Technical Higher Education in the North and East of the Netherlands and a celebrated speaker at propaganda meetings. Kroese was a member of the preparatory committee and was appointed curator in 1961. From 1969 until the dissolution of the Board of Curators in 1972, Kroese was president-curator.
C.F. de Gooyer (The Hague, 10 March 1914 - Enschede, 29 September 1993) studied accountancy and worked as an accountant in The Hague and Rotterdam before joining the Hengelo company Hazemeyer in 1947. From 1967 to 1977, De Gooyer was chairman of the board of directors of Holec, the company that was founded in 1963 when Hazemeyer merged with Heemaf. After his retirement, De Gooyer joined the supervisory board of Holec. He also held supervisory positions at, among others, the Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN), shipbuilder IHC Holland and the Hengelo steel company Dikkers en Co.
De Gooyer was committed to the Comprehensive Technical School (UTS - the predecessor of the MTS) in Hengelo for a long time. He was chairman of the UTS board for 13 years. He was also chairman of the Chamber of Commerce for Twente and Salland.
Han Wolhoff (Utrecht, 4 January 1927 – Hengelo, 15 July 2017) was associated with the Twente University Fund for twenty years, thirteen of which as chairman. Wolhoff, a chemist by training, came to Twente from Unilever Rotterdam in 1960 to work at KNZ, later Akzo. His last position was deputy chairman of the board of directors.
In November 1977 he joined the board of the Twente University Fund; in 1984 he would become chairman. As chairman, Wolhoff recognised the importance of the fund for the contacts between the University of Twente and the industrial top of the Netherlands. Representatives of companies such as Akzo, Unilever, ABN/AMRO, KPN and DSM were on the board of the fund. ‘The industry wants to know what is happening at the university, how things are going and what they want.’ The fact that the university is happy with the fund is evident from the fact that the Supervisory Board ‘plentifully picked’ from the fund board. During his career, Wolhoff held supervisory positions at several companies. He was, among other things, chairman of the supervisory board of Océ Nederland.
Adriaan van Es (Delft, 26 October 1931) worked at Akzo from 1965 to 1994, from 1987 as chairman of the board of Akzo Nederland. His career began in 1949 and he held various positions in laboratories at Unilever, TNO, Shell and Leiden University. He obtained his doctoral degree in mathematics and natural sciences with honours from TU Delft in December 1963. This was followed a year later by a PhD in chemistry.
In 1965, Van Es joined the Central Research of the Royal Dutch Salt Industry (KNZ) in Hengelo, later Akzo, as a research chemist. Van Es successively held the positions of head of the chemical technological service, production manager and director of the salt location Hengelo. In July 1980, Van Es was appointed member of the board of Akzo Zout Chemie, founded in 1971, and also member of the board of Akzo Nederland. In 1987, he was appointed chairman of the board of Akzo Nederland. Since 1990, Van Es was also involved in the formation of the merger between Akzo and the Swedish Nobel concern in 1994 to form AkzoNobel as a member of the management board of Akzo.
On 31 May 1994, Van Es retired from Akzo. The chemist Van Es has done pioneering work in the field of labour relations in the Netherlands at Akzo Nederland since 1987. An amiable and accessible captain of industry, who knew how to use communication as an ‘incredibly crucial’ instrument both inside and outside Akzo. In addition to Akzo, he was also active as chairman of the then Chemische Kring Twente and as a commissioner of various companies.
Frank Schreve studied economics in Lausanne (1966) and obtained an MBA from Stanford Business School (1968). During his student days, he developed as a mountain climber: in 1967 he took part in an expedition to the Caucasus, where he climbed Mount Elbrus, among other things. He started his career at McKinsey and after seven years moved to Heidemij (now Arcadis), where he became chairman of the board in 1983. He worked for many years at Heidemij (now Arcadis) and rose to the position of chairman of the board of directors (1983-1991). He was then a member of the executive board of Rabobank (1991-1994) and subsequently chairman of the board of directors of Koninklijke Nijverdal-Ten Cate (1994-1998). He was also chairman of the supervisory board of Fugro for a long time (1983-2013).
Schreve held several management positions at national and international sports organisations, including chairman of the Royal Dutch Alpine Association, chairman of the Dutch Sports Federation (NSF, later NOC-NSF), chairman of the Royal Dutch Equestrian Federation and vice-chairman of the Fédération Equestre International. Schreve was a member of the advisory board of the University of Twente for many years and also Dean of the TSM Business School for a number of years when the UT was still a shareholder. Schreve was a member of the board of the University Fund for many years before becoming chairman. After his chairmanship of the fund, Schreve remained active as a member and board member of the UT Ambassador Network until 2023, which arose from the dissolution (by Schreve himself) of the General Board of the University Fund in 2007.
Herman Hazewinkel (1949) trained as a chartered accountant and started his career at the National Accountants Service. He became a partner at Dechesne van den Boom, which later became part of Ernst & Young (EY). He was then a member of the board of directors of Kondor Wessels for fifteen years and then Koninklijke Volker Wessels Stevin (known as VolkerWessels), nine of which as chairman. After his retirement in 2008, he held supervisory positions at TKH Group, Schiphol, Boskalis and Soweco, among others, and was in the Top 50 of the most powerful supervisory directors in the Netherlands for many years. In recent years, he has been active as an investor in real estate, among other things.
Hazewinkel was a member of the board of the University Fund for many years before becoming chairman. After his chairmanship, he was a member of the UT Ambassador Network and a member of the Fundraising Committee that was set up by the fund and the University of Twente for a number of years.
Wilma van Ingen (Utrecht, 1958) studied pedagogy and work and organizational psychology at Utrecht University. She held various positions at KPN and was general manager at the first Veluwe and Twente Chamber of Commerce and then the East Netherlands Chamber of Commerce. In 2009, she became chair of the Board of Directors of Nysingh Advocaten & Notarissen.
In addition to her daily work, she held various additional positions. Van Ingen was chair of a provincial advisory committee on SMEs and entrepreneurship, chair of the Supervisory Board of RTV Oost, chair of the Supervisory Board of ROC van Twente, member of the Supervisory Board of FC Twente and she held a supervisory position at Twence. From 2019 to 2025, she was director-manager of housing corporation Domijn and chair of the association of Twente corporations WoON