Rob Klouwens - a Tribute. 26 September 2012
The first contact I had with Rob was during my very first months as a recruiter.
Typically, I was out playing golf at Chamberlain Park when my phone rang. It was a bloke I'd never spoken to before, and he told me that his name was Rob Klouwens and that he owned a company called Pacer Car Clean Products.
I ran the phone battery out talking to Rob about his company and what type of people he wanted to employ, then went for a personal visit the following week. That was the first of many, many times Rob and I met over the years.
Neither particularly tall nor broad, and dressed casually for a CEO and owner, Rob had a presence about him that is still vivid in my mind despite the twenty-year gap between then and now.
Over the years, Rob and I developed a close working relationship and ultimately friendship. We respected each other's views and abilities, and from my perspective, I was delighted and amazed to find a man of such strong morals and compassion in a world of phonies.
He displayed his strength of character many times over the years, doing things his way, expanding into Australia in a careful and planned fashion, refusing to spend money on flashy packaging and a myriad of other ways. He was so immersed in his company that he used to work one week out of four in Australia, and even at age 60, was not above doing a polishing demonstration to a customer for a $40 sale.
Rob proudly told me that his company had increased both turnover and profit every year of its operation, a rare feat in any market, let alone through the recession-prone 1980s and '90s, especially for a multi-million dollar company. He refused to borrow money to fund growth, seeing only his own capital as being the means to the end - a position many companies could learn from.
As a younger man, Rob had played first-class hockey, being a stalwart in Taranaki teams. He had already been offerred a professional soccer contract in his native Holland, but he decided that he wanted to make his mark in business instead.
There is no doubt in my mind that his determination and attitude would have made him a star.
In business, Rob came up the unique idea of having a company which supplied the car-cleaning industry. The industry was then - as it is still now - dominated by a few multi-nationals, and Rob knew that there was no point - or possibility - in him spending millions to launch retail products against those deep pockets, instead opting for the personal approach of talking to fleet operators, car yards and carwash companies to supply them direct with no-frills products that worked.
So did the plan, and Pacer trucks became a frequent sight on roads, and at its customers' premises.
The company was a raging success, but even more notable was its success in retaining its employees - a fact which was entirely attributable to Rob's attitude to his staff. Working at Pacer, they knew they were employed in a family company and not some faceless concern. They could talk to their boss as they could a parent or brother and know that they were talking to someone who cared. They didn't have to watch their CEO drive up in a new BMW, because Rob never spent more than a Commodore costs. His car was no better than many sales reps are given. (not his, they drove trucks!)
Yet, to me, that wasn't Rob's greatest achievement.
His family consisted of his devoted wife, Jackie, and two children; one boy and one girl. Rob's strength of character came out clearly in their upbringing and attitude to life. The son, who worked with Rob for many years, is now a successful businessman in his own right, while his daughter, a former policewoman, when she turned to teaching, didn't join an easy school, instead opting to work at what is considered by many to be New Zealand's worst. (Incidentally, the school appears to rank dead last in the recently released list of school achievement by pupil results)
Rob and I had some legendary political debates over the years and it was there that I gained the most respect for Rob. He would have made a fantastic Prime Minister. His mix of compassion, common sense and refusal to accept second-best while not deigning to be sucked into flash for flash's sake would have given us a PM worthy of Norman Kirk, but with the management skills of a Jim Bolger.
Rob was a man who found it easy to make friends, and almost impossible to make enemies. He was a man whose word was his bond, and whose handshake I trusted more than any signed and witnessed agreement could ever provide.
Alas, for a man who kept himself fit by running daily well in to his 60s, and whose mind was a computer, Rob contracted Alzheimer's Disease and has been slowly dying in a rest home for the past couple of years. I was lucky never to see him in that state, and am able to keep my memories of him untarnished by the ravages of disease.
Rob, I salute you, one of the last true Kiwi blokes. Not bad for a Dutchman!
Adios, my friend.