93-year-old director still in showroom showroom every day

One hundred years as a Ford dealer, it would be such a great milestone, if it were not for the fact that the Dekkerautogroep just missed out. That is not Dekker’s fault, but the fact that Ford no longer has any dealers since earlier this year and only works with ‘agents’. The festive atmosphere at Dekker is no less. When asked what it feels like to be associated with a brand for a hundred years, director Hendrik Jan Dekker shrugs. “Yes, proud of course!” he says. A whole life is contained in those three short words, which remains hidden by the down-to-earth and modesty that characterizes him as an entrepreneur. And that Dekker, he is certainly not an average entrepreneur.

93 years old, almost 70 years in the automotive industry

When you walk into the management office at the Dekkerautogroep in Zaandam, you will find the director behind his desk. He is busy talking on a landline; it is about an unpaid invoice. His cell phone is on a pile of paper on his desk. From his energetic way of talking and his clearly still alive spirit, there is no way to tell that this man is far past retirement age. In fact, Hendrik Jan Dekker is almost 93 and his career in the car industry is just shy of seventy years old. He doesn’t want to know anything about retirement. “This is not a job, this is my life,” he says. Let that sink in: a career spanning almost seventy years, with his first working day in 1954! He remembers it well. “It was on March 24, I think it was a Wednesday. Then I started as an apprentice car salesman at Ford dealer Steemeijer, here in Zaandam.” This fulfilled a sort of boyhood dream for him. He did not want to take over his father’s flour business, he knew from an early age. “I didn’t like that, I felt little emotion about it,” he says. “I had that much more with cars. When the fair was being set up, I stood there for hours watching the construction, the cars and the trucks. Then I was often home late because I forgot the time. That’s why I thought it would be much more fun to do something with cars.” Cor Steemeijer, the founder of the company, also wanted something with cars. “He was an excellent car mechanic, who even worked at Spyker,” says Dekker. “He wanted to start his own business, so in 1906 he opened a blacksmith shop on the East Side. Later it became a car company, which quickly built up a good name. In 1923, Steemeijer became a Ford dealer. He sold T-Fords until 1926, but I didn’t experience that, that was before my time.”

Lots of competition just after the war

Dekker learned the trade of a car salesman the old-fashioned way – cycling to potential customers to try to talk them into a Ford – and turned out to have a talent for it. “It was a great time, those early years,” he grins. “Shortly after the war, competition grew rapidly, but the Japanese were not there yet. We did have problems with, among other things, the Aero Minor, a Czech car that everyone has now forgotten. But damn, that thing was damn annoying for us! And almost everything was done with cash, can you imagine that?”

It is almost impossible to list everything that has changed in seventy years. The biggest change is of course that Hendrik Jan Dekker took over the company NV Steemeijer. “I bought my first shares in the 1960s, which seemed like a good move,” he says. “I always wanted to be independent, to follow my own course. So I continued to lobby and buy small chunks of shares. About fifteen years after I bought my first share, I was a major shareholder,” says the entrepreneur. The rest is history.

Dekker belongs to the select group that was allowed to order a Ford GT. He did this mainly for his company, but secretly also a little for himself: “He’s so beautiful, isn’t he?”

The role of car dealer has changed considerably

In the years that followed, Dekker would expand his company into a dealership – sorry, now an agent – ​​with no fewer than seven branches. The company is not limited to just selling new and used Fords; leasing, damage repair, insurance, Dekker does it all. “I am also working on a real estate project on the site of our old workshop in the heart of Zaandam,” says Dekker. “As an entrepreneur you have to move with the times, right? Staying busy, having ambition and enjoying your work is what it’s all about. And that works quite well.”
The role of a car dealer has changed considerably with the rise of the online showroom, which prompted Ford to convert all dealer contracts into agency agreements from this year, a move that is seen as a game changer in many places. In short, customers will now buy their car directly from Ford and the agent will only be the point of contact for aftersales and service. Dekker remains sober about it. “The manufacturer now has to start retailing. He will then notice that it is a profession, just like I had to learn seventy years ago. Selling is something you can or you can’t do, but ultimately this change is about the customer and what they notice. Not much, if it were up to us, because the customer still trusts us. We remain the face of Ford. Our profession is all about building and maintaining relationships. That has never changed and it won’t happen anytime soon. It remains human work.” The customer himself has changed much more, says Dekker. “Yes, the customer has become much more independent, much less dependent and much better informed. The time when a customer asked us which car he or she should take is long gone. That’s not better or worse, that’s just how it goes. Times change.”

Dekker still sees that times are changing every day in his showroom. This was first occupied by models that have now all become rare classics, such as Anglias, Consuls, Zephyrs, Cortinas and Taunussen. Dekker’s salespeople have now experienced – with pain in their hearts – the moment that production of the popular Fiesta was stopped and also that the electric Mustangs Mach-E were shining towards customers in the showrooms. “Well, electric,” Dekker sighs. “Personally, I prefer combustion engines. I find it annoying that the electrification of the vehicle fleet is not driven by innovation, but by political decisions. However, that is also part of the changing times.”

Dekker next to the Mustang Mach-E. He doesn’t have much use for electric driving.

No reason to stop working

The Dekkerautogroep continues happily even after its proud centenary, with Hendrik Jan Dekker at the helm. “As long as things go the way they are now, I will continue. I have difficulty walking, but otherwise I am healthy. So if I’m lucky enough to stay that way, I see no reason to stop working. You have to be lucky. With your health, but also with the people around you, because without those good people I would never have made it through all of this,” says the entrepreneur. With those words, Dekker slaps the table firmly and repeats the most important lesson from his long, long career: “It’s all about the people.”