By Gretchen Bollenbacher
The 11-person “amazingly-motivated staff” of De Ruijter International USA, Inc., says Vice-President and Co-Owner Linda Garke, is “on top of” every aspect of its 120 Harvest Drive complex in Coldwater, and is what it’s “all about” at De Ruijter. The staff and Garke are proving it in everything they do – from their dedication to environmentally-safe processes to the use of their spare land.
“In our newest venture to be on top of things and to show our suppliers and customers that we are involved with the environment and truly serious about what we do at De Ruijter,” said Garke, “and because all our customers throughout the world motivate us by their own environmentally-safe practices, in 2008 we decided to use the spare land on our Harvest Drive site to compliment our environmentally-friendly philosophy with a Bird and Butterfly Habitat."
“Just pulling up to our complex and seeing our dedication to nature, people know what they are about to see when they enter the plant, too – an environmentally-friendly attitude and the technology to prove it."
“It is very inspiring to pull up in the early morning and see rabbits running around or some of our staff setting food out for the mother duck that was trying to hatch out her babies under one of our new little trees which, by the way, we do have to keep an eye on because the deer tend to rub them raw.”
"We’re probably about three years into it, and it really looks good for a three-year level. We’re always out there manicuring it and pulling any big weeds that try to intrude.”
They have planted native warm land grasses and wild flowers. She said the Mercer County Pheasants Forever, a conservation organization, was very helpful in getting them started. “They helped us get the seeds and plants we needed and a bunch of people together to get it seeded. They give us advice on how to take care of it, too.”
In 2009, a commemorative stone was placed and the habitat dedicated to Wieteke de Ruijter who died at the age of 26 from a rare form of cancer. Wieteke was the daughter of one of the partners, Mr. Hubert de Ruijter. “Every one of the staff was part of planning the dedication,” Garke said, “as they all were with the original habitat plan.”
Something else De Ruijter is also "on top of" is its company business. It is a re-processor of rubber compounds and polymers that come to them from rubber producing facilities all over the United States.
In the formulation processes, some compounds at times do not meet the required specifications and are then deemed off-spec or non-conforming. “We take these sub-standard materials,” Garke says, “and with the environmentally-safe mixing process we use here, we change these materials into something that protects the interests of our customers."
“We reformulate, chop, blend and mix them together, and we send this raw product out to our customers to make different rubber products from that don’t require such tight specs. All our reformulated material falls within a scope of say one to 10, and that’s what these customers need."
“Many years ago,” said Garke, “those materials could have ended up in our landfills but with improved usage and marketing, De Ruijter has reformulated and kept over 100 million pounds of rubber from going to landfills or non-productive uses. There’s no waste here; we use everything.” Some of that “everything” is used around their shrubbery for mulch.
“Another way to describe what we do at De Ruijter,” said Garke, “is to compare it to baking a cake. You put the flour and sugar and eggs and everything else in and mix it all up. That raw batter before it is baked is like what we work with and use here. That’s our product. Let’s say you did something wrong mixing up that batter. It would make the batter off-spec for baking a cake, but you send it to us, and we’ll make sure the product gets used in a productive manner and not wasted. We take the non-conforming “batter” and reformulate it into usable raw material that our customers can use.”
Though Garke, who has been employed with the company 14 years, acted as spokesperson for this article, she said the Habitat – and the company – is about all of them.
“We all go out to the plant together many times, and we study the machines and work with the materials until we find more really environmentally-friendly processes and mixtures, trying to find out new things about how this kind of rubber can blend with this rubber, and if a couple of them won’t blend – sometimes they absolutely refuse to – we’ll try out something else. We use our lab to help us find the answers. It’s all going that way so we have to be on top of that, too.”
De Ruijter International Inc. is owned by brothers Hubert and Roger de Ruijter of the Netherlands, and by the Garkes. “We have some kids the same ages and have gotten to know each other and become good friends,” Garke said.
The USA company was founded in 1995 and “continues to prosper due to the excellent staff and corporate philosophy. I guess I have to say we kind of live what we do. It’s not just a job for us. It’s a lifestyle. The company is doing very well. We are constantly studying new processes and ways to support our customer base. With an ever changing world, the work never stops!”
