Newsdesk
Doornbos Celebrate 80 years!
To celebrate 80 years in business, we have an exclusive interview with Steve Buxton, the UK Depot Manager of Doornbos Equipment. Steve has been in the water jetting industry for 32 years and has been part of the Doornbos team since the North East, England depot opened in 2004.
You’ve been in the industry for quite some time, what made you pursue a career in water jetting?
When I left school, I went to work with my dad at Smiths Dock in Middlesbrough as an apprentice. Unfortunately, after 6 months the company closed down. All apprentices were then sent to NETA (a local training school) to complete our apprenticeships. After 2 weeks I was offered a position at Newlock and the rest they say is history.
Tell us a bit about your Doornbos Equipment journey and how your roles and responsibilities have changed over the 14 years;
In 2004 I was approached by Mark Stride, the UK sales manager at the time to help set up the North East depot of Doornbos. In 2010, a managerial restructure led to the closure of our Southampton depot and I then took on the role of the UK Manager. My main focus is to guide our clients through the technical processes whilst overseeing the depot.
Can you briefly tell us about the services that Doornbos Equipment offer?
I always say that the best way to describe us is ‘one stop shop’. We are a hire company for high pressure water jetting and vacuum equipment. We are also UK agents for Amphitec, Dynajet and NLB Corp so we can also provide our clients with the option to purchase machines from new. On top of that we have an expert team of engineers in house so we provide servicing and repairs as well as a fully stocked accessories centre. You can also come to us for your water jetting training too!
Doornbos Equipment is a Dutch owned family ran company. Does the UK depot have a close relationship with the team in Holland?
The day to day running of the business is done in 70 drain TRADER | May 2018 |
house from our UK depot but we speak with Doornbos Holland on a daily basis. We can always rely on the team over there to help us out when required. As a group we have a very large fleet of over 1000 vehicles so it’s great that we can use their fleet as well as ours when needed. We are currently going through a rebrand and also for our 80th birthday celebrations, both marketing teams (UK and Holland) are working closely together so we can really show that we are one entity.
Steve Buxton
Doornbos has recently undergone a full rebrand. It’s quite a change. What can you tell us about your new logo?
It’s growing on me… ba dum dum tss. The new logo is a tree; each branch refers to the Doornbos core values. We have a video on you tube which explains the logo down to a t(r)ee. The link is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv5rGF7f29k
The idea is for people to eventually associate the tree with Doornbos; like how we all associate a tick with a certain brand.
80 years of Doornbos is very impressive. Do you have any plans to celebrate this milestone?
We will be celebrating this achievement with a night of food, drinks and dancing with our team of employees and local customers. We cannot wait to celebrate with our clients as we obviously would not have reached this milestone without them. We will be holding competitions on our social media pages so keep an eye out for them too!
Looking forward, where would you like to see Doornbos in 5 years?
I would absolutely love for Doornbos Equipment UK to be the biggest high pressure water jetting Rental Company in the UK with a view to opening 2 new depots! We’re not a million miles away from this so things are looking good.
How would you describe working for Doornbos in 3 words? I have 4 words. Every day is different.
And one last thing tell us something we don’t know about you;
I play off single figures in golf and I am also season ticket holder for the Mighty Boro (Middlesbrough FC) for 31 years. UTB (Up the Boro)!
To celebrate 80 years in business, Doornbos Equipment UK are offering Drain Trader readers 10% discount off their first booking using the code ‘80YEARS’. (New customers only)
www.draintraderltd.com
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