At a time when tech companies are struggling to find enough young people to fill their ranks, we believe it is critical to recognize potential and give promising young employees the tools they need to flourish. One of our advanced mechatronics colleagues who has taken those opportunities and run with them is Jannick van den Brink, Team Lead CNC Milling at Mogema.
“this is it!”
Jannick joined Mogema when he was just 14 years old. At the time he needed to choose a path for his education, but all he knew was that he wanted to work with his hands. “My dad had worked at Mogema, so he called them and asked if I could do an internship there,” Jannick says. “They told him, ‘Send him in tomorrow.’” The plan was for Jannick to try out different departments, but during his first week he visited the CNC milling department and went home and told his dad, “This is it!”
Fourteen years later, Jannick is still there, though a lot has happened in between. He did odd jobs at Mogema through high school, and then the company paid for him to follow a CNC milling education. While he was studying he worked two shifts per week, and by 21 he finished school and started working full time as a CNC miller in the small milling department.
encouraged to step up
In the beginning, Jannick was running around, learning one machine after the other. Then one day his manager told him that he wanted him to be the shift leader. “I asked him, ‘Why me?’” Jannick says. “I didn’t have any ambition to be a leader. But he told me that I was already doing it and just didn’t realize it. I asked a few of the more experienced guys in the team what they thought, and to my surprise they encouraged me to do it as well.”
After being shift leader for three years, Jannick had the opportunity to become a production coordinator. This meant spending less time with machines and more time working with people, which forced him to learn a whole new set of skills. Following a reorganization he was offered the chance to take on his current role as Team Lead for the aluminum portion of the CNC milling team – the team he always wanted to join – with over 30 people reporting to him.
pushed forward, in a good way
“I never expected to be doing what I’m doing now,” Jannick says. “I was really shy in the beginning. If you had asked me at 16 what I would be in 10 years, I would have said ‘machine operator.’ And look at me now! Mogema kept pushing me towards this in a good way. They give all the training you think you need. If they see it inside you then they make sure it comes out.”
One of Jannick’s greatest discoveries is his love of working with people. “We’re growing like crazy and that is challenging sometimes, but the people I work with make every day nice,” he says. “We’re all really different from each other, but we communicate and can tell each other if something is not good. And we all do it together, I think that’s the most important thing.”
taking on the future with both hands
The exciting twists and turns are far from over for Jannick. “We’re about to open our new factory in Dronten and I will be very involved in making sure everything is set up so we can do a good job and help Mogema achieve its goals,” he says. “I also want to improve myself as a leader, and make sure that everyone in my team knows that I am there for them. The last 10 years have been full of surprises, so I don’t know what the future will bring, but whatever they suggest to me I will take with both hands.”
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