© Pictures made by Albert van Duin
We know Gert as a person who recognises the value of the people working for R&D. He appeared to be very thoughtful about others. He pays attention to the human aspects of the organisation by celebrating successes, handing over many flowers in case of jubilee, organising outings and collective courses. Furthermore, he pays careful attention to the development of people.
On the other hand, Gert is someone who takes decisions fast, is result driven and takes many initiatives. As one out of many examples, he initiated and seeked for collaboration with the space weather community to use LOFAR as an asset for another scientific discipline. This cumulated in the writing of a successful EU proposal, which has been granted and is currently full up to steam as a project (LOFAR4SW).
Although Gert was not "raised" in the astronomy community, he learned fast, thought out of the box and therefore could ask questions that made you think and often resulted in a creative follow up. This also led to surprisingly creative solutions in the assignment of people to certain tasks.
We thank Gert for his fresh insights, changes and overall contribution to the R&D department and wish him all the best in his new role as ASTRON's institute manager.