My personal memories of Rudi van Blommestein

In 1992 I joint as an “expatriate” PT. Prodenta Indonesia (at that time one of the subsidiaries of current Sara Lee Indonesia) from Sara Lee The Netherlands where I had worked for over ten years. The main objective for my assignment was to assist the Sara Lee Indonesia companies in improving and to enhance their information (business) systems and IT infrastructure. An extensive internal IT audit report was supporting this assignment.

Shortly after my arrival in Indonesia (my first international assignment, Asian country/culture, other language and IT environment) I was asked to visit (Commissioner) Rudi van Blommestein in his office during one of his weekly visits to the Sara Lee office. I little nervous I went down that day to his office. It was a short conversation in which he asked me how it was going, gave me advice as an elder and the opportunity to contact him anytime if I had the feeling or need to do so. He was “Dutch” too.

In a later meeting not so long after our first he invited me to come over to his residents in the Punjak, Bogor for the first time. When I arrived I was impressed about the house, location, the flora and fauna and the dogs over there. This time there were also other Dutch guests invited. After some conversation we had an outstanding “Dutch” lunch/diner as it was served during all my next visits

What I remember from then, and later on, Rudi van Blommestein was a descent, wise, honest and caring person, he was standing above the parties. What later become more clear to me that he had an impressive list of contacts in the business and government community in Indonesia and abroad. He projected himself to me as an ordinary person in the recent years but I found him an extraordinary person.

From 1995 until 2001 we didn’t have so much contact as I had a regional assignment during this period and was travelling most of the time in Asia and from 1998 till 2001 I was living in Singapore.

Passionate & Patience

In my assessment Rudi van Blommestein did love to write with his close friends about all kind of (daily) subjects and in particular with one friend in the Netherlands. Initially by fax or mail and later on by (Internet) email. He could become passionate about things. One of the reasons I was invited many times to come over was to explain/solve problems with the computer and/or replying to emails. During one of our many conversations we spoke about the opportunities the Internet has. One subject was amazon.com and I showed him the website. To my surprise during my next visit he told and showed me proudly that he bought a book about flowers from Amazon.com by himself.

On other occasions, when the problems and/or the steps with the computer were too much he could become a little impatient and took a back seat for a while. But tried later on again by himself with or without help from Tony. He could also become impatient when his staff did not respond in timely manner. I’m sure Tony (and the other staff) can tell many stories about this.

Another subject Rudi van Blommestein was very interested in was the Direct Selling Business channel concept for Indonesia. He was convinced (even after Sara Lee closed their Direct Selling Business in Indonesia) that this business channel was one with many opportunities in Indonesia.

Caring

In 2001 I left Sara Lee (RHQ Singapore) and returned back to Indonesia. Rudi van Blommestein invited me shortly after that to come over to his residents and (as he always did) asked about my situation. He offered and did introduce me to some close contacts in the business and government community in Indonesia. From all of these I got a response and with some I had follow meetings.

During my last (February 2007) visit Rudi van Blommestein asked me if I could help/support one of his new staff. He wanted him to know more about computers for future opportunities. Rudi arranged a computer course for him in Bogor. At that occasion I took the pictures featured on this website. My idea was to train them to use the “easy” to use Blog facilities from Google and that this could become a tool for Rudi van Blommestein to share information/experience about all kind of subjects he had with the friends and family. But unfortunately because Rudi’s health situation we could not proceed with this "project".

Almost 100 year

During one of our last conversations we were talking about that I was almost half of his age, what did me realize that if everything is going well I still could have a long way ahead, but Rudi told me that becoming his age was may be too long seen the health complications which were related with it. His remarks struck me as I thought he was always fighting to overcome his llnesses with success so far but this was so until this week and probably he already knew.

Wytze van der Veer
Jakarta