SugarCity, Tuesday, April 26, 2022 – Distinguished visitors today at SugarFactory, during the annual award ceremony. Mayor Marianne Schuurmans visited the former CSM Sugar Factory site to present former Sugar Factory employee Mr. Sjoerd van Aken with an award.
Royal honor
Mr. Van Aken received the Royal honor for his tireless and entirely selfless dedication to the preservation of cultural heritage. Thanks to his keen interest and work experience in the industry that characterized the area at the time, his knowledge is of great value to organizations such as SugarFactory, Aviodrome, and the municipality of Spaarndam.
Photo by: Erwin Bartman / Birdyman Photography
Sugar-sweet industry
Born in Leeuwarden in 1942, he moved to Haarlem as a child and thus came into contact with the various industries that characterized the area. After high school, Van Aken started working in the bustling port of Amsterdam, at the KNSM (Royal Dutch Steamboat Company). After two years of military service in the 1960s, he started working as an accountant at Koninklijke Hoogovens in IJmuiden.
In 1964, Mr. Van Aken started his career at the CSM Sugar Factory, on the current SugarFactory site. Here he fulfilled a dual role as technical draughtsman and shift supervisor in the company laboratory. When the sugar factory in Halfweg closed its doors for good in 1992, he developed his skills by taking an AutoCAD course. This enabled him to work in the packaging department at the CSM head office in Diemen. To complete the circle, he returned to his beloved drawing office in 1994, this time at the CSM sugar factory in Breda. But all good things come to an end, because after 40 years (!) of service at the CSM sugar factory, it was time to stop in 2004 and focus on his great hobby: aviation(technology).
Insert SugarFactory & Aviodrome
Mr. Van Aken has been active as a volunteer at the Aviodrome aviation museum for seven years, where his tasks included maintaining the aircraft, updating the technical archive, and compiling architectural drawings into overviews in AutoCAD.
After a reunion of the Sugar Factory in 2017, Van Aken got into conversation with Denise Schimmel, general manager at SugarFactory. The conversation soon turned to the old factory archive, and it became clear to him that there was still a lot to be sorted out. After his former colleague Tom Snijders and Lydia Lücke had started organizing the archive, Van Aken took over and carefully sorted, updated, and modernized no less than 8 meters of archive boxes. Van Aken's expertise and years of work experience also regularly come in handy in new projects on the SugarCity site. Mr. Van Aken: "I still enjoy going to SugarFactory to make my contribution. In the sugar world, they say, 'sugar sticks,' and I can certainly attest to that!"
A shower of honors in Haarlemmermeer
It is therefore not surprising that Mr. Van Aken was nominated for a royal honor by several people. Thanks to the efforts of people like Mr. Van Aken, important Dutch heritage is preserved for future generations. A total of 15 people from the municipality of Haarlemmermeer received a royal honor.
