28/09/2018
This week it was 35 years ago that my father decided to realize his dream of creating an innovative development company. Starting in mechanical equipment development, focusing on production automation, all kind of industries were served at that time.
In 1996, I had the opportunity to acquire the company from my father. However, I recognized the market had changed and that there was a need to focus more on targeted markets. For me this was an opportunity to realize my dream: to transfer our company into a more added value service provider!
An important decision was to focus on our strengths: the food-agro and high-tech markets. To be able to specialize and align our competences more in depth to these two markets, my vision was to create two separate development companies, both with their own specialism, their own customers and acting independently under their own brand names.
In close cooperation with Markeys we developed our new company brands and in this change we also left the family name of the Holding. Before leaving the family name as carrier of our company I took my father along in this organizational change. In our discussion he was very clear to me. "if you think that's the best for the company's future you've got my blessing!" was his answer. And so I did!
The first brand introductions were realized in the year 1999 and from that moment DCD focused on the high-tech market. In this transition, the group name was changed into Equitec Holding as well. In 2001 the main activities of DCD were transferred from Duiven towards Eindhoven, one of the smartest regions of the world. In 2006 the Extensor brand was introduced covering the development activities in Duiven with a focus on the food-agro market.
During the last decade both DCD and Extensor built close relations with knowledge centers as the High-Tech Campus in Eindhoven and the WUR in Wageningen. We transferred both companies from mechanical equipment development companies into multidisciplinary, one stop, shop service providers with a strong focus on innovations. Nowadays we serve our customers from the start of the product creation process up to and including product launch. We at DCD and Extensor are fully dedicated to achieve successful product launches for our customers.
I am proud of my team working with such a devotion both on our organization and on our customers projects. Thank you all for realizing our dream and I enjoy building our organization for the future together with you all!
Ton Dreves
