Business View Caribbean, July/August 2018

50 51 went to Bonaire, that was even more quiet. But my father saw the potential of undeveloped land in Curaçao, and they speak Dutch here. That was a key point over the other countries. And, of course, the great weather and laid-back vibe was a relief for us compared to the Netherlands. “My father wanted to quit work when he was 50, so we moved to Curaçao at that time and he quit for one year, after which my mother asked him to please do something because he was driv- ing her mad. At first, he just bought and sold land. About six years ago, I started Aquarius with my father. Up until then, I had my own restaurant and was not in construction at all. But then we started building our own home, and captured the interest of our neighbors, who asked my father to build their home because no one else on the island was delivering the quality and workmanship we were doing. “That’s how it started.We built their house, one led to another, and within five years we expanded from four employees to almost 50.We grew very fast because the exchange rate for the Euro was very high, so people from Holland were interest- ed to come to Curaçao and almost triple their money.” BVC: Was it challenging to adapt to the slower work pace in Curaçao? van Lieshout: “In the beginning it was very difficult because we, as Dutch people, wanted to rush everything and show how it’s done better. In Curaçao, we were confronted by a very slow system with workers who would hammer the nails in, and work one hour to take one nail out. We told them, if you use a screw, you’re done in five minutes, but they said, ‘We’re used to working with nails.’ It took a long time to change that atti- tude. I was in my 20s at the time, so I could easily adapt, but my father, in his 50s, had run a com- KOOYMAN ARUBA, BONAIRE, CURACAO& ST.MAARTEN WWW.KOOYMANBV.COM a week At your service for all your building and home improvement projects. AQUARIUS CARIBBEAN pany for 35 years in Europe with more than 150 employees and was used to a tight schedule and everyone knowing their responsibilities. Here, he had to work with four or five people and it gave him more headaches than 150 people in Holland. So, he had to adjust, big time. “Today, quality is the number one focus for our company. Everything has to be straight, neat, cleaned up–he will never change that. But people coming late, that type of thing, he is more used to now. Also, our employees got more ed- ucated. They were used to a system where they did their work and had to wait until somebody, maybe, showed up with the money.With us, they get their money every two weeks, and we gained their trust.We have a good set of people who know what we want from them, and they are still learning, every day.” BVC: How do you differentiate yourselves from the competition? van Lieshout: “Our clients are mostly from Eu- rope and have a quality standard for construction that we know how to deliver. My father told us, ‘Everyone can put the blocks on top of each other, but you have to deliver quality; you have to say what you do and do what you say.’ That’s how we make a difference in the construction business in Curaçao.We have a home office on the east side of the island and a second office on the west side. At this point, we only build on Curaçao.We do have some owned projects on Bonaire, but we are not building there right now. “We work closely with several architects and