The traineeship
The trainee community is an international group of young people working together on strategic and interconnected projects. The best thing about working with other (former) trainees from different nationalities and cultures is that you can learn from their experiences and challenge your thinking and ideas, enabling you to grow and to improve your way of working. Interaction with other trainees also makes you view problems from different perspectives, which can be essential in helping you to achieve the final goal of your specific project. You become part of a community that is beyond your workplace.
Company culture
If I had to describe the company culture with a few words, they would be: responsibility, synergies, continuous improvement.
Responsibility to manage a project, deliver the project on time and if not, to be responsible for the failure and learn from it. Synergies because you cannot finalise your project alone – you need to cooperate with your team members, with different departments and, in some cases, with different companies within Broadview. Continuous improvement is another key to your personal growth, to challenge yourself and to learn from your mistakes.
The projects
During the trainee programme, I worked mainly on R&D projects related to new resin development in order to improve the properties and sustainability of the final products (e.g. decreasing the formaldehyde emissions of the semi-finished material and final products or studying the sustainable raw materials to be introduced into our resins). I spent part of my time in the laboratory, synthesising and characterising resins, I was sometimes in production following production trials, and I was also behind my desk, analysing production data and managing the project, planning and coordinating all the parties involved. What I like most is that every day is different: one day you work in the lab, another day you follow a trial in production, another day you have a meeting with suppliers or with stakeholders.
Current role
I am Senior Development Chemist in the Resin – Cellulose Composite Technologies Group (R&D Group) at Nemho in Weert (the Netherlands). I am working on R&D projects related to the development and scale-up of new products and resin technologies into production and the market. I recently worked on the Arpa Bloom Technology for HPL laminates, which utilises a thermosetting resin that is approximately 50% lignin-based.