The
artist Paul Simon wrote, “The mother
and child reunion, is only a motion away.”
As we get older
that meaning extends to include friends who
once were front and center in our everyday
life, but somehow have melted away in the
swirl of creeping years and geography.
Another truism
you may have heard: “When you are old
and it's cold and nobody cares much if you
live or die, the one consolation is a bit
of money that may get you by.”
So with a touch
of pleasure tinged with sadness, we celebrate
when somebody works their way through an airline
career and manages to retire in one piece—not
as the result of downsizing or ill-health,
but with a parachute package and the ability
to still enjoy a couple of shooters.
That brings
us to Jan Meurer.
There has never
been an airline guy we have liked better than
Jan Meurer.
Although today
he has moved into service as Chairman of IHAB
(International Hospitality Advisory Board)
Hoge Hotelschool in Maastricht, Jan can still
be seen at various air cargo functions with
good friends like United Cargo President Jan
Krems and Jacques Heerman, MD of Netherlands-based
GSSA IAS Services.
As long as we've
known him in the business, he operated faithfully
and with great determination and élan
through a series of assignments at KLM.
Although
his KLM days are long gone and he is close
to home in the Netherlands surrounded by friends
and family, we recall some of the truly thankless
jobs Jan accomplished during a stellar airline
career.
Jan began with
Nedlloyd, moved onto Martinair, and after
that to Pandair before joining KLM.
You could say
that for almost all his life Jan has been
part of the team that held up the pillars
of Dutch transportation heritage.
The Dutch have
always been great traders.
In Amsterdam
you can stand below Rembrandt's massive Night
Watch painting, which anchors an entire floor
of the Rijks Museum.
Look into the
expressions and body language of Dutch traders
350 years ago when the Netherlands ruled world
commerce.
Then go outside
and take a walk along the Keisergracht.
The same people
appear as familiar faces in different clothes.
Today, Nedlloyd
to Maersk, Martinair to KLM with Maersk, Pandair
into DHL and of course, most recently, KLM
into Air France have all benefited from the
steady, sure hand of Jan Meurer.
Jan has always
been involved with change, personally and
professionally.
New companies
and challenges, new places to live and bring
up his boys with his wife Annatine have resulted
in an expansion of the character of the man,
with knowledge of new languages and cultures
and the global village. Professionally, change
has been driven by business imperatives like
growth, mergers, or reality.
I guess Jan
Meurer can best be described as a facilitator
of change. He is a person who recognizes the
human dimension of change and one who will
work with people to understand, accept, and
implement the inevitable.
But what elevates
this guy above the din has always lived inside
of the man himself.
Jan Meurer is
tall, maybe 6-foot-five, so when you meet
him he is bigger than you are.
He is also very
down to earth and warm hearted, often speaking
in what sounds like a hoarse whisper.
Jan gets lots
of ideas and shares them all around.
Something else
is his downright refusal to think any task—no
matter what the challenge—cannot be
realized.
When he was
running the air cargo operation here in America
(and later handling all of the U.S. for KLM)
we described him as “Wild Thing”
for his ability to enter a room full of people
and make everybody think his visit was a personal,
one-on-one encounter.
From
left: Geoffrey & Sabiha Arend with
Jacques Ancher and “Wild Thing”
Jan Meurer, together for the first time
in Istanbul last Friday as Jacques joined
the air cargo immortals in the TIACA
Hall of Fame on April 28, 2014.
For More on Jacques Ancher, please click here.
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But if you ask
him, Jan Meurer will say the ultimate highlight
of his career was being intimately involved
in the KLM/Northwest relationship.
Much has been
written about the success of this pioneering
aviation partnership.
By any measure,
KLM/NWA has certainly stood the test of time,
serving as a model for others. “KLM/Northwest
was built by people, visionaries who became
my mentors and who continuously challenged
me to adapt and grow with the opportunities
that were created.
“On the
flip side, however, if there were lows in
my career, the people impact of the KLM/Northwest
relationship was the most difficult.
“My last
assignment in the U.S. meant handing over
responsibility for the North American market
to Northwest, strategically necessary but
eminently painful.
“I was
the agent of change that had a high cost for
wonderful, loyal people of both companies,
either in the U.S. or in Europe where the
process was reversed.
“I'm sure
that the strategy was successful but it was
not without sacrifice.”
We recall those
days quite clearly.
Jan Meurer,
a giving and passionate human being by nature,
was handed an unnatural and awful task to
terminate legions of people.
During that
time we would see him attending retirement
parties at places such as Russo's in Howard
Beach near JFK International in New York,
in the tough Italian neighborhood.
Often we would
kid with Jan, wondering when one of those
“retirement parties” might net
the big guy his own pair of cement shoes.
Jan would always
wince, not because of any threat or fear,
but because he was genuinely bearing the pain
and disappointment of others while attempting
to reach out to them.
“People
have been pretty important to me.
“I have
been privileged to work with Martin Schröder,
Ad Scheepbouwer, Jacques Ancher, Pieter Bouw,
Mike Levine, and Leo van Wijk, all top management.
“But at
the same time, I have learned much and benefited
from my friendships and association with secretaries,
warehousemen, truck drivers, longshoremen,
in-flight crews and my peers.
“In this
world it is all about what we can achieve
together.
“I am
happiest when surrounded by people who are
believers, implementers, and service deliverers—the
core of any success, including my own.”
At the end
of his career as boss of the KLM cabin attendants,
Jan's work was apparently quite a bit less
strenuous, but as always Jan Meurer was up
to the job and aced the assignment easily.
Faithful, smart,
effective, a real human being, down to earth
and decent—those are just a few words
to describe this guy.
Now, in my
42nd year on this beat covering air cargo,
if you asked me why I love this business,
the name I think of right away is Jan Meurer.
Geoffrey |