Ampelmann CEO Jan van der Tempel nominated for Rotterdam Entrepreneur Award

PRESS RELEASE

Jan van der Tempel, inventor of the Ampelmann and its namesake company that provides offshore access, has been nominated for the 37th Rotterdamse Ondernemersprijs (Rotterdam Entrepreneur Award). Hosted since 1984, the award honours pioneering entrepreneurship that inspires, innovates, and promotes Rotterdam as an entrepreneurial city.

Originally awarded by the Rotterdam municipality and Chamber of Commerce, since 2014 the award is bestowed by the Stichting Rotterdamse Ondernemingsprijs. By promoting groundbreaking business practices in the broadest sense of the word, the prestigious award is meant to inspire leadership and stimulate Rotterdam’s buzzing entrepreneurial climate.

“I am very honored to be in the top 3 of the Rotterdam Entrepreneur Award”, says Jan van der Tempel. “Ampelmann is a great example of ‘invented in Delft, built in Rotterdam, delivered to the world’. The nomination is a recognition of the effort our global Ampelmann team delivers by driving engineering excellence. Our success is founded on the maritime cluster in the Rotterdam metropolitan area, the global connection the port of Rotterdam offers and the production yard at the RDM where we build and maintain our fleet.”

Ampelmann provides offshore access by using patented technology that effectively eliminates the relative motion between a vessel and offshore platforms or wind turbines. This allows crew and personnel to ‘walk to work’ in as safe and efficient a fashion as possible, even in the roughest of weather conditions.

Over the last fifteen years, the company has grown considerably from a small TU spin-off to a large international company with nine offices, and 65 systems spread throughout the world. Van der Tempel’s nomination comes on the back of a recent surge of innovations, new systems and technical strategies to greatly reduce Ampelmann’s environmental footprint. In the next few years, the electrification of the entire fleet is scheduled to lower energy needs by 90 per cent.

The award ceremony will be held on 17 May 2022.