Calvi Heroes: Hans van der Staak

About Hans

“My name is Hans, and I’ve been with Calvi for 18 years now. I started out as an intern, eventually became a system developer, and have since grown into the role of Billing Consultant. In my spare time, you’ll find me at the swimming pool, as I am an official for the Royal Dutch Swimming Federation. I thoroughly enjoy swimming myself, I try to practice it two times per week for fun. Swimming is not my only hobby, I also like walking.”

“The first thing I studied was Electrical Engineering, so if my colleagues ever wonder why I tend to act as the handyman at the office; that’s why. When I graduated as an electrical engineer, I decided I wanted to further educate myself. I chose Computer Science, and in my final year I had to do an internship.”

“I received a lot of internship offers, but none of them really caught my eye. Eventually, I stumbled upon a vacancy for System Developer at Calvi (then Tele-BS). I thought to myself; if they are looking for an employee, maybe they could use an intern like me. As you can probably already guess, they could really use an intern, and they already had a few assignments lined up. I chose the one I liked most and wrote my final paper about the use of internet content and the possibility of creating invoices for this matter. When I finally graduated, I was asked to stay, and that’s how I got to work for this wonderful organization. I’ve been a proud member of the Calvi team ever since.”

What’s the best part of your job?

“I find programming to be the best part of my job. In addition, I enjoy helping customers make their file processing even better. I also very much enjoy helping my colleagues and supporting them wherever needed. The best thing about my job is that I can really continue developing myself in programming. Additionally, I like my computer-related work in general. It also fits well with my educational background. And to be honest, everything I’ve learned until today, I’ve learned from working at Calvi. Exercises at school weren’t all that exciting if you just followed the guidelines, it didn’t challenge me. In the real world (at Calvi) it’s a very different experience, and way more exciting to be honest.”

Is there still something you want to do at Calvi?

“To be perfectly honest with you, I’m actually very happy with the job and position I have today. That’s also because I have already tried my hand at several things within CALVI and was given many opportunities to explore. I believe my job as a Billing Consultant is really fitting, but you never know what the future has in store for me.”

What have you achieved at Calvi?

“I played a big part in the creation of an application we still use at Calvi. This application is called Calvi Professional and is the application on which our VIP Billing solution runs. We created this to help customers with an application capable of running within their own network. In the very beginning, an internet connection wasn’t that common, but nowadays it is vital for the software we use. Calvi Professional is still being used by some of our customers and I work with it daily. This application is mostly used by the customers of our customers, our end users. An example of an end-user is a billing employee, who’s responsibility it is to process invoices. He or she could be using our software every day. Most of our customers work with very large organizations, which normally receive many different invoices because of the large number of contracts they have. What’s great about our Calvi Professional application is that it can merge all the different invoices together in one compact overview. These combined invoices provide a perfect overview for an organization and can help users organize their bills. What is more, our software has the possibility to split the bill by department or by office. I’m very proud that I played a part in the creation of this software.”

Why is your team essential for Calvi's success?

“I believe our team is essential for Calvi's success because we can achieve many things together, we work well together and solve a lot of problems for our customers. We are responsible for VIP Billing, for which we receive a number of requests from our customers. Some of these requests can only be handled manually and that’s where our help is needed. If things go wrong, we can help our customers out. The most important thing about our team and why we are essential is that we keep our customers happy and we put a lot of energy into doing so.”

What’s been your greatest experience at Calvi?

“In my 18 years at Calvi, I’ve had many great experiences. One of them is our first non-Dutch customer. I believe this was a great achievement for our organization and most certainly a milestone to remember. I also believe that this milestone was just the beginning of many good things to come for Calvi. Secondly, I also find our work environment very pleasant, I enjoy working with all my colleagues. Alongside that I always find our company trips very enjoyable, we’ve done a lot of exciting things and they certainly put a lot of effort into these trips. Last year we had a crazy experience at the Prison Escape and we had a memorable sailing weekend when Calvi hit it’s 10-year mark. The sailing weekend was a great weekend to remember, we had a beautiful time on the water in September. I’m already looking forward to the next sailing weekend and I hope I’ll be able to join again.”

 “Overall, working at CALVI is a great experience."

Calvi in three words

“Innovative, close-knit and sociable”

What is your personal motto?

“I do it right, or I don’t do it at all.”

“I find it important to deliver good work. It is also important to deliver good work and to comply with agreements you make."

A personal note from other Calvi heroes

Hans is someone we hold very dear. For this edition of the Calvi heroes, we’ve added a special note from Hans’s colleagues. Hans has been a proud member of the team for a long time and is the true embodiment of the Calvi spirit. This is what his colleagues have to say about Hans:

“Hans is the person you go to when something needs to be done extremely well; everybody loves Hans.”
– Jeffrey van der Linden (Billing Consultant)

“If your laptop refuses to work and you think all hope is lost, ask Hans and he’ll fix it in seconds.”
– Jana van Dam (Marketing and Research Analyst)

“Hans loves swimming and walking, but he might just love his job at Calvi more.”
– Paul van Dun (Billing Consultant)

A workplace that you love isn't easy to come by. Are you interested in becoming part of our amazing team? Check out our career page to see whether we have an application open that fits you, or send us an unsolicited application.