A family history

Van Kempen, a family-owned company, manufactures it’s first rubber product for General Tyre on February 17^th 1966.

Not long before that, Marinus Theodorus Van Kempen and his wife Josephine van der Putten have decided to take the plunge into entrepreneurship. Marinus is by then 48 years old and  has gathered a great deal of experience and know-how as an employee in the rubber industry. As employee he soon becomes very skilled in his art. As a matter of fact, his great talent is soon acknowledged by his peers and he is nicknamed “the man with the rubber nose”.

His elaborate experience is also the reason why Marinus van Kempen is specialized complex rubber products. He is challenged by manufacturing rubber products that his rivals in the trade are unable to fabricate. His success establishes a company with a solid and good reputation: Specialiteiten Rubberfabriek M.Th. van Kempen & Zoon B.V.

The one-man business grows quickly. The number of customers increases as do the sales, and more and more family members join the company, thus creating a family-owned enterprise. On the 29th of June 1969 on the industrial area of Heerhugowaard, Van Kempen opens its first professional factory. This is a milestone, as Marinus van Kempen started the company in his cycle shed. After the official opening in 1969, the factory is expanded a number of times now harboring a professional, competent and dynamic rubber manufacturing company.

Marinus and Josephine have always considered their choice for entrepreneurship as one of the better decisions in their life.