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18 July 2011
“Dedication, that’s what it’s all about”
In 2006, Atlas opened its office in Odessa. Now, five years later, we are talking to Managing Director Marcel Burghouwt and to the man who has been in Odessa from the very beginning: Country Manager Pavel Paltyeka. His name has become a synonym for this location in the Ukraine. Pavel is Odessa and Odessa is Pavel…
Pavel was trained as Ship’s Officer at the Marine Academy in Odessa. He worked for several international shipping companies before becoming a crew operator with Marlow Navigation. The diversity of his work experience made him the ideal person to run a branch office for Atlas Services Group (at first this was for Atlas Eurosailor). He started with one colleague: Alice Gubanova. They have since been joined by nine others.
Marcel Burghouwt was recently in Odessa to meet up with a group of Japanese business relations: “Our success here is due to four factors: short-line communication, fast service, good quality and cooperation with our other offices. This results in us not only being able to offer our customers an excellent service, but also in maintaining employee-loyalty by continuingly offering them the opportunity to work.”
Pavel adds: “It took some effort to get the right team together: a team which can be relied upon by Head Office as well as our customers. The atmosphere in our office is good and friendly. We have a young team, the average age of which is around 30. This, however, does not have a negative influence on our professionalism. On the contrary, we are very pleased to have a young team that can grow and develop along with the office.”
Standards
“Working at Atlas is important to me; opinions and ideas are taken into consideration, and as Country Manager I make my own decisions. I am independent and enjoy working with the group. All of our customers know that we can be trusted and that they can rely on us. Atlas feels very strongly about values and standards and I adhere strictly to them all. Dedication, that’s what it’s all about…”
“We supply crew members for various projects. Every day we have approximately 100 employees at sea. Additionally we have about 150 employees on shift-duty. We work independently, but also in collaboration with other secondment agencies such as ICS, Jaymar, and Mariteam. Some of our important customers are VODMC, VOO, Wagenborg Offshore, Holwerda, JR, Amasus, Flinter and Arklow Shipping. In the coming five years we hope to become more stand-alone, allowing us to offer our services more directly to the customer.”
Marcel Burghouwt concludes: “Odessa is also an ideal location for growth, being the marine centre of a seafaring nation. There are lots of people available for Dutch and foreign clients. I foresee us doubling our business here over a period of time. There is plenty of demand. There is still a shortage of Officers for ocean sailing vessels and we have also made our mark in the rest of the marine sector.”
