Van Raalte succeeds Van Schagen as chairman of technology sectors

As of July 1, Willem van Raalte will be the new chairman of the federation of technology industries FHI. The founder and CEO of the laboratory technology company Da Vinci Laboratory Solutions takes over the hammer from Eric van Schagen, president of family business Simac. This spring, Van Raalte was elected by the five branches of FHI to be the leader of the organization for a period of four years. Just like Van Schagen, Van Raalte has also gained years of management experience within one of the branches affiliated with FHI. While the previous chairman came from the Industrial Electronics sector, the new federation chairman was previously a board member and chairman of the FHI Laboratory Technology sector. In a special meeting with member companies from various sectors on June 9, the successful six-year period of Eric van Schagen's chairmanship was remembered. FHI celebrated its sixtieth anniversary as an association earlier this year. The organization was founded in 1956 as the cooperative association Het Instrument. Since 1991, the association has been a federation of initially four branches and since the addition of the Building Automation branch on January 1, 2016, five branches have been affiliated. In total, the joint branches have approximately 800 member companies, divided over the branches of Industrial Electronics, Building Automation, Industrial Automation, Laboratory Technology and Medical Technology. The combined annual turnover of these companies amounts to approximately eight billion euros. As a federation of technology industries, FHI bundles and organizes activities for the affiliated industries and their member companies in three areas: collective marketing, joint advocacy and management-related services for the affiliated companies.