From Turkey to the Netherlands: Can tells us about his first few months at Strohm.
One of our newest employees, having relocated to the Netherlands and joined at the start of 2024, Can Kilic has quickly become an integral part of the Strohm team. Bringing with him a wealth of experience in capex and project management, the move has given Can an exciting opportunity to step out of his comfort zone and broaden his skills working in the subsea technology sector.
“From my very first interview it was clear to me that the company culture, communication, and overall working environment at Strohm was something I wanted to be a part of,” explains Can.
“We were on the same page right away and I hadn’t felt that excited about a job since I first started out as an engineer. A few weeks later I made the move to the Netherlands and started at Strohm in the first week of January. I consider myself very lucky because my transition, both work wise and people wise, couldn’t have been smoother, and the company were key to that, arranging travel and finding me a lovely place to live.”
From an early age Can knew that he was going to be an engineer, following in the footsteps of his dad, who works in power plants. A native of Adana in the south of Turkey, he graduated from the city’s university in 2013 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, at which point he enrolled on a work and travel programme.
“During these sixth months spent as a mechanical engineer, I took responsibility for the machine line installation, which consisted of 70 people from 6 countries. It was an incredibly challenging project, but also one of the most rewarding and it helped to set me up for the rest of my career.”
After finishing the programme, and completing his mandatory national service, Can joined Mondi Group, a multinational paper and packaging company, in 2015, where he spent the best part of a decade before making the move to Strohm.
Since he started with us, Can has primarily been working on the installation of new inspection stations for the Production Line 2 project.
“During the last few months, I have frequently travelled to France, where our supplier is, to build relationships and make sure the work progresses as planned,” he said. “I really like getting out onto the shop floor and speaking to people, it’s one of my real strengths.
“This has been my first project with the company and I’m hopeful it will be the first of many. Strohm has some really ambitious plans, especially around our plant expansion and this is a key focus for me moving forward. I’ve even based my holidays on the project schedule.
“I started my leadership training in July and I’m looking forward to putting this to use in the future Right from the outset I’ve been clear that I’m in this for the long run and I want to do what I can and use my skills to help Strohm thrive as a company.”
Of course, it isn’t just a new job that Can has had to get to grips with but also a new country.
“Dutch is an entirely new language for me, but I started to learn it right away, doing 15 to 20 minutes of study each day, and hopefully by next year I should be conversational. I quickly made a group of mates and then there’s also the team at Strohm who have all been very welcoming. During a company tennis day one weekend, Kim and Dana were nice enough to give me the 1st place trophy.
“A lot of my attention has been on my work since I moved, but I’ve loved visiting new cities, going to bars and taking trips to the beach.”