After the wild welcome to Detroit on our first night, it was time to settle in. The family was all snug in their temporary accommodations in Troy Michigan. Helen was house hunting and I was very busy getting to know my new staff, and even more important, my new territory. First on my list of important duties was to meet Mr. John Witte, President of the Dutch Immigrant Society, or more commonly referred to as the DIS. The DIS was a very important organization to KLM. As a Dutch company, the Dutch people were a solid base of travelers between the Netherlands and America. The DIS was a large organization with branches in several states with a large number of Dutch settlers. Holland, Michigan was the largest. The Dutch people in Michigan donated money to purchase a Genuine Dutch windmill and bring it from Holland, the Netherlands, to Holland, in Michigan.
After speaking with Mr. Witte on the phone I arranged to have lunch with him the following day in Grand Rapids. I planned on stopping in Battle Creek and Kalamazoo to meet with some travel agents along the way. The meeting and lunch with John Witte went very well. He brought John DeVries, the DIS Vice President, to the lunch. I got a great deal of information on their organization. On behalf of their members, they contracted with KLM for two charter flights a year, round trip from Detroit to Amsterdam. Their membership was about two thousand in Michigan and almost as many in Illinois. They had two charters reserved for the summer of 1966, which I already knew about from my meeting with Luke Asjes, in New York. The two charters were almost full, and here it was only March. I suggested to Witte and DeVries that they consider a third charter for August or September and open it up for their members in the Chicago area. They liked the idea and asked me to present the idea to their board. I agreed to check on the availability of a third aircraft and the costs; I would then be pleased to attend their next board meeting. This was just the beginning of a good relationship with the DIS. John Witte and I had begun what was to become a very strong and warm friendship.
On my way back to Detroit from my DIS meeting, I stopped in Lansing and visited several agents. So far, the few days I had spent in Michigan had been productive. I was looking forward to getting to know the Michigan area; so far I had hardly scratched the surface. On my return to the office I had a message from Luke Asjes that he wanted to see me in New York. Two days later I flew into New York and found that all the people in the Home Office wanted to give me a farewell party that evening. I was happily surprised. I had spent over a year working out of the New York office and had a great relationship with all the departments, but I was not expecting a party. It was a very nice cocktail party and I had the best wishes of all, including Fritz Kielman, Luke Asjes and Peter Silton. All I had to do now was to make Detroit the best producing district office for KLM.
It was a couple of weeks later that I was called to Chicago for a Regional meeting with Roger Ackley, the Mid West Regional Manager. Actually I had met Roger briefly in New York. He had been a State Department Courier, the man with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist as he carries secrete documents between the USA and foreign countries. He flew KLM on a regular basis and got to know Fritz Kielman well. They became friends and Fritz, the top man in the US, convinced Roger to join KLM, which he did. After a few months of training in New York, he made him Midwest Regional Manager in Chicago.
I have to say that Roger was a very nice person, very warm and friendly. Roger was had a very nice wife and they had one child, a little boy. You could almost describe Roger as a motherly type. He was always concerned about his people and went to great lengths for them. One of his employees working in the Chicago office was a young man who was getting involved with the wrong crowd. He decided to take the young man under his wing, no doubt hoping to get him away from possible problems. When that was not working, he asked me to take him in Detroit as a sales trainee, which I did. I had to agree with Roger, the young man could have a good future if he stayed out of trouble. I found out that his parents were Missionaries from a church in Chicago, and were serving in the Congo, Africa. He only worked for me for a few months when he informed me that his parents wanted him to come and join them in Africa. They sent him money to travel, Roger got him a pass on KLM out of Chicago, and he left for Africa. I often wondered what happened to him and if the family survived the Congo. I just mention the incident as it points out the kind of man Roger was.
When I got back to Detroit, I was happy to find that Helen had found a home that she liked, in St. Clair Shores. The house was just a couple of blocks from Lake St. Clair. St. Clair Shores was a bedroom town North of Detroit. Leaving Detroit, you would drive North through Grosse Pointe; pass by Henry Ford's home and all the beautiful homes of automobile executives, drive through Grosse Point Woods and into St. Clair Shores. There were no mansions, but it was a community of nice homes. So now the family was settled, Kathy, Karen and Kirby were in school and I had about a thirty minute drive to my office. Later that month, Ken Becker flew in from Los Angeles and we completed all the paper work to turn the Detroit District office over to me. So far everything was going well.
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