Blue Orange Wave celebrated its second birthday on the 9th of January! As it marked a next step to maturity, we are happy to share this great moment with you.

First development

During the first two years Blue Orange Wave focused mainly on market position, brand awareness, product portfolio and market proposition. For this matter we hired a true marketing and branding specialist with an extended experience in the maritime simulation domain. She helped us to grow our name, brand and marketing strategy. This temporary position recently changed to a more fixed position and we are happy to inform you Blue Orange Wave’s new Marketing Manager Cisca Versteeg.

Cisca was raised in a seagoing family with a father as a Chief Engineer and brother as Deck Officer. Her trilingual education in Dutch, English and Spanish brought her to Mexico City in 2008 where she is located ever since. She gained experience in (online) marketing while she worked for a market leading software provider. Not long ago she chooses for a career serving more companies at the same time as she embraces diversity in her field of expertise which she finds partly at Blue Orange Wave.

Future focus

In 2020 Blue Orange Wave will continue its focus on a further and more in-depth development of its product portfolio into existing education and training programs. This includes sharing more in-depth knowledge on application and implementation of video – and virtual reality tools into existing education and training in the maritime safety and security domain. It creates an opportunity to be able to run efficient and interesting courses mainly based on existing content which is immersive and tempting for the current – and new generation of crew and officers working onboard vessels or platforms.

To be able to assist existing and new customers with the changing training markets and fast development of innovative solutions Blue Orange Wave extended with a Learning and Development Specialist. During the application process there was one person who clearly blinked out with experience at sea, training market knowledge and simulation operations. We are very pleased to announce that Bouke Bergsma joined our team in this role as we trust that his experience, teamwork, down-to-earth-mentality and pragmatic attitude will help us to further expand our company in the direction as previously.

“It is my strength to bring together the fundamental factors such as technology, expertise and objectives. Only when the right elements are brought together you will get the best results. Let technology support us in our development, but don’t let it become a goal on itself”, says Bouke.

Customer success

As most people know, it is an unpleasant fact that with growth, companies tend to lose sight on their precious existing customers. To avoid this occurring within our company we expanded our team with a Customer Success Manager. As well as with Bouke we are very pleased to announce that another former seafarer has joined our team. Hein Schaap has assumed this important role. Hein gained experience in the maritime industry from a very young age as being raised in a family of fishermen and coastal trade. His dedication to the sea stayed and after finalizing his nautical education at the Maritime Academy of Terschelling he joined the ships of Holland America Line for a period of nearly six years. To move closer to home Hein moved his career towards the ferries in the Irish Sea where he worked for P&O Ferries for a period of four years, before moving to the training to become a Pilot with the Dutch Pilot Association. His final dream to become a Pilot shattered because of a serious incident during a ship-tender transfer.

Hein says, “After a break I decided to move on and go for something totally new! Blue Orange Wave hooked me on with the possibilities and options the company provides. As well as for me personal as well as for our customers. In this role as the company’s Customer Success Manager I look forward to expand and improve the current company set-up and help our customers to grow in their use of the new training tool(s) they implemented. It is my goal to stand for our customers and make their success my challenge!”

“Working with these true professionals it will be a great continuation of a journey which I started two years ago. It is my strong believe that Blue Orange Wave is ready for this next step to increase the service to our respected customers and grow towards new innovators! Our team spirit, experience, diversity and common goal to have fun in what we do will drive us to smile continuously. It is end of standby and now full ahead!”, says Tim Lodder, Managing Director of Blue Orange Wave.