John Schoemans retires after 45 years at Stahl
06/01/2009
The head of the applications laboratory at leather chemicals company Stahl, John Schoemans, retired at the end of 2008. He is the only person so far to achieve the landmark of 45 years working for the company.
He joined Stahl at its headquarters in Waalwijk, the Netherlands, at 17, virtually straight from school. His first appointment was in the laboratory and he stayed there throughout his career, eventually becoming head of the applications laboratory.
One of his responsibilities was to organise Stahl’s colour forecast collections, both for the recent forecast books and posters and for exhibitions and road shows around the world. As he became increasingly involved in training and fashion, they played a very important part in his life and he was often called the company’s fashion guru.
Mr Schoemans has also run training courses in the local tannery schools and at the British School of Leather Technology (formerly Nene College and now a part of the University of Northampton, England) and the Lederinstitut Geberschule Reutlingen (Leather Institute - German Tanners’ School Reutlingen).
Perhaps has most famous nickname was ‘Mr Patent’. He has long been associated with Stahl’s Patent finishes both for the earlier solvent-based times and for the more recent water-based patent leathers. He carried out all the theoretical and field-t esting work on these finishing systems.
During his career Mr Schoemans also took on responsibility for Stahl’s research and development quality control and for physical testing. He developed a white pigment which became a very important Stahl product and to help the sales team he moved into the applications laboratory where he went on to develop other colours in constant contact with fashion designers. In this context he won an award in Mexico as ‘Man of Leather 2005’.
Much of his work over the last ten years has been associated with fashion for the automotive and shoe industries and associated leathergoods. He has played a leading role in setting up Stahl’s design studio in Milan, where his knowledge of creativity, upgrading, design and technology together with his understanding of leather has proved invaluable.
He said on taking up his retirement that he will miss his friends in the leather industry, but that he is proud to be handing his experience on to a younger generation, adding that he will still be in the background helping to expand the Stahl team’s knowledge of fashion and design on a global basis.
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