Obituary
Frits Philips
Dutch industrialist who nurtured his company and its staff
Frits Philips, who has died at the age of 100 from complications
after a fall on his estate at Eindhoven, in the southeast Netherlands,
spent his whole working life with the great Dutch electrical
conglomerate that his uncle had founded as a light-bulb factory. He
headed the organisation during the 1960s and became a virtual national
institution in Holland, as demonstrated by the celebration of his
centenary earlier this year.Eindhoven, still the home of the firm, is
a quintessential company town. Its world-class football team, PSV,
started as the Philips factory side - the initials stand for Philips
Sport Vereniging (association) - and Frits was probably its most
passionate supporter. The town boasts a Frits Philips concert centre,
and he was one of the founders of its technological university. For his
100th birthday, Eindhoven was renamed after him for the day and the team
was temporarily restyled simply Frits. A lavish illustrated biography
was published and 100,000 Fritske coins, bearing his likeness, were
issued in his honour. Dutch media gave the celebrations blanket
coverage.
Frederik Jacques Philips, always known as Frits, was born in Eindhoven, where his uncle Gerard had founded a factory to make incandescent lighting, then at the forefront of electrical technology, in 1891. Frits's grandfather put up the capital from his profits as a tobacco and coffee trader, landowner and banker, who financed gas lighting for his local town.
Frits's father, Anton, whose only son he was, joined his technically-minded brother a year later as business manager. It was Anton who began the expansion of the Philips company, becoming its chief executive in 1922. Eindhoven mushroomed from a small village to a considerable urban centre as the company grew, reaching a peak of 400,000 employees worldwide 50 years later, before Far East competition forced it to draw in its horns.
At the age of 18, Frits began his studies at the internationally respected technical high school in Delft. He gained his doctorate in mechanical engineering in 1929, married Sylvia van Lennep from the minor nobility of The Hague in the same year, and joined the family firm in 1930. He started as a factory engineer and soon became joint manager of the bulb plant. The company survived the economic depression of the early 1930s, and Philips developed a humane concern for the poor and the unemployed, coming under the influence of Frank Buchman, the American evangelist and eventual founder of Moral Rearmament.
As scion of a wealthy family, Philips could probably have got out of the Netherlands and avoided the appalling consequences of the German invasion of May 1940. The Dutch surrendered after just five days of fighting, brought to an end by a Nazi threat to use the Luftwaffe against defenceless cities, as demonstrated by the bombing of Rotterdam.
But he decided to stay on, hoping to be able to protect his workforce from the Nazis, and even to obstruct their inevitable determination to use the Philips plants for war production. Then, in April 1943, the occupation regime announced that all 300,000 members of the Dutch army of 1940, who had been released after the surrender, would be rounded up and sent to Germany as conscript labour. This led to a spontaneous wave of strikes.
Some 18,000 Philips workers at Eindhoven - almost the entire workforce - walked out, along with miners, transport workers, teachers and even farmers, who refused to supply the dairies. For this, Philips was taken hostage for the future compliance of his employees, and spent five months in a concentration camp. The Germans also made him set up and run a camp workshop to be staffed by Jewish prisoners, and Philips made it his business to protect them as far as he could. Of the 469 Jews forced to work there, 382 were alive at the end of the war, a far higher proportion of survivors than of the general Dutch-Jewish population, which was almost wiped out. Israel decorated him with the Yad Vashem medal in 1995.
From 1945 onwards, Philips devoted himself to the reconstruction and expansion of the company in South America and Asia, and in many technical innovations. He became president (chief executive) in 1961; on his retirement from the top job in 1971, he became a member of the supervisory board until 1977. He thus had a share in the hard decisions, including making substantial redundancies, that helped the firm to survive fierce competition from east Asia.
Despite this disruption, Philips, a much warmer character than the founders of the firm, remained personally popular among employees and in Eindhoven, where he was universally known as "Mr Frits". Today, a somewhat leaner and meaner Royal Philips Electronics has 160,000 employees worldwide and a turnover of more than €30bn, making it Europe's largest electronic and electrical company and a member of the small but formidable club of Dutch multinationals, alongside Royal Dutch-Shell and Unilever.
Philips' wife died in 1992. He is survived by three sons and three daughters; another daughter predeceased him.
&#'183; Frederik 'Frits' Jacques Philips, industrialist, born April 16 1905; died December 5 2005
Frederik Jacques Philips, always known as Frits, was born in Eindhoven, where his uncle Gerard had founded a factory to make incandescent lighting, then at the forefront of electrical technology, in 1891. Frits's grandfather put up the capital from his profits as a tobacco and coffee trader, landowner and banker, who financed gas lighting for his local town.
Frits's father, Anton, whose only son he was, joined his technically-minded brother a year later as business manager. It was Anton who began the expansion of the Philips company, becoming its chief executive in 1922. Eindhoven mushroomed from a small village to a considerable urban centre as the company grew, reaching a peak of 400,000 employees worldwide 50 years later, before Far East competition forced it to draw in its horns.
At the age of 18, Frits began his studies at the internationally respected technical high school in Delft. He gained his doctorate in mechanical engineering in 1929, married Sylvia van Lennep from the minor nobility of The Hague in the same year, and joined the family firm in 1930. He started as a factory engineer and soon became joint manager of the bulb plant. The company survived the economic depression of the early 1930s, and Philips developed a humane concern for the poor and the unemployed, coming under the influence of Frank Buchman, the American evangelist and eventual founder of Moral Rearmament.
As scion of a wealthy family, Philips could probably have got out of the Netherlands and avoided the appalling consequences of the German invasion of May 1940. The Dutch surrendered after just five days of fighting, brought to an end by a Nazi threat to use the Luftwaffe against defenceless cities, as demonstrated by the bombing of Rotterdam.
But he decided to stay on, hoping to be able to protect his workforce from the Nazis, and even to obstruct their inevitable determination to use the Philips plants for war production. Then, in April 1943, the occupation regime announced that all 300,000 members of the Dutch army of 1940, who had been released after the surrender, would be rounded up and sent to Germany as conscript labour. This led to a spontaneous wave of strikes.
Some 18,000 Philips workers at Eindhoven - almost the entire workforce - walked out, along with miners, transport workers, teachers and even farmers, who refused to supply the dairies. For this, Philips was taken hostage for the future compliance of his employees, and spent five months in a concentration camp. The Germans also made him set up and run a camp workshop to be staffed by Jewish prisoners, and Philips made it his business to protect them as far as he could. Of the 469 Jews forced to work there, 382 were alive at the end of the war, a far higher proportion of survivors than of the general Dutch-Jewish population, which was almost wiped out. Israel decorated him with the Yad Vashem medal in 1995.
From 1945 onwards, Philips devoted himself to the reconstruction and expansion of the company in South America and Asia, and in many technical innovations. He became president (chief executive) in 1961; on his retirement from the top job in 1971, he became a member of the supervisory board until 1977. He thus had a share in the hard decisions, including making substantial redundancies, that helped the firm to survive fierce competition from east Asia.
Despite this disruption, Philips, a much warmer character than the founders of the firm, remained personally popular among employees and in Eindhoven, where he was universally known as "Mr Frits". Today, a somewhat leaner and meaner Royal Philips Electronics has 160,000 employees worldwide and a turnover of more than €30bn, making it Europe's largest electronic and electrical company and a member of the small but formidable club of Dutch multinationals, alongside Royal Dutch-Shell and Unilever.
Philips' wife died in 1992. He is survived by three sons and three daughters; another daughter predeceased him.
&#'183; Frederik 'Frits' Jacques Philips, industrialist, born April 16 1905; died December 5 2005
******
菲立浦斯(Anton Philips) 荷蘭-- 傳記csh : 安東‧菲利浦斯 玻曼 (P. J. Bouman)原著鄭慶昭譯;台北:協志 1970?
1979年竹北飛利浦送的2本書之一 當年我可能只有讀了前半
30年之後重翻 早已知道 "一家偉大公司死亡"一書
(1990年代初 有幾次機會一訪 Eindhoven, 都搖頭放棄.....)
他兒子說此書強調傳主認為全球的團隊 之經營方式 要重視成員的工作與事業
中文翻譯有些錯誤 譬如說 傳主過世時奏的是 馬太受難曲
*****
Anton Frederik Philips (March 14, 1874, Zaltbommel – October 7, 1951, Eindhoven) co-founded Royal Philips Electronics N.V. in 1891 with his brother Gerard Philips in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. He served as CEO of the company from 1922 to 1939.
During World War I, he managed to increase his sales by taking advantage of a boycott of German goods in several countries, providing them with substitute products.
He died in Eindhoven in 1951.
His father, Benjamin Frederik David Philips (December 1, 1830 – June 12, 1900) was a banker at Zaltbommel in the Netherlands. His mother was Maria Heyligers (1836 – 1921).
He was a first cousin of Karl Marx.
He married Anne Henriëtte Elisabeth Maria de Jongh (Amersfoort, May 30, 1878 – Eindhoven, March 7, 1970), and had:
- Anna Elisabeth Cornelia Philips (June 19, 1899 – ?), married in 1925 with Pieter Franciscus Sylvester Otten (1895 – 1969), and had:
- Diek Otten
- Frans Otten (d. 1967), manager in the Dutch electronics company Philips
- Frederik Jacques Philips (1905-2005)
- Henriëtte Anna Philips (Eindhoven, October 26, 1906 – ?), married firstly with A. Knappert (d. 1932), without issue, married secondly with G., Jonkheer Sandberg (d. September 5, 1935), without issue, and married thirdly in New York City, New York, on September 29, 1938 with ..., Jonkheer Gerrit van Riemsdijk (Aerdenhout, January 10, 1911 – Eindhoven, November 8, 2005), and had:
- ..., Jonkheerin Gerrit van Riemsdijk (b. Waalre, October 2, 1939), married at Waalre on February 17, 1968 with Johannes Jasper Tuijt (b. Atjeh, Koeta Radja, March 10, 1930), son of Jacobus Tuijt and wife Hedwig Jager, without issue
- ..., Jonkheerin Gerrit van Riemsdijk (b. Waalre, April 3, 1946), married firstly at Calvados, Falaise, on June 6, 1974 with Martinus Jan Petrus Vermooten (Utrecht, September 16, 1939 – Falaise, August 29, 1978), son of Martinus Vermooten and wife Anna Pieternella Hendrika Kwantes, without issue, married secondly in Paris on December 12, 1981 with Jean Yves Louis Bedos (Calvados, Rémy, January 9, 1947 – Calvados, Lisieux, October 5, 1982), son of Georges Charles Bedos and wife Henriette Louise Piel, without issue, and married thirdly at Manche, Sartilly, on September 21, 1985 with Arnaud Evain (b. Ardennes, Sedan, July 7, 1952), son of Jean Claude Evain and wife Flore Halleux, without issue
- ..., Jonkheerin Gerrit van Riemsdijk (b. Waalre, September 4, 1948), married at Waalre, October 28, 1972 with Elie Johan François van Dissel (b. Eindhoven, October 9, 1948), son of Willem Pieter Jacob van Dissel and wife Francisca Frederike Marie Wirtz, without issue
http://www.oranjeexpress.com/2015/10/09/
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