Jan-Dirk has his roots in the Frisian agricultural sector and grew up on a dairy farm. From an early age, the interest was more in the machines on the farm than the cattle, so a technical education was obvious. After a degree in Mechanical Engineering supplemented with Business Economics, the import of agricultural machinery from the United States in the 90s led to the establishment of an agricultural machinery factory in the Czech Republic. In about 20 years, this company has grown into a leading player in Europe in the field of animal feed storage.
In 2017, the stake in the company was transferred to the next generation. A number of years earlier, contact had already been made with the also Czech manufacturer Spider, which builds radio-controlled mowers for mowing the steepest slopes. The importership was obtained and with that the foundation was laid for a new adventure: Machines4Green.
Spider sales were supplemented by the radio brands Timan and Raymo as well as other machines within the green sector, but in 2008 the final choice was made to fully specialize in radio-controlled mowing. An exciting choice, but in hindsight the right one. Many importers and dealers also sell a radiographic machine, but too little to really delve into it, while this specific technique deserves it. And the Dutch market was also aware of this; Machines4Green became the market leader in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Founding Vector Machines
In the meantime, the market increasingly asked when the radiographic machines would be given an autonomous function. These machines were already available for sports fields, but not yet for rough terrain. This question has been regularly put to the manufacturers from 2019. However, it seemed as if the need for this next step had not yet dawned there.
Jan-Dirk then decided to investigate whether it was possible to develop an autonomous control system himself. In this search he bumped into Sander Steegstra who was busy selling autonomous mowers for sports complexes. While talking, Sander turned out to be walking around with the same ideas. Together they decided to continue this exploration and it was soon decided to develop their own autonomous rough terrain mower together. In 2022 Vector Machines BV was founded in which both owners also housed their existing activities.
