Sander Voogdt
Service Technician — CLAAS Harvest Centre, Geraldton
Where do you come from?
Originally I am from a small town in the south west in the Netherlands.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I started working for a local agricultural dealership when I was 14 in the weekends and holidays. The Dealership had a massive variety of machines to look after - from big self-propelled potato harvesters to combine harvesters and from tractors to garden mowers. Soon I knew that this is what I wanted to do and after two years of working there I did my Apprenticeship there as well. When I finished my Apprenticeship I stayed at the dealership for another 6 months and than decided it was time for a new challenge, and decided to go and travel around Australia.
I did that for 5 months, than I came across a Landpower job in Esperance as a field service technician. Most of the work was building and testing Seed Hawk machines, servicing and PD LEXION and setting up AMAZONE spreaders. After working there for a day I realised that the agriculture here is completely different to the agriculture that I was used to! It was pretty difficult at the start since I had to learn the English terms for the components and learn how to work on LEXION, Seed Hawk and AMAZONE. I worked there for about 3 years. A few months ago I took the opportunity to move to Geraldton and I enjoy it here very much.
How long have you worked at CLAAS Harvest Centre?
I started with the team in Esperance in 2014 and moved to Geraldton in 2017.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
What I like the most about this job is repairing breakdowns during harvest. Getting the customer going just gives a very satisfying feeling
How did you find the immigration process? How long did it take?
Landpower gave me the opportunity to stay in Australia on a working visa.. To get the working visa was a little bit stressful. But that was because I had to get dutch to english translations of all the official documents required. But after all it only took two months to get sorted (I was in Australia when I applied for the visa).
What do you like about living in Australia?
I took this opportunity because I really enjoy living here. It is just not as over populated as the Netherlands is, the weather is better and the beaches are beautiful and it feels like it’s just a little more laid back too.
What thing has taken longest to get used to?
The thing that took the longest to get used to was probably the laid back mentality.
What advice do you have for others contemplating moving to Australia?
I would recommend to other people wanting to immigrate to Australia to come on a working holiday visa first, see if you like it - get a proper taste of it. Then make plans on wanting to get a working visa!