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Biography
At the age of 4 the family moved to the city of Roermond, close to a farm. This farm became a second home for me and influenced my later life very strongly. I learned harvesting the oldfashioned way with the scythe, but also feeding the animals and having fun in the hay. As a young boy I was reading the stories
about the adventures of cowboys and Indians. At highschool I was especially fond
of the Dutch poetry in the Middle Ages and 17th century. At an age of 18 I moved to the Agricultural University in Wageningen and I dreamed of becoming a forester, but soon I learned that trees don't talk back. I became a member of the International Club and trained my English with students from all over the world. As a student I pretended to be a poet, a theater writer and an actor, but failed to make it a profession. After finishing my duty in the army and
my studies as an (Agricultural) Economist with a specialization in (Extension Knowledge)
Communication, I started as communication researcher for the Educational Broadcasting Corporation, Teleac/NOT in 1971. My favoured writers were, James Baldwin, George Orwell, Franz Kafka, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, J.R.R. Tolkien, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Marilyn French, Lisa Alther, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Joseph Wambaugh, James Hadley Chase and Mickey Spillane. In April 1987 I was asked to be the Head
of the Television Production Department. From April 1987 till april 1995 I was responsible
for about 600 hours of television production. From 1987 on I have developed also
Acquisition, Sales and Co-production. From April 1995 till 2003I have been Manager
of Acquisitions, Sales and Co-productions and in April 1996 , becoming 53, I decided
to change my career towards cyberspace and to the new multimedia world. Since April
1, 2003 I am an early retired senior citizen. The decision to change to cyberspace led to The Global Distance Learning Channel on the internet. And than it became an obsession with and Chris Sonnemans Webdesign. The production of multimedia courses and the international co-productions always have been a thrilling challenge. But now cyberspace takes over. The most fascinating work I do now is the development of an online Dutch language course for English speakers Learn Dutch. Besides Internet I like mental jogging and cooking, stopped smoking in 1979 and love my Macintosh Computer. |