Han van der Voort's Homepage

Personal Information

My name is Hendrik Willem van der Voort, (after my grandfather) but I'm usually called "Han" (rhymes with one). I was born on May 20th, 1948, in the government city of The Hague, the Netherlands. Later my sister Sonja and my brother Tom arrived. I grew up in Wassenaar, a beautiful village near The Hague, separated from the sea by a three-kilometer wide row of sand dunes and woods. Because of its proximity to The Hague and its pleasant and varied surroundings, Wassenaar became more and more popular with Dutch government employees like my father, and with people working for big companies with offices in the Hague. Wassenaar also has a large number of foreign embassies. It also has a high number of millionaires, and indeed many people in the Netherlands seem to think that all inhabitants of Wassenaar are very rich. But like most people in Wassenaar my parents were neither rich nor poor.

After school in Wassenaar I went to Leiden University where I took up studies in Sociology. My studies were interrupted by 18 months of compulsory military service with the Infantry. After this I still was called up from time to time for NATO-excercises such as Reforger. My "career" as a military reservist ended in 1993 when I had reached the age of 45, and had become a captain.

After going back to University to get my degree, I could start my self-chosen career in 1976, when I got my first job at the Ministry for the Interior. Later I went to the Ministry for Transport and Public Works where I still have a full-time job in the department for Personnel and Organisation. In the meantime, I had met my wife Mirjam. My (other) great passions are music and nature, as you can see by the first two chapters of this homepage.