Jos Pâques awarded with Hoogewerff Gold Medal 2011
12/7/2011The Board of ‘Stichting Hoogewerff-Fonds’ awarded the Hoogewerff Gold Medal 2011 to Jos Pâques.
In awarding the Gold Medal to Jos Pâques, the Board of ‘Stichting Hoogewerff-Fonds’ would like to express its deep appreciation for the impressive way Pâques has set up a highly successful global company over a period of many years where he developed, tested, scaled and then commercially applied a wide range of innovative (bio)process technologies in among others high quality and other unique biological processes in many different application areas.
The Hoogewerff Gold Medal is presented every three to five years to a renowned candidate who has exceptionally distinguished him- or herself in the field of chemical engineering. The award is regarded as an important recognition of the candidate's entire lifework. In the recent period of more than 80 years, the Medal is awarded to many famous people in the field of chemical process industry.
Jos Pâques has developed the company, set up by his father in 1960 for trade in agricultural equipment, into a successful company which is world leader in anaerobic wastewater treatment. Early 80’s, the company was active in manure fermentation. At that time Pâques came into contact with Wageningen University where a technique was developed in a compact reactor for cleaning industrial wastewater and converting pollution into biogas. This UASB technology, under the brand name BIOPAQ®UASB, was the first innovation from a Dutch university that Pâques has brought to the international market. The BIOPAQ®UASB technology (up-flow reactors) was succeeded over the years by BIOPAQ®IC (internal circulation) technology for the same application. There are now more than 850 of these industrial biogas plants built that jointly produce a biogas amount equal to the natural gas needs of approximately two million Dutch households. Pâques’ entrepreneurship and his passion for innovation and technological advances have ensured that his company Paques Holding B.V. has developed a wide range of industrial processes and renewable technologies, always from university research to full-scale applications. These include more than fifteen different process technologies for the conversion of organic matter, nitrogen, sulphur, metals, and also separation technology. Pâques has always been aware that the development and introduction of new technology takes many years, in which a family business has more chance of success than a Plc. The company has an annual turnover of 50 to 60 million Euros and employs approximately 350 employees, many of the activities currently take place in China.
Short lifecycle Jos Pâques
Jos Pâques is the founder and shareholder of Paques Holding B.V. He was CEO of the company from 1973 to October 1, 2002. As of that date, he joined the Supervisory Board of Paques Holding B.V. He worked as Director External Relations for Paques until 2007. Jos Pâques is Chairman of the Advisory Board of Paques in China since 2006.
Jos Pâques is a strong advocate of corporate responsibility. Paques develops and produces high-quality purification systems for cleaning water, gas and air for industrial processes as clean and profitable as possible. Innovation and internationalization are key concepts within the company. Paques has its own office in China. In addition, the company has a worldwide network of licensees.
Other information
The Hoogewerff Gold Medal will be awarded to Jos Pâques on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 during the Dutch Process Technology Symposium. Following will be a lecture from Jos Pâques. Relevant theme of this eleventh Symposium is ‘from plan to plant’.
