Meet DanPilot
We welcome you to meet some of our employees and get an impression of the many different types of jobs and people we consist of. The below list is not complete and will be supplemented over time.
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Lars Ahrendtsen
Lars Ahrendtsen is, since February 2008, director of DanPilot. Lars was educated as a marine engineer and came to DanPilot from a position as principal of the Kogtved Søfartsskole in Svendborg after 19 years of employment with A.P. Moeller-Maersk, where he sailed as a chief engineer, worked at the head quarters in Copenhagen as an inspector in the technical department, and held a position as maintenance manager of a container terminal in Spain.
- The position as director of DanPilot looked interesting to me as I had reached a point in my career where I was ready to try something new and I saw some exciting possibilities for being involved in the development of the company and for taking up new challenges. And all my expectations have been met!
- I think we have an interesting and many-sided day filled with a lot of tasks and a high degree of external contacts with many interested parties and wide area of contacts. And – not least – we have an important mission contributing to ensuring safety for the traffic at sea and, consequently, the environment of our waters and coastline.
- I think we have a good workplace with an informal tone, and, personally, I appreciated the daily ping-pong, we have concerning how to solve our problems. We have a very tolerant work environment, and this, I think, is important in an organisation like ours that is constantly developing and growing.
Lars is married to Karina, and in his leisure time his first priority is the family with the focus on their four children, and also parents and parents-in-law can delight in frequents visits. Further to this, the family home from 1900 requires continuous maintenance, and Lars loves the manual work as a counterbalance to the tasks he meets at work. He also finds the time for exercising, running being his favourite – not least because it is flexible. Formerly, karate was also part of his exercise plan, but – understandably – sticking to fixed schedules in the spare time is no longer as easy as it used to be.
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Claus Kristensen
Position | Sea Pilot/harbor pilot and area manager for the Grenaa Pilot station |
Work place | Danish waters, Baltic waters and the Grenaa harbour |
Education | Masters certificate, 1st. degree |
Nationality | Danish |
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Thomas Røvik Egetoft
Position | Marine Pilot |
Work place | Limfjorden and Danish waters |
Education | Ship Master’s Certificate 1st degree |
Nationality | Danish |
Thomas Røvik Egetoft is employed as a pilot is in the Limfjorden - a diverse and most challenging pilot area. The range of his tasks goes from taking vessels with 3-4 meters draft over the Løgstør Grunde to turning 70,000 t.dw. tankers in the city of Aalborg to deep sea pilotage in Danish waters. This means that two days are never the same and his job never becomes a routine.
Prior to his occupation as a pilot in Danpilot, Thomas served more than twenty years with A.P. Møller, mainly at sea trading world wide in gas carriers. However, the the last four years he workd at the office on the Esplananden in Copenhagen in commercial and nautical positions.
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Lars Toft Andersen
Position | Sea/-harbourpilot and area manager for Mariager Fjord |
Work place | Danish waters, Baltic waters and Mariager Fjord. |
Education | Masters certificate, 1st. degree |
Nationality | Danish |
Lars Toft Andersen has been employed with DanPilot since 1999 where he works as sea and harbour pilot and is area manager for the Mariager Fjord area.
He has as a Masters certificate, 1st. degree, and before joining DanPilot he worked with Herning Shipping sailing with chemical tankers.
- Working as a pilot with DanPilot means among other things that you have the opportunity to do what you were educated to do – to navigate, sail from one point to another – without having to do a lot of paperwork, says Lars.
Also in his leisure time Lars benefits from the many possibilities to pursue e.g. sports interest around Mariager Fjord which he can study from a different angle when sailing in his kayak. He also finds time for running and biking and for taking care of house and summer cottage. Lars is married to Hanne and together they have 3 children who are also active in sports, and of course their activities are followed with great interest.
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Pia Storm Jelsgaard
”Problem solving, challenges – and good colleagues”
Pia Storm Jelsgaard is working in the operation team with DanPilot, where she has been employed for 3 years. Pia came from a position with Falck (a Danish rescue service), where she worked for 12 years as a supervisor, which means that she has much experience with handling a position where things run fast and where it is sometimes necessary to keep a cool head.
”We constitute a great team and that is important for our daily life”
”What I really like about my job is that there are never 2 identical days. You will to a very wide extent have to use your creative competencies in solving the problems that arise, and it is a company with a lot of challenges that you are welcome to take upon you if you like. And – not least – I really appreciate my good colleagues and staff. We constitute a great team and that is an important part of our daily life.”
Planning – also necessary in the leisure time
As manager of the pilot planning team it is of utmost importance that you are really competent when it comes to planning, and in Pia’s case this also applies to her private life where her family includes 2 teenage sons, a husband who works with Falck, and time consuming interests like horseback riding and yachting.
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Gitte Holmøe
Position | Dispatcher |
Work place | Central operation office in Svendborg |
Education | Hotel administration |
Nationality | Danish |
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Ryan Hansen
”You never have two identical days”
Ryan has been employed with DanPilot as a pilot planner since April 2008.
He is educated as a driver and has a mercantile education, specialising in logistics.
Prior to his employment with DanPilot, he worked for a number of years as supervisor with a haulage contractor and spent a year travelling and working in Australia and Thailand
”Super good colleagues – and a demand for discipline, communication and planning”
”I highly appreciate my super good colleagues and the fact that you never have two identical days. We can never be sure about what is going to happen during the day. The job includes many huge challenges – and it is great feeling when you succeed in making everything work. I like that we have a great responsibility and that the job requires discipline and good communication and planning skills. And at the end of a shift it is very important that you are able to ”close down” mentally and do something quite different.”
Stays fit with running and cycling
Ryan lives in Odense, is single, and spends his leisure time working to stay fit with running and cycling and with friends and family.
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Palle Melchiorsen
Position | IT Coordinator |
Work place | The administration in Svendborg |
Education | Ship officer and master |
Nationality | Danish |
Prior to his employment with DanPilot in 1999, Palle Melchiorsen worked as a ship’s officer and a shipmaster in the Danish merchant fleet, and in the period 1993 to 1999 he held the position as watch team leader with the VTS Storbælt during the time of construction of the bridge.
This gave him the unique opportunity to be a part of the development and to watch this impressive work “grow out of the water” so to speak. It was also in this period that he developed his interest in the world of IT which is now his primary area of work.
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Søren Westphal
Søren Westphal is, since 1 May 2009, employed as technical manager with DanPilot. He joined DanPilot after 8 months as head of department at SIMAC. Before that, he worked for 8 years as an instructor at the Kogtved Søfartsskole – in a rotation position that included time at sea as well an instructor time and that further to the instructor work also involved e.g. project work and development work within the safety area, as well as administrative tasks in the cadet administration.
Søren was educated as a marine engineer at the Svendborg Maskinmesterskole and the Odense Maskinmesterskole respectively, and, upon graduation, he spent some yeast at sea sailing as a chief engineer with A.P. Moeller-Maersk.
- I applied for the position as technical manager at DanPilot, because I saw some interesting possibilities for combining my professional competence as a marine engineer and my wish for more managerial tasks with some exciting challenges within the maritime area which is what I am enthusiastic about. And although I have only held the position for a relatively brief period yet, there is no doubt in my mind that this is the perfect job for me.
- DanPilot is a workplace in constant change and growth and thus also characterised by many challenges and varying tasks. These are among the reasons why it is important for the working procedures and our way of solving problems when they arise that we have short lines of command in our daily work and a high degree of influence on our own jobs. And, furthermore, there is a good atmosphere and cooperativeness among the colleagues who all over the organisation have given me a very good welcome.
Søren spends his leisure time with Lone – his wife to whom he has been happily married for more than 10 years. They live in Odense and share an overall interest – sailing and all things related to the maritime world.
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Hans Kærshøj Melin
For the last 15 years, Hans Kærshøj Melin has been employed as a boatman with DanPilot in Grenaa, and it is his intention to continue working here as long as possible.
- I think we have the best workplace in Denmark, with very free working conditions as long as we do our job, says Hans. – And our work scheme suits me perfectly. It gives me the possibility to have some long periods off work with plenty of time to pursue my interests, among other things.
Originally, Hans worked as a fisherman for two years, followed by 2 years on the Grenå-Varberg line, after which he returned to the fishing until 1994. But when it came to the point where administrative paper work took up too much time, Hans decided to follow the suggestion from a neighbour who worked as a pilot with DanPilot, and who had often tried to convince Hans to make a change of career. – And I have never regretted, says Hans.
At home, the grown-up children have left long ago, but have provided Hans and his wife with 4 grandchildren, so far, and Hans enjoys that there is now even more time to spend on his predominant interest – hunting, and, of course, his indispensable dog. His destination is very often Sweden where as a long-time member of a syndicate he goes hunting for e.g. moose, and in Denmark he lives in the centre of the optimum conditions for hunting e.g. red deer.
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