Celebrating 75 Years of CDM Stravitec

Michael: When I joined the company back in ’96, I believe it was a hot July month, CDM Stravitec was still a small company, consisting of about 10 people (on the payroll), half of which were factory workers; we occupied only the groundfloor level in the actual building, which was filled back then with old-fashioned office furniture from the seventies or so; no internet yet, but I brought a laptop of my own to start with, as well as an own (big) Motorola cell phone and a second-hand car (a Citroën BX actually) to visit the clients. In those days, as a young engineer, I was especially looking up to our director Patrick Carels, the father of Laurence, who had (and still has) an incredible charisma and energy. Little Laurence, her sister Stéphanie and her brother Guillaume often passed by HQ at that time after school, bringing some animation to the offices.  

Kin: First thing I see myself in common with Michael is I also joined in hot summer. 2 months ago, this August, I joined through our North American team in Toronto, but I actually spent my second week over in Belgium for internal training, which was the perfect introduction. Right away, what stood out was how culturally diverse and international the team is—it’s bringing together perspectives from all over the world with a great collaborative energy.  
Coming into a company with 75 years of history that was founded in 1951, right when the Cold War was started! You might expect a rigid, traditional hierarchy. But across both Toronto and Belgium, what really struck me was how versatile everyone is. People wear multiple hats, bridge different disciplines, and think outside the box when tackling complex problems.

Michael: Good question cause there are so many, actually. A personal milestone for instance, was the completion of a project in Bruges called “Concertgebouw” around 2000, where we supplied and installed about 700 precompressed springboxes at the foundation level; it was about the largest building project we did so far, and it still stands out as a nice reference many years later; I have plenty of memories regarding that job cause it was a large challenge at that time for a young engineer, but that’s maybe for another interview… 
Another milestone was Madrid in 2006, which was a huge tramway project; in those days we were namely heavily involved in the vibration isolation of track infrastructure, thanks to which our global turnover of that year peaked to about 30MEUR, the maximum ever. But as a rather small company, it seemed quite difficult to manage the fact that big rail infrastructure projects could fall in or out of a certain year, especially if they got postponed for several months or even years. That’s why it was decided to sell the branch of track infrastructure to Pandrol in 2014. I personally then had to decide whether to leave with that branch together with the involved engineers towards another office building situated in Hoeilaart, or whether I would like to stay with the Building & Industry branch, as it was called at that time. Although I got more involved in the track infrastructure branch back then, working several years as CTO and head of R&D for the company, I choose for Building & Industry, where they needed a manager for the Belux region at that moment. I knew the Building & Industry branch very well since I had managed it for about ten years, between 2000 and 2010, the period during which I was involved in hiring colleagues like Bram, Reinhilde and Bruno, who are still well-respected colleagues today, meanwhile almost dinosaurs like myself… 
The year after, anno 2015, I managed to obtain another nice building project on precompressed springboxes, namely a big R&D lab in Romania. At that time I also followed the more complex projects outside my own (Belux) region. In total there were about 2000 precompressed springboxes involved there, which makes it still the largest building project that we did so far (of about 2.65 MEUR), but it also came with lots of big challenges, causing me many months of sleepless nights. 
One year later, so ten years ago actually, something small but interesting happened that would become quite decisive for our company: I got involved in CDM Stravitec’s very first Basic Fit project, being the club in Waterloo: a mockup of 2,5m x 2,5m was made for some acoustical testing cause the restaurant situated below had some noise issues… and the rest is history, as you may know…   
But of course we cannot forget about the corona year 2020, when Laurence successfully took over the company from her father with a lot of enthusiasm; surely challenging times for everyone worldwide back then, but we managed somehow to reach an excellent global turnover during that year, as well as the years directly after, despite the corona-rules, several days of technical unemployment at HQ, and some companies going bust around us.
From ’96 on, I experienced our company evolving towards a larger company with more than 90% exports, its own marketing department, a solid engineering and drafting department, a good-looking professional website and the 9001 certification, amongst so many other changes.
 

Michael: Well, the phone existed in ’96, and that remains the basis for doing business: pick up the phone, listen to the customer’s problems and issues, drive over there to check things out if necessary, and make a proposal to solve the problem. But of course we do work much more efficiently nowadays thanks to the internet, the many straightforward programs we use now, and the larger team we work with nowadays. We don’t print out our offers anymore to send them via post or fax, and all our installation plans are drawn on the computer instead of by hand, so that makes a large difference of course in the way we can handle the projects and customers today. Nowadays everything needs to be done directly, i.e. the customers do not want to wait anymore for days or weeks to get an offer; they want answers right away, otherwise they’re gone to the competition. So today I’ve made my reaction speed my main USP: the customers know that I always react very fast to their requests, thanks to the experience I can rely on, and that makes them come back.    

Kin: It's the depth of experience you get from colleagues who have been here for decades, like Michael. 
At the end of the day, CDM is a supplier, but we don't just hand over a catalogue and walk away. We have this solid engineering backbone, and our commercial team understands the technical side.  
That means our clients are never overpromised an unrealistic design or an unbuildable solution. Whatever gets discussed from day one is grounded, practical, and actually built to succeed on site. 
And for someone like me coming in more recently, having that knowledge and experience actively passed down to the younger generation is invaluable. You aren’t starting from scratch; you’re building on 75 years of real-world wisdom.

Michael: The thousands of references that we realized worldwide in 75 years time: we’ve been involved in so many challenging projects over the passed decades, and in so many countries worldwide. And every project, big or small, is different, comes with its own issues and challenges, which makes it worthwhile to be involved in solving the customer’s problems related to noise and vibration. This is mainly what still drives me after three decades, and what gives me enthusiasm as well for at least another decade.    

Kin: It's very simple: using our strong engineering foundation to make people's life easier and more comfortable. It could be helping someone sleep peacefully next to a subway line or work without distraction. At the end of the day, well-being is a big part of acoustics.
The physics and the fundamentals of acoustic engineering haven’t changed in 75 years. But human behavior and market needs are evolving at a rapid pace.
People are living closer to transit lines, buildings are becoming more complex mixed-use spaces, and the shift to remote and hybrid work mode has fundamentally altered our tolerance for noise level. After spending years in controlled home settings, what used to pass as normal background sound now leads to instant fatigue and distraction. Because of that, expectations for comfort, quietness, and well-being have never been higher.

Michael: OMG, I will be 80 years old by then since I’m from ’71; I would already be glad to reach that age in the first place. Probably I will be retired already for several years, so I hope that I will still be able to remember then as many things as possible from my long career at CDM Stravitec, telling anecdotes about projects and situations, hopefully inspiring others for a career at our company, that is hopefully number one in our sector worldwide at that moment. 

Kin: First off, by 2051, I definitely plan on having some proper Belgian beers and fries with an 80-year-old Michael to celebrate hitting a full century! Beyond the celebration, it’ll be amazing to look back over those 25 years, reflect on all the projects we delivered, and see how much we shaped the industry along the way.