Joop van Oosterom
Saturday, February 4, 2017: †
Joop van Oosterom recently passed away.
A dutch entrepeneur, chess player and for some the Mecenas of chess as written in the Wikipedia's opening sentence.
Honorary Member of the Dutch Chess Organisation and twice ICCF world champion (2005 and 2008) removed himself from all media access years ago...
Twenty-five years ago we came across his memorable winner's mentality in our anniversary tournament of 1991. It can hardly be you have not seen or replayed one of his games.
50 years ago he founded the automation company Volmac, which years later became part of CapGemini.
In 2011 he stopped his sponsorship and communication activities. He stepped down in silence to spend his last few years in Monaco.
We have lost a straightforward but very amicable man.
Joop Jansen
Delegate for the Netherlands