2008 Rediscovery Tour
11 June 2008 - Day 27, Esbjerg - Toftlund - 82 km (1814)
We started the day under threatening skies in
Esbjerg, where we had left off last week. The
weather looked bleak for biking, but in fact we
needed the rain because the past six weeks had
been the sunniest May and June ever recorded in
Denmark. I was joined today for the entire day by
Stephen Brugger, Executive Director of the
American Chamber of Commerce in Denmark, and Paul
Schofield, Managing Director of Hess Denmark, and
a member of the AmCham Board. Paul’s company
has a major presence in Denmark as a result of
their North Sea operations, and much of the
staging is done from the port at Esbjerg. In
fact, I learned later from Mayor Søttrup that
Esbjerg is known as the “City of Oil” because
over 10,000 people here are employed in the
offshore-related industries.
Given the offshore and maritime focus of this
region, our first stop was an appropriate one;
Viking Life, the global market leader in maritime
life saving equipment. Kjeld Amann the managing
Director of Viking Life and his colleagues
Christian, Lone and Elizabeth (a Bostonian) gave
us a great tour of the manufacturing facilities
from which this company produces rafts, ranging
in size from two-man to 200-man in size. Started
in 1960, when there were 700 fishing boats in the
Esbjerg harbor (now there are less than 30), the
company has grown to 46 locations and 1200
employees. This is an impressive niche for this
Danish company, but as Kjeld said to me
“Denmark is such a small country that we have
to go out into the world and do big things to
feel bigger!” (I really like that one) the
company now has 41 service locations in the US,
and does significant business there, though they
would like to increase their business with the US
Navy. I was surprised to see how much of the
actual manufacture of the rafts is done the old
fashioned way, by hand. But they have not yet
designed a machine that can glue the rubber seams
together as effectively as human hands.
Leaving Viking we were joined by a great group of
25 riders from the Babcock & Wilcox Vølund
company that was to be our next stop. We rode
together for the six or seven km, during which
time I had a good conversation with several men,
long time residents of the area who had never
been to America but who had strong impressions of
the country. My friend Peter said that his strong
impressions had been formed by watching the TV
show Bonanza as a child. (In black and white, and
dubbed in German). But he loved the “Cartwright
values”. He also reminisced about the great
games of “Cowboys and Indians” he played as a
child. (perhaps I should introduce him to my
friend Jørgen at Texas Country and Western in
Farendløse.)
Arriving at Babcock & Wilcox Vølund, I was
greeted by country manager John Veje Olesen, also
a member of the Amcham. Before going inside for a
tour of their facilities where they manufacture
components for waste-to-energy facilities, I had
a chance to visit with the 25 riders. These were
mostly adults between the ages of 35 and 50. I
got some interesting answers to my three
questions. To the First Question, their
impressions of America included “freedom”,
“power” and ‘big.” One nice lady said
“Hillary”. (I hated to tell her that Senator
Clinton was not still in the Presidential race.)
The Second Question elicited even more
interesting answers. “We would want Americans
to know that we like to pay taxes” one said. I
had never really heard it put this way, and
probing a little bit, they agreed they liked what
they got for their taxes. When I discussed the
revolt that would likely occur in America if the
government tried to impose the kind of taxes that
Danes happily pay, one said “but you don’t get
anything for your taxes. We get something for
ours!” That is certainly an inaccurate
impression of America, but one that I fear is
fueled by the negative impressions that come
across on the TV screens and news coverage.
Another lady said “we would want America to
know that we value freedom of speech.” Another
younger member of the group said that Americans
didn’t value free speech like Danes do, because
there are some things in America “that you
can’t say”. We discussed why that was, and
spoke about the diversity and tolerance that was
at the heart of the American experience. ‘I am
not sure we are a very tolerant place’ another
said.
To my third question, as expected I received
virtually all 8s, 9s and 10s to the first
question, and 10s to the second, except for the
young man again who said “2” to the first
question. He felt that we were no longer close
allies because we disagreed so much on the Iraq
War, but he did give us a 10 on the second
question.
Touring the Esbjerg Babcock & Wilcox Vølund
facility, which is now a subsidiary of an
American company after a merger with a Danish
company, I learned about the innovative strides
that have been made in recent years in the area
of waste to energy systems. In the mid-90’s I
worked with a client that was trying to build one
of these systems in my home state of North
Carolina, but there were technological problems.
Those problems have now been solved apparently,
and within the EU the business is booming because
the EU prohibits the permitting of any new
landfills. Thus municipal waste is incinerated.
This system is very expensive, and appears to
really only be efficient where you can use the
heat produced, such as in Demark where there are
District Heating systems. It will be a challenge
in America where there are few such systems, but
the market is certainly looking for this kind of
alternative facilities. I will say one thing
though, the Danes have figured out how to make
waste disposal facilities aesthetically pleasing,
because the plants that I have seen, including the
‘E2D-90” plant in Esbjerg are architectural
beauties. It looks like the Black Diamond library
in Copenhagen.
Leaving B&W V we arrived at the Town Hall where
Mayor Johnny Søttrup and Municipal Director Otto
Jespersen met us and fed us a wonderful
Smørrebrød lunch. Mayor Søttrup is a very
impressive leader who has been mayor in this city
for 15 years, surviving the consolidation with two
other towns a couple of years ago. We had a great
conversation about America, where he had spent a
year in high school on an American Field Service
exchange program in Utah. He describes it as
“having the most important impact on me of
anything I have done in my life.” His kids are
now following in his footsteps, as are Otto’s,
whose daughter Marie is heading to work in New
York at the Danish consulate. Leaving Esjberg
Paul and I had a great conversation about the
value of these wonderful programs that send young
people to America. He and I agreed with the Mayor
that there is no better program for sustaining
America’s relationships in the world than these
programs.
Esbjerg is one of the youngest cities in Denmark,
planned only about 100 years ago. It is a
beautiful city, and had some great modern art,
and is a great contrast to our next stop Ribe,
which is not only the oldest city in Denmark, but
apparently the oldest city in Scandanavia. We
arrived at the beautiful Cathedral, built around
1100, after a rainy and windy 25 km ride from
Esbjerg. The Dannebrog atop the Cathedral was
blowing beautifully in the wind, and our engaging
tour guide Richard explained that it does not fly
from there every day, but that it was today “in
honor of the American Ambassador”! The Cathedral
is remarkable. It is the most beautiful interior
of any I have seen in Denmark because much of the
painting, whitewashed out at the time of the
Reformation in 1536, was replaced in the last few
hundred years. The color scheme in many ways
reminds me of the Alhambra Mosque in Spain.
Richard explained that the Spanish church had a
great influence on the Danish Church in centuries
past. The Cathedral has a fascinating mix of the
old and the “new” with a very modern art nave
with glass mosaic panels and stained glass created
by the famous Danish artist Carl Henning Petersen.
Although they must have been very controversial
when they were first installed twenty years ago,
Richard made a good comment that “at the time
all the art was installed in this Cathedral, it
would have been considered “modern”. The
Cathedral also holds the remains of two of
Denmark’s Kings, Erik Emune and Christopher I.
Although most of Denmark’s kings are buried in
Roskilde, those who are murdered, Richard says,
are buried in the town in which they were killed.
Erik was killed here when he tried to raise taxes
in Denmark from 10% to 11%. I guess in those days
Danes didn’t like paying taxes as much as they
do today. Ribe also is the home of the famous
Dane Jacob Riis. Jacob Riis was honored by
President Roosevelt as the “Most Influential
New Yorker” when he was recording his
photographic impressions of America 100 years
ago. I have visited the Jacob Riis home and
museum on prior trips, and was pleased to have
the chance to pay tribute once more.
After a quick bite of delicious ‘sponge cake”
in the sunshine at the beautiful and historic
Hotel Dagmar, by coincidence the oldest hotel in
Denmark (where we will stay for the night), we
began the vigorous 27 km ride to Toftlund. We
made the ride in about 40 minutes, at one point
hitting a sustained speed of 54 km as we passed
through the small town of Højbro. (It was quite
a thrill to see that speed pop up on the
automatic traffic control as we passed.) I have
to confess that we had a pretty good tail wind
for much of the trip, but it was still a vigorous
workout. Peter, the biking body guard of the day,
was a great riding companion to have on the trip
today, and helped keep the pace up. The only down
side of moving that fast is that I missed much of
the beautiful countryside here in this southern
part of Denmark, which of course at one point in
history was actually the northern part of
Germany. I was moving fast in part because I
wanted a good workout, and also because I was in
a hurry to get back to Ribe because at 19:30 my
wife Helen is arriving on the train from
Copenhagen! It will be her first experience on
the ReDiscovery Tour, and I cannot wait for her
to join me!