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Hanneke and Job already met each other in high school. They studied together and took their Bachelors (1969) and Masters (1972) at the same day. After graduation when Job got a position at NIOZ, NL as a marine biologist, they moved to Texel and lived there for 18 years. Job spent a lot of time on fieldwork and thus got to know the estuarine ecosystem well from the zooplankton research he carried out in the Ems estuary in the northeast of the Netherlands. He also was the driving force behind the first coupled hydrodynamical-ecosystem model, developed by the BOEDE group, which in 1988 resulted in a book on simulation and analysis of the Ems estuary (see publication list of Job). Despite the fact that Hanneke was tied up at home with their four children, she still managed to run her own company and gain a lot of work experience in a variety of jobs ranging from substitute biology teacher, lecturer of computer courses, biological analyst to ecological modeller and editor of scientific publications.
A large part of the time on Texel the paths of their careers developed in parallel but separately. After “emigrating” in 1991 to Denmark they worked closely together in the Ecological Modelling Centre of DHI. In EMC they both worked mainly on the development of the European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model (ERSEM). Job was the scientific coordinator of this EU-project, while Hanneke did the project secretariat and editorial work for the publication of the two special ERSEM issues of the (Netherlands) Journal of Sea Research (see publication list of Hanneke).
In 1999 they returned to the Netherlands, where Job worked three years for Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) at the Institute for coastal and marine management (RIKZ), before arriving at the conclusion that he had not been born as a civil servant and that he better start for himself which he is happily doing till this very day in his company Noctiluca. After a period of temporary jobs Hanneke found an interesting job at RWS and worked for six years at RIKZ in Den Haag, and the last two years at the Centre for Water management (Waterdienst) in Lelystad. She has enjoyed her work at RWS, but wants to have more independence in her work. Job has already started to reduce his working hours, but will contribute to BarettaBekker as advisor and quality assurer.