Smits, 57, brings more than 25-years poultry sector experience to the role, an important part of which has been gained with Fancom. Commenting on his appointment he says: “I am very much looking forward to working with Royal Pas Reform and using my skills to help drive this dynamic, hard-working company to further extend its strong global presence.”
Bart Aangenendt, CEO of Royal Pas Reform’s parent company Hydratec, says: “We are extremely fortunate to have someone of Paul’s calibre on board to lead our operations. His expertise is drawn from an extensive career in senior sales and management roles in the poultry industry, together with an impressive track record for innovation – experience that will be pivotal to helping boost Royal Pas Reform’s next phase of growth.”
Smits sees important similarities between the focus of his new role and that at Fancom – which involved developing automated total process solutions for the livestock and poultry farming sectors that deliver better performance and higher returns for customers.
“This is very much in line with Royal Pas Reform’s position as the world’s only single-source supplier of fully integrated hatchery solutions,” he says. “With incubators, hatchery automation and climate control systems connected by SmartCenterPro™ – which provides unrivalled access to data at every level of hatchery operations – Royal Pas Reform supports large-scale facilities with fully integrated and connected incubation process-control to profit from the highest number of best-quality chicks.
“I am excited to have been given the opportunity to drive Royal Pas Reform’s ambitious, research & development-led, strategy for innovation – supporting our customers with a complete, sustainable and integrated product and service package.”
Smits holds a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Twente University in Enschede, Netherlands. He is married with two children.