Ruud Vat's grandfather started a transport company with horse and cart for fruit and vegetables to Barendrecht in the last century. In 1926 he bought a truck, but crashed in 1932. The company was stopped and the license leased to RSK (Reiman, Stok & Kersten). Ruud's father and uncle started as drivers in 1933 until 1945. In that year they established a transport company together with RSK's licenses. After a time, they continued separately. Piet Vat took over the Goedkoop & de Geus company. In the 1960s, during the transport dip, Ruud's father merged with Kersten & Hunik. This was not an equal merger, however, and shortly thereafter Ruud's father had to leave the company. He started Vatrapex, but had to close it in 1975 because of an unpaid debt of DM 800,000. In 1975, Ruud Vat started his own company with the support of his father and uncle. Customers like Eastman Chemical and de Jong's machine factory were served with shipments to Saudi Arabia. The start was in the Rotterdam Hulstkamp building during the second oil crisis. He acquired transport licenses from the Vatrapex estate and over the years purchased his own trucks. In 1981, he sold all the equipment and permits and became a freight forwarder. He explains: "I was too big for the napkin and too small for the tablecloth. I had to expand, but interest rates were much higher then. State Secretary Van Hulten of the PPR declared a tonnage freeze, which made permits pricey. I took advantage of that." This was the beginning of the Rotterdam family business with now more than 1,000 employees. Below are the milestones since 1975: