Meet Bernie Westerveld of Amazing Dutchman in South Shore

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bernie Westerveld.

Bernie, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I am Dutch. I grew up and lived in the Netherlands, until I was 40. In 1998, I went on a cruise along the Norwegian coast. At the northernmost part of Europe I met a charming lady, a blueberry and Christmas tree farmer from Scituate. We exchanged Email addresses.

In the summer of 2000 I decided to visit her in Scituate. And I came back. And back. Early 2002 we looked at possibilities, ad decided that marriage was in our future. I applied for a fiancée visa, resigned from my job, sold my house and car. We got married in October 2002.

To pass time until my green card arrived, I helped friends smooth out computer problems, just like I did with my friends in the Netherlands. Finding a job for me would be easy: I worked in corporate life in Europe, technical marketing. Surely I could find a job in that field here… Not really. After a half dozen temp jobs left and right, I got a tip that my neighbors employer needed help, I ended up working for him for 5 years.

While I was searching for a job, friends kept telling me that I had skills fixing computers: they recommended I start a business. Sure! Exciting! I went at it as if I was in bureaucratic the Netherlands: business bank account, Employer ID Number, town business license. I placed an ad in the Boston Herald, an ad in the Scituate Rotary Phone Book and got a few phone calls. A client on Saturday, sometimes an evening client. I familiarized myself with the South Shore, made good friends, and had a good time.

By 2005, I had clients every evening, every Saturday, every Sunday, and had to make a change. I managed to change my full-time job to a part-time job. Another 2 years later, I ran out of time again, and in the summer of 2008 I became fully self-employed.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road was smooth, the only struggle has been finding enough time to satisfy demand. I voiced the idea of hiring help to service my clients, who thought that was a wonderful idea, as long as I would still be the one servicing them…

Dealing with the public can be tough. Especially business clients can be demanding. I decided life was too short to deal with CEO’s, and tell every new client that I only service nice people.

Please tell us about Amazing Dutchman.
I do technology house calls. My target audience is the home user, and small businesses. My target area is the South Shore.

I try to offer a high level of service, work with the client next to me to solve their problems and teach them a few tricks. They watch me work, I interact with them.

Contact Info:

• Address: 12 Harbor View Road
  Scituate, MA 02066
• Website: www.AmazingDutchman.com
• Phone: (781) 545-0659
• Email: Bernie@AmazingDutchman.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Amazing-Dutchman-281500741867577/

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