Fons Pennartz’ inspiring conversations with Cobbenhagen

Born in 1926 in Roermond, Fons comes from a big family with nine children: seven sisters and a younger brother Paul. I met Fons at his summer house in Bavel, where it's easier to maintain social distancing than in his apartment in Breda. With him was his wife, who he got to know during his student days (currently celebrating 65 years of marriage!), and his soon-to-retire son Peter, also an alumnus of Tilburg University in Economics, who resides in "the most beautiful town in the country."

It was just after the war. For Fons, the time had come to go to college. After a good discussion with his father, he chose Economics at the then Katholieke Economische Handelshoogeschool (Catholic College of Economics) in Tilburg. Before he enrolled, Fons's father travelled by truck from Roermond to Tilburg – his hat didn't survive the trip. He was seeking advice from no one less than Professor Martinus Cobbenhagen. That's right, the big man of the university and Rector Magnificus from 1945-46. Both men hailed from the village of Gulpen in Limburg, and that created a bond. Cobbenhagen, the son of a candle manufacturer, and father Pennartz, an organist and choir conductor in Roermond. After this preparatory conversation, son Fons headed westward to Tilburg in 1945. 'Send him along'.

Not a Party Animal

Fons rented a room from a landlady on a side street off the J.P. Coenstraat in the Armhoefse Akkers district, a short distance from the college, which at the time was situated on the Bosscheweg, the part that is now Tivolistraat (where the garden of Interpolis is). Towards the end of his study, he met fellow student Chris Smeekes, later the boss of Stichting Etherreclame (Foundation for Broadcasting Advertising, STER, with Loekie the Lion), who was to take over his room in Tilburg (Smeekes, now also 94, is also living, and Fons was looking for him and found him recently).

Initiation

Fons became a member of the student fraternity Sint Olof, as did nearly everyone at the time, but was not a fanatic member. He went his own way. The Olof frat house was an old mansion on the Sint Josephstraat. In those days there were a few female students, but not many. Around 30. They had their own sorority. Fons can still remember the Olof president and "eternal student” Han Loevendie (the later secretary of the board of governors of the college), and a certain Norbert Schmelzer, also a member of the Olof frat council. “That's right, who is known for the Night of Schmelzer in 1966 when the government… uh, what was the prime minister's name again?… oh right, Cals… when the government collapsed.”

Initiation was a must, but not a lot of fun. “It was tough, lasted for weeks, and you had to walk through town with green hat on. You were humiliated and had to crawl on the ground under the watchful eyes of drunken initiators. No, that was not for me. Well, you couldn't get out of it. But once and a while I  snuck off.”

1945

The war had left substantial scars on the student life of Tilburg. Many students went underground, were arrested, or were deported. Ultimately, 22 students died during bombing raids, in the resistance, in concentration camps, or as a result of forced labor.[1]
After the war, about 236 first-year students, including Fons, started their program in Commerce. That year, the college had a total of 617 students. In 1950, Fons’s graduating year, the total rose to 780, three quarters of whom came from the provinces of Noord-Brabant and Limburg.[2] In comparison: today the counter is at about 19,000 student enrollments. And since the founding, around 78,000 alumni have been sent into the world.[3]

'Given' his HBS diploma 

After 1945, the then Katholieke Economische Handelshoogeschool  (the name was changed in 1936) expected a large increase in students who had left the war, had been in labor camps or had gone into hiding. Fons and a fellow student wanted to be ahead of this influx and registered for the propaedeutic exam early on. But after a 'good conversation', Cobbenhagen said, according to Fons, that it was far too early to pass such an exam properly. But four months later he hit the bullseye and could then proceed to the candidate level, as it was then called. At the time the program was divided into three parts: propaedeutic (1 year), candidate level (2 years), and doctoral level (2 years).

Fons 

After a good interview I could proceed to the candidate level

Earlier in the war, Fons had also just been "given" his HBS diploma. In his own words: “The HBS diploma was handed to me.” The next question was: what to do now? Becoming a priest was an important option at the time, especially in the southern Netherlands and in Catholic families. But Fons wasn't interested. His desire was to go to college. And so it was.

Lectures with Men of the First Hour

Right from the beginning Fons went to lectures given almost only by professors of the first hour. Hendricus A. Kaag (Money, Credit and Banking Systems, Political Economy), Thomas J. A.J Goossens (History of Economics), Frans N.M. Weve (Ethics, Logic, Sociology, and Psychology), Emilius G.J. Gimbrère (Civil Law and Commercial Law), Jan E. de Quay (Corporate Organization), and a young lecturer Jan J.J. Dalmulder (Statistics), to name but a few.
But he vividly remembers the lively lectures of Martinus Cobbenhagen[4], who taught General Studies and History of Economics. In every year of his program, he occupied a desk in Professor Cobbenhagen's lectures. “A pleasant, inspiring man, with a forceful but amiable character. It was always standing room only at his Economics lectures on the Bosscheweg.”

Fons

Cobbenhagen stuck to his belief in Creation

Cobbenhagen and Creation

Cobbenhagen often invited students to visit him at home, in the corner house on the Korvelseweg. During those evenings we had “good discussions about the meaning of life, how you should live your life, or Creation and the origins of human life.” Cobbenhagen was critical of the theory of evolution and stuck to his belief in the story of Creation. Fons had different ideas. And so they held various "philosophical discussions" about the origins of human life. The theory of evolution clashed with the story of Creation, with Fons taking the standpoint of the former. “However,” Fons concedes, “Cobbenhagen didn't just dismiss you for that. He respected different points of view when it came to faith and Creation.” And Fons gradually moved away from the beliefs that he had received when he was growing up.
Cobbenhagen organized exams at his home. And he wasn't the only one. Under the Dominican priest Weve, you went to the monastery on the Korvelplein, and under Kaag, to his house on the Wilhelmina Park. Only Gimbrère had you write exams at the college.

A Piece of Cake

It is 1950. Fons took his oral doctoral exam in four subjects, with Cobbenhagen, Gimbrère, Weve and Geertman. The latter came from Eindhoven and taught the course Business Organization . Fons: "There is another nice anecdote about that exam with Geertman. It was about the car industry in the US. Apparently Geertman had just read a book about it and had taken it back to the library with the necessary underlining. Fons borrowed that work the day before his exam, which turned out to be a bull's eye, as he scored with the explanation of the Conveyer system, a new kind of industrial conveyor belt. "Well, I'm impressed," said professor Geertman.

Exam in the pocket. Fons went through his economics studies successfully and smoothly in the nominal time. It was 'a piece of cake', he said.

After Graduation up to the Business World

After graduation Fons works for various businesses. His first job is at Smoorenburg confectioners in Amsterdam ("a learning experience"). He then worked as an economist for a  sand transport company, which built the first industrial estates and was also involved in raising the dikes after the flood disaster of 1953, and as a financial man at the Backer & Rueb machine factory in Breda. After his fiftieth birthday, Fons landed at the semi-public sector organization NEHEM in Den Bosch, which stimulates businesses, such as foundries, tanneries and galvanizing companies, at the time unhealthy factories to work at, to invest in cleaner production processes (“important and meaningful”).

The retirement fund is losing a lot of money on this couple, because, along with his spouse, he's been enjoying his retirement benefits for around 30 years, while in the company of his four sons and only daughter, eleven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Brother Paul

His younger brother Paul Pennartz (1935) – there's an eight year gap – also obtained a degree in Tilburg. Sociology. He graduated in 1960. What's more, he was also supervised by the Tilburg professor Ruud de Moor. Afterwards he became a professor at Wageningen University and published on phenomenology, semiotics, environmental studies, architecture and urban planning. He died in 2011 at the age of 75.

Son Peter

Peter Pennartz (1956) followed in his father's footsteps and also studied Economics at the Catholic College of Tilburg, as it was then called. Peter: “I always found the lectures of Professor Giel Plattel really stimulating – philosophy, logic, and ethics.”

Peter

I always found Giel Plattel's lectures stimulating

From these basements, student counterculture was planned and directed ("revolution, hahaha") against the bourgeois economy, professors were knocked off their pedestals with polemics, and classic theories of economics were torpedoed. It was also the era when there was a controversy about adding the subject Political Economy to the curriculum. Peter went wild drawing comic caricatures of Henk Argeloos and Bob van Zwendelen. Not just for Kappataal, but in later years also for LWEO materials distributed to economics teachers in high schools and the LWEO website.  
Peter: “Henk Argeloos was a kind of know-it-all TinTin, with an arched right eyebrow, who stares the reader right in the eye and gives the impression that what he says is really true (which it is). Shaking his finger to convince the most stoical readers that he is barking up the right tree, and that he also really believes that. The figure of Bob van Zwendelen is, besides being Bob van Zwendelen, also a businessman, tax advisor, bookkeeper, and accountant.”

Peter

The stenciling machine for the student newspaper Kappataal made overtime in the 1970s  

Corporate Social Responsibility

After graduation Peter worked for almost 25 years for an organization in the field of international labor law, where he was responsible for giving workshops and seminars in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America in corporate social responsibility. Peter: “Briefly put: bringing together people from all parts of the world – from unions and human rights organizations to businesses – to see how multinationals like Nike, H&M, Shell, and Adidas run their operations in developing countries. And whether they obey international labor laws and make sure that workers are paid a living wage, that working conditions are safe, and that the environment is protected."

International Business Management

At a certain point Peter decided to switch over to “one of the most dynamic, innovative, autarchic, anarchic jobs in this world: teaching.” He joined the staff of the International Business Management School of Avans in Breda. “An international school where everyone speaks English is really useful. Students can always claim that, if they don't pass, it's not their fault.”
In this way, Peter sets his experience protecting the interests of human rights and workers' rights up against the profit-motivated business models of the big multinationals, and brings these ideas in the spotlight for international students. "That means that future managers are also confronted with the campaigns pursued by human rights organizations, unions, and organizations such as Stichting Onderzoek Multinationale Ondernemingen (Foundation for Research into Multinational Corporations, SOMO). So that they can develop a wider view of things than they get from marketing and management classes alone."

 

Peter

Education is one of the most dynamic, innovative, autarchic, anarchic jobs in this world

The globetrotter toured the world from his home base in the metropolis of Tilburg, in the heart of Europe. In the meantime he has written a book, The European Union and the South (Jan van Arkel/International Books), obviously filled with caricatures of various types, and later co-authored with colleagues in his teacher training program run by Fontys in Tilburg a book entitled Lesgeven over duurzame ontwikkeling (Teaching Sustainable Development) (Garant Uitgevers). He goes on to say something about macro-economics, corporate social responsibility, and business ethics, because early retirement is beckoning in the near future.
And he regularly accompanies mum and dad on visits to their summer house outside Breda.

On 12 November 2022, Fons Pennartz passed away. He was 96 years old.

Date of publication: 29 January 2021