Major-General Carel Hilderink

Major General C. (Carel) G.J. Hilderink was born in Venlo (NL). He started his military career in 1966 as an air cadet at the Royal Military Academy in Breda. From 1971 to 1986 he was Ground Operations Officer at various Royal Netherlands Air Force stations. During this period he also saw service in the Middle East as a UN observer. He gained experience in the field of training and education in the early seventies and at the Officers Training Facility at Gilze Rijen Air Base in the mid-eighties. In 1986 Major Hilderink attended Senior Staff College which he finished in 1988 after a successful traineeship at the Directorate of Materiel at the Air Staff. Shortly afterwards he became project officer for the integrated Defense Planning System.

In November 1988 he was transferred to the Department for Conceptual Affairs of the Defense Staff and was appointed Deputy Head of the same department three years later. In this phase of his career he was mainly involved in the co-ordination of the draft proposals (Green Papers) for the Ministry of Defense (MOD). He held this post until April 1993. His next appointment was that of Commandant of the Royal Netherlands Air Force Military School at Woensdrecht air base. After his promotion to Air Commodore in July 1995 he became Deputy Chief of Staff at the Operations Section of the Defence Staff. He returned to the Air Staff in April 1997 to take up the post of Deputy Chief for Integrated Plans and Policy (RNLAF).

In December 1998 he was promoted to Major General and appointed Director of Personnel of the RNLAF (Directorate of Personnel at the Air Staff). Since November 2001 Major-General Hilderink has been Com-mandant of the Royal Netherlands Military Academy in Breda. From August 2004 until February 2005 Major-General Hilderink was comman-der of the NATO Trainings Mission in Iraq. Hilderink left active duty on June 1, 2005. He is a consultant on education and employee deve-lopment. Hilderink addresses the following topics: safety, education, leadership, international relations, defense, government and the impor-tance of communication.