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Sent farvel til offshore pioneren Ole Camåe
Sådan husker Hanne Camåe sin mand Ole Camåe, inden kræftsygdommen svækkede ham.
Foto: Privat foto/ Hanne Camåe

Sent farvel til offshore pioneren Ole Camåe

Ole Camåe gik bort 21. november 2022. Hanne Camåe husker tilbage på sin mand og den iværksætterånd, der skabte Danish Offshore Industry i begyndelsen af 1980’erne.
23. NOV 2023 13.25

- I knew you would call from Esbjerg at some point, and then I would be ready, says Hanne Camåe on the other end of the line.

She quickly helps make an interview agreement about her husband's and her own work, which has given the Danish offshore industry a voice.

Ole Camåe passed away at the age of 76 on 21 November 2022, and Hanne Camåe subsequently needed to keep it to herself and almost to keep her husband's death a secret in the midst of the grief.

In the early 1980s, her husband Ole Camåe created Danish Offshore Industry - DOI, which with its yearbook and supplier index gave the Danish oil and gas industry an English-language business card to present the Danish industry at trade fairs abroad and thus expand the business area.

In 2020, Ole Camåe sold DOI to DK Medier, where publisher Claus G. Theilgaard today continues to run the English-language magazine together with DOI.dk. Meanwhile, renewables are also part of the fabric area, and that was entirely in the spirit of the founder.

- Ole had said it was a good idea to take it along in the future, says Hanne Camåe, who also remembers the time after the sale of DOI for a reason.

- Not long after, Ole was diagnosed with prostate cancer, explains Hanne Camåe about a grueling and tough cancer course that ended up costing her husband his life.

The beginning

But Hanne Camåe also clearly remembers how her husband created the Danish Offshore Industry.

- Varde Bank had done something about the offshore industry at the time, but my Ole said he could do better, she remembers.

And this is where Ole Camåe's personality comes in, because he was both committed, dedicated and a very social person.

- In the first years when the yearbook was published, we went on holiday either on Fanø or in Blåvand for three weeks every summer holiday with our two daughters. We didn't see much of Ole, because he was away from early morning until evening. He visited all the companies and got to know everyone in the industry, she says of a legwork that bore fruit in several ways.

- Ole got to know the apprentices who ended up as directors, laughs Hanne Camåe about her husband's ability to create relationships.

This is how DOI ended up being the gathering point for the offshore industry. For Ole and Hanne Camåe almost also ran a travel agency for the important fairs for the industry.

- We arranged the travel and hotel for the fairs in Aberdeen, Stavanger and Houston. Then we organized several joint dinners, where everyone participated a few times on each fair trip, Hanne Camåe tells.

There were even individual trips to both Singapore and Abu Dhabi. However, the tour operator part was not to make money.

- It really did a lot to get to know each other, and it was a big gain for the yearbook. In the first years, we left already on Friday or Saturday and were away for eight days, so there was time before the opening of the fair. Then some companies started saving, and many could only leave for three days, says Hanne Camåe.

She also noticed how new friendships arose across the companies on the trade fair trips.

Before the saving zeal set in, there were completely different times.

- In Aberdeen we arranged both visits to whiskey distilleries and golf trips, because it is hard to stand at a trade fair stand for a whole day. So there was also a need for a day off. Ole was the vanguard at the fairs all day and the Danish stand, where he had 1000 yearbooks sent in advance, and I was the rearguard, she says.

The entrepreneurial spirit

All in all, Ole Camåe was an entrepreneur who understood the zeitgeist and turning ideas into a business. That was the case even though Ole and Hanne Camåe already ran a publishing house, which she runs alone today.

- Ole sold smoking cessation cures before everyone else, it was a Norwegian concept. Then we placed ads in all the weekly newspapers, Hanne Camåe tells us.

It would turn out to be a huge success.

- We received 30,000 letters with inquiries about smoking cessation. "What the hell are we doing," we said to each other, she says.

But the couple was quick-witted and bought a letter opening machine for the many letters. But much more work followed.

- Ole sat and took phone calls from morning to night about smoking cessation. We worked almost around the clock. I don't understand at all when we slept, we've done so much, says Hanne Camåe, who has retained both spark, spirit and progress a year after her husband's death.

It was also a spark that Ole Camåe himself kept throughout his cancer course, where he had to go to hospital after a fall at home.

- When the Falcon guards came, Ole said to one of them: You are from Jutland, where do you come from? It turned out that he came from Gråsten, and his brother worked at the printing shop where we get our books printed, Hanne Camåe tells us about her husband's way of dealing with people.

But Hanne Camåe has a message for all the men she meets today.

- I say to all men, get tested for prostate cancer now when you turn 60. And don't let the doctor send you home without being sent on and having that blood sample taken, says Hanne Camåe with a raised index finger, who, like her husband, can take action.

This article has been automatically translated from danish.
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