Precision
Measure twice. Then say what you measured.
Approximately is not a measurement. We like numbers, times and specifics, and we trust people who give them.
Familie Eveleens · since 1961
Measured,
and kept.
Four generations of instrument makers, investors and designers. One family, one weekend on Texel every November, and the conviction that a promise is only as good as the moment it is kept.
Welcome
Our grandfather Frits began with a rented workbench, a set of brass weights and a reputation for never being more than a milligram out. Sixty-five years later, the instruments have changed. The standard has not.
This page is where we keep the story of our family in one place: where we come from, what we hold ourselves to, and the work we do beyond EPPI. It is written for the people we work with, the partners of the Eveleens Fonds, and anyone joining us on Texel.
— Hendrik, Isabelle, Aurelius & Susanne Eveleens
- Founded
- 1961, Amsterdam-Oost
- Family business
- EPPI B.V.
- Home
- Amsterdam Oud-Zuid
- Retreat
- De Zandloper, Texel
- Foundation
- Eveleens Fonds, est. 2004
- Motto
- Mensura et Fides
01 · The crest
Every line in it
means something.
Frits never cared for heraldry. Margriet did. In 1986, on EPPI's twenty-fifth anniversary, she had a small crest engraved on the brass plate of the workshop door. It has been on every invitation, every certificate and every Texel weekend since.
- I
The balance
Frits's first trade was calibrating laboratory balances for the university. A balance only works when both sides are treated the same. That is how we try to do business.
- II
The hourglass
The balance rests on time. Ours is a family that starts meetings on the minute and expects the same in return. It is also the name of our house on Texel: De Zandloper.
- III
The calibrated band
Nineteen marks, one longer in the centre: the reference line every EPPI instrument is checked against. Measure first, then speak.
- IV
The marram grass
Helmgras holds the Texel dunes together with roots you never see. Added by Margriet, for the quiet work that keeps things standing.
- V
The colours
Eveleens green, aged brass and bone. Green and bone carry everything; brass is the thread. Used with restraint, as everything should be.
“By measure and by trust.”Mensura et Fides · family motto
02 · What we hold ourselves to
Five values,
written down once.
Frits wrote these on the back of a calibration certificate in 1971 and pinned it above his workbench. We have changed the wording slightly over the years. We have never changed what they mean, and we expect the people we work with to recognise them.
Reliability
Keep your time, keep your word.
A promise for four o'clock is kept at four o'clock. We would rather have less, delivered as agreed, than more, delivered late.
Candour
News does not improve with age.
If something has changed, we want to hear it the moment you know it. What we find hard to forgive is not the problem, but the silence around it.
Restraint
Nothing too much.
Quiet quality over display. Plenty of space, fine lines, honest finishes. If it needs to shout, it is not finished yet.
Stewardship
Beautiful and responsible are never opposites.
We use what we have, show the materials for what they are, and leave things in better condition than we found them.
03 · The family
Who we are.
None of us has to work. All of us do, each in our own way. What we share is a standard, a table in Oud-Zuid on Sunday evenings, and a weekend on Texel that nobody misses.
First generation
Frits Eveleens
Founder, EPPI
A clockmaker's son from Amsterdam-Oost who could hear when a balance was out. He founded EPPI at twenty-seven and arrived at the workshop at 07:30 every day for forty years.
Margriet Eveleens-Hoogland
Co-founder, Eveleens Fonds
A laboratory technician who once returned one of Frits's balances because it was two milligrams out. He married her three years later. She ran EPPI's books for two decades and gave the family its crest.
Second generation
Hendrik Eveleens
Chairman, Eveleens Holding
Took over EPPI from his father in 1994 and grew it from a Dutch workshop into a European calibration group. Stepped back from daily management in 2011; still reads every quarterly report the day it arrives.
Isabelle Eveleens-de Wit
Chair, Eveleens Fonds
Retired paediatric cardiologist. Chairs the Eveleens Fonds with the same rigour she brought to the ward: clear goals, honest reporting, and no patience for projects that look better on paper than in practice.
Third generation
Aurelius “Elio” Eveleens
Partner, sustainable infrastructure
Partner at a boutique Amsterdam investment firm focused on sustainable infrastructure. Known in the family for his punctuality and his spreadsheets. This year, for the first time, he is organising the Texel weekend himself.
Susanne “Suus” Eveleens
Founder, Circular Studio Amsterdam
Runs a studio for sustainable branding and circular materials in Amsterdam-Noord. Keeper of the family's visual identity: if it carries the crest or the Eveleens colours, it has passed across her desk first.
Chico
Shiba Inu · 4 kg
Joined Elio in 2022 as “company while working from home” and has been included in every family plan since. Has never missed a Texel weekend. Takes the front seat wherever possible.
04 · History
Sixty-five years,
to the minute.
From a rented workbench in Amsterdam-Oost to calibration laboratories across Europe, and from one borrowed holiday cottage to a family tradition in its forty-eighth year.
- 1934
A clockmaker's son
Frits Eveleens is born in Amsterdam-Oost, the youngest of three. He spends his childhood in his father's repair shop, learning to adjust escapements by ear.
- 1961
EPPI is founded
With savings and a loan from his father, Frits rents a workshop and starts Eveleens Pipet- en Precisie-Instrumenten, calibrating balances and glassware for university laboratories.
- 1964
Two milligrams out
Frits marries Margriet Hoogland, the laboratory technician who sent one of his balances back. She joins EPPI to run the books, and never lets him forget it.
- 1968
The EP-1
EPPI launches its first own instrument: the EP-1, a calibration rig for laboratory pipettes. Within five years it is standard equipment in most Dutch hospital labs.
- 1973
Oud-Zuid
The family moves to a townhouse in Amsterdam Oud-Zuid. The Sunday dinner table, still in use, comes with it.
- 1979
De Zandloper
Frits and Margriet buy a thatched villa behind the dunes near Den Hoorn, Texel, and name it De Zandloper. The first family weekend is held that November. It has been held every November since.
- 1986
Twenty-five years, and a crest
EPPI's calibration laboratory receives national accreditation and opens its first sites abroad, in Leuven and Hamburg. Margriet commissions the family crest for the anniversary.
- 1994
The second generation
Hendrik Eveleens succeeds his father as managing director. EPPI expands into pharmaceutical and clinical laboratories and builds a service network across fourteen countries.
- 2004
The Eveleens Fonds
Margriet and Isabelle establish the family foundation, beginning with scholarships for young instrument makers. Frits insists on one rule: every euro is reported back, on time.
- 2011
Stepping back
At its fiftieth anniversary, the family hands EPPI's daily management to a professional board. The family remains majority shareholder through Eveleens Holding.
- 2018
Circular Studio Amsterdam
Suus founds her studio for sustainable branding and circular materials in Amsterdam-Noord, working for NGOs, municipalities and a handful of brands that mean it.
- 2019
Frits
Frits Eveleens dies in March, aged eighty-five. That November the family goes to Texel as planned. Leaving on time, as he would have insisted.
- 2022
Margriet, and Chico
Margriet passes away in the spring. In the autumn, a four-kilo Shiba Inu named Chico arrives in Elio's apartment and, by extension, in the family.
- 2023
Partner
Elio is named partner at his firm, leading investments in grid storage, district heating and port electrification.
- 2026
The forty-eighth weekend
Elio organises the family weekend on Texel, 13 to 15 November, for the first time. The activity, as always, is meant to be something special. This year it involves the dunes, a starting line, and a fair amount of wood.
De Zandloper · Den Hoorn, Texel
One weekend a year, nobody is busy.
Every November since 1979 the family gathers at De Zandloper. Phones go in a drawer by the door, dinner is at seven sharp, and there is always one activity that someone has spent months preparing. Afterwards, whatever was made that weekend earns its place in the entrance hall.
05 · Endeavours
What we work on.
EPPI is where it started. It is no longer the only thing we do. Each of us has found our own field, and each brings the same expectations to it.
EPPI B.V.
Calibration and precision instruments for laboratories in healthcare, pharma and research. Professionally managed since 2011, with the family as majority shareholder. Every instrument still leaves with a certificate signed by a named engineer.
Eveleens Holding
Holds the family's interest in EPPI and invests with patience: a small number of long-term stakes in Dutch companies that make things, measure things or repair things. Chaired by Hendrik.
Sustainable infrastructure
As partner at a boutique Amsterdam firm, Elio invests in the less glamorous side of the energy transition: battery storage on the grid, district heating networks and shore power for ports. Projects with long timelines and no room for surprises.
Circular Studio Amsterdam
A studio in Amsterdam-Noord for sustainable branding and circular material use. Identities, spaces and objects for NGOs, municipalities and idealistic brands, made with reclaimed and honest materials wherever possible.
06 · Eveleens Fonds
Giving, measured
like everything else.
The Eveleens Fonds supports craft, science and the places our family loves. We fund few things, for a long time, and we ask our partners for what we ask of ourselves: clear plans, honest reports, and an early phone call when something changes.
€ 34 mgranted since 2004
€ 2.6 mgranted in 2025
612Frits Eveleens scholars
3,100instruments given a second life
Frits Eveleens Vakbeurs
Scholarships and tool grants for students in instrument making, fine mechanics and precision technology at vocational colleges across the Netherlands. Each scholar is paired with an EPPI engineer for their final year.
Second Measure
Laboratory equipment retired from Dutch hospitals is refurbished and recalibrated by EPPI apprentices, then donated to teaching hospitals and school laboratories in East Africa, together with training for local technicians.
Texel Duinfonds
Long-term support for the restoration of dune and heathland around Den Hoorn, working with local landowners and volunteers. More than forty hectares replanted with marram grass and native heather.
Materiaalbank Noord
Initiated by Suus: a shared material bank in Amsterdam-Noord where makers, schools and studios collect and reuse wood, metal and textiles from demolition and exhibition projects. Free to use; returned better than borrowed.
07 · In the press
Rarely interviewed.
The family has a long-standing preference for letting the work speak. Frits gave one interview in his life and regretted it. Occasionally, others write about us anyway.
Quote
Quote 500 · 2025
Family fortunes
De stille precisie van de familie Eveleens
How a clockmaker's son from Amsterdam-Oost turned the calibration of laboratory pipettes into one of the country's most discreet family fortunes, estimated at € 480 million, and why three generations later the family still refuses to sell.
Read the article on quote.nl →