Who We Are: President of Council
Ken Tameling
I was born 60 years ago in Chicago to a pair of immigrants who had just come from the Netherlands two years before I was born. I am proud of my Dutch heritage and can speak the language well. We went to the Netherlands and Europe often when I was growing up. We moved from Chicago to Cincinnati after 8th grade, so I lived in Cincinnati during high school and college years and attended the one Christian Reformed church in Cincinnati at the time. I had a bit of an adjustment going from a small Christian school in Chicago to a large public high school in Cincinnati, but have fond memories of my time in Cincinnati.
My parents essentially bribed me to attend Calvin University. My friend’s parents did the same thing. They said they would pay half of my tuition if I attended Calvin. Not being familiar with Grand Rapids, we attended a “Fridays at Calvin” weekend, and I have to admit, after seeing all of the tall blonde girls on campus, we figured it was worth trying for a year! I hung around for four years and fell in love with a brunette I saw in the library my senior year. Yep, 38 years of marriage later, and I love Heidi more than ever!
Later in my senior year at Calvin, I gave my life to the Lord, after a long road of finding my way. I needed it to be my faith, and not just the faith of my parents.
After graduating from Calvin, I got an MBA in Marketing at Michigan State (Go Green!). Heidi and I then got married and lived in Dearborn for three years while I worked for Chrysler (Heidi was finishing college there and began teaching first grade). We moved to GR in 1986 due to a job offer from Steelcase. My parents, who also attend Hillside, had moved to GR in 1983.
Soon after moving to GR, we joined Hillside in 1986. We loved the informal celebrative worship, George Mossel’s practical preaching, and that people actually talked to and welcomed us. We were part of the first Care Circle at Hillside. In GR we also started our family. Heidi and I have three adult married children, who all live within 25 minutes. While they were all baptized and made profession of faith at Hillside, they live far enough away that they attend other churches. We have five beautiful granddaughters, ages 2-7.
Late in 2019, I felt God calling me to consider retiring from Steelcase to focus more on family, and giving back to organizations like Calvin University, Hillside, and others. So, I did retire in July of 2020 after having worked at Steelcase for 34 years, the last 15 years as a Global General Manager of two different divisions. As a GM, I had been responsible for a large part of our business globally, including sales, profitability, and product development. If our business in India was off, it was my responsibility to turn it around.
An experience from Steelcase that shaped me was the global travel - an average of 6-7 trips overseas a year for the past 12 years was, at times, exhausting, but I wouldn’t trade the experiences for a minute. I absolutely loved learning about other cultures, and how to work with and lead people that came from very different backgrounds. Some of my favorite people to this day live in India, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Germany and France, and we stay in touch.
It’s also made personal travel a hobby, along with music, spending time at our cottage in Newaygo on Sylvan Lake, and trying different restaurants and breweries.
I’m also spending more time with family, babysitting granddaughters, helping my parents, volunteering at Calvin University in the business department in a variety of ways, and of course, Hillside as part of Council, a Care Circle, Men’s Group, and as a prayer partner for 5 young men who just graduated from high school.