Eugene Schroeter
Eugene Schroeter | |
|---|---|
| Born | 15 May 1943 |
| Other names | De Marmeren Schroeter |
| Occupation | Marble merchant |
| Years active | 1960–present |
| Era | Vriend Era |
| Known for | Thassos marble trade |
| Spouse | Adamantia Papazoglou (m. 1984) |
| Children | 5 |
| Father | Hendrik Schroeter |
| Relatives | Jakob Schroeter (brother) |
| Family | Schroeter family |
Eugene Schroeter (born 15 May 1943) is a marble merchant who owns a quarry on Thassos, Greece. He began trading Greek marble in 1970 and bought the quarry in 1992. He later established a company that operates three subscription libraries in northern Greece. Relatives in the Netherlands call him De Marmeren Schroeter (The Marble Schroeter).
Early life
[edit | edit source]Schroeter was born in Rotterdam on 15 May 1943. His father, Hendrik Schroeter, was a farmer, and his older brother was Jakob Schroeter. Eugene grew up in Arnhem before the family moved to Vriendendam in 1955.[1] That year, he helped Jakob repair a broken farm cart. Hendrik was pleased with their work and began letting Eugene help maintain the farm machinery.
In autumn 1957, Eugene enrolled at a technical school on Tamboerstraat in Rotterdam to study metalworking. He completed the course in 1960, having continued to help his father repair farm equipment outside school hours.
Career
[edit | edit source]Schroeter began work at the Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij in 1960 as a trainee metalworker. At the Rotterdam shipyard he learned to cut steel plates and fit them to ships brought in for repair. He passed a practical steel-plate fitting assessment in 1962, after which his foreman let him replace hull plates on merchant vessels without direct supervision. He remained in the repair department through 1963 and continued living in Vriendendam.
In late 1964, he left the shipyard and spent his savings on equipment for a metalworking shop at his father's farm. He made replacement steel frames for agricultural machinery in a building Hendrik had given him permission to use. A repair contractor ordered frames for multiple tractor-drawn implements in 1965, more than Eugene's equipment could produce on schedule. With the contractor's advance payment, he bought additional machinery and made the frames in batches. When the order was finished, the contractor bought Eugene's equipment and took over the remaining fabrication work in summer 1967.
Marble trade
[edit | edit source]Schroeter moved to Kavala, Greece, in spring 1968. He initially earned money repairing marble-cutting machines used on Thassos, where the repairs brought him into contact with quarry operators. Two years later, he bought a small consignment of rough white marble blocks from one of those operators, using some of the proceeds from his Dutch workshop sale. He resold the blocks to a stone-processing merchant in West Germany at a profit.
Looking for another customer, he returned to Rotterdam in 1971 and showed samples to a Dutch stone importer. The importer ordered a trial consignment from the same Thassos supplier. When the customer asked for slabs cut to specified dimensions in 1972, Schroeter hired an independently owned workshop in Kavala to saw and finish the stone. A one-year contract for regular slab deliveries followed in 1973. To fulfil it, he booked processing time in Kavala and bought further blocks from the Thassos operator.
After more than two decades buying marble from other quarry owners, Schroeter purchased his Thassos supplier's quarry in 1992. He paid a deposit from his export earnings and borrowed the rest from a Greek commercial bank, using the quarry as security. Once he had obtained the extraction permissions, he began selling marble from his own site. A German stone-processing merchant contracted for regular deliveries of rough white blocks in 1993. Part of the revenue went towards the bank loan, while the Kavala workshop continued handling orders for finished slabs.
A shipment to the German merchant was rejected in 1994 because the blocks had grey veins and the buyer had ordered uniformly white marble. Schroeter sold the rejected stone at a lower price to a Greek cutting workshop. He also began sorting blocks more carefully before export. In 1995, he hired an experienced Greek quarry worker to supervise these inspections and report any unsuitable blocks. The Greek cutting workshop became a regular buyer of grey-veined marble in 1996, leaving Schroeter able to reserve uniformly white blocks for customers who required them.
Schroeter had continued using the Kavala processing workshop since his first slab orders in 1972. He bought a minority stake in it in 1998 with money earned from marble sales. The original Greek owners continued running the workshop and bought back his share in 2002. Schroeter used the proceeds to reduce his quarry loan and continued sending stone there for processing.
A visit to Overschie in 2003 brought Schroeter into contact with Martinus Schroeter, who operated a marble workshop there. They agreed that Eugene would supply small quantities of white Thassos marble for Martinus's decorative work. The following year, Eugene made a separate agreement with Marmerfabriek Overschie BV to supply processed slabs. Marmerfabriek supplied interior materials to the Dutch car manufacturer Schroeter Romeo.[2] For an order in 2005, Marmerfabriek gave Eugene dimensions for small white marble pieces intended for Schroeter Romeo interiors. He had the Kavala workshop cut and polish the pieces and delivered them to Marmerfabriek.
Marmerfabriek went bankrupt by 2006 without paying all of its 2005 invoice. Eugene stopped deliveries and filed a claim with the Dutch bankruptcy trustee. The unpaid order changed how he handled new custom work. From 2007, new customers had to pay an advance before he commissioned the cutting and polishing in Kavala, with the balance due before dispatch. Established buyers kept their earlier payment terms.
His eldest son, Leandros Schroeter-Papazoglou, joined the marble business in 2017 and began coordinating orders with the Kavala workshop and Dutch importers. Schroeter continued deciding the terms of the major sales contracts.
In 2022, he obtained extraction rights and environmental approvals for adjoining marble-bearing ground on Thassos. He enlarged the quarry by opening another cutting face, with the Greek supervisor he had appointed in 1995 continuing the quality checks. His relatives in the Netherlands began calling him De Marmeren Schroeter that year, when he was 79. Additional blocks from the expanded quarry were cut and polished at the independent Kavala workshop in 2023, increasing his sales of finished slabs to Dutch importers.
Schroeter was still managing the quarry in 2025. He renewed supply agreements with Dutch importers in 2026, negotiating from his home near Kavala. He remained the owner of the quarry and had not appointed a successor.
Subscription libraries
[edit | edit source]Schroeter founded a Greek library company in 2010 using savings and earnings from his marble trade. The company built and owned three libraries that charged annual membership fees for borrowing books and using their reading rooms. He financed their construction without bank loans or outside investors. The first opened in Drama in 2012. A second opened in Kavala in 2015, where he had long conducted his marble business and owned a house nearby. The third opened in Alexandroupoli in 2018.
Membership renewals at Alexandroupoli were lower than expected in 2019. Schroeter responded by introducing discounted annual student memberships at all three libraries and paying for local advertising. In 2020, he promoted the Alexandroupoli branch manager, whom he had appointed in 2018, to general manager of the company. The manager took over the daily work at the three branches. Eugene kept control of the company's major financial decisions.
In 2024, he used marble-business profits to enlarge the reading room at the Drama library and buy more books for its collection. The company still owned all three libraries in 2026.
Personal life
[edit | edit source]Schroeter married Adamantia Papazoglou, a Greek woman from Kavala, in 1984. They agreed before the wedding that their children would use the surname Schroeter-Papazoglou. Their first child, Leandros Schroeter-Papazoglou, was born in Kavala in 1985, followed by Argyro Schroeter-Papazoglou in 1987. Their second daughter, Mergina Schroeter-Papazoglou, was born in 1989. Her parents adapted her given name from merg, a word used in the Schroeter family for the spine and certain bone-like structures.[3] Two sons followed: Hendrik Schroeter-Papazoglou in 1992, named after Eugene's father, and Xenofon Schroeter-Papazoglou in 1995. All five children were born in Kavala.
Schroeter bought a mansion near Kavala in 2008 and made it his permanent home in 2021. He reduced his business travel but continued visiting the Netherlands occasionally to see relatives and meet commercial contacts.