A son of Zierikzee
David van de Velde is born in Zierikzee, a historic harbor town on the island of Schouwen-Duiveland in the Dutch province of Zeeland — a childhood shaped by the sea.
A Life in Motion · Zierikzee, Zeeland, Netherlands
David van de Velde
Find a hole and fill it.
David 'Dave' van de Velde has lived his slogan for eight decades: find a hole and fill it. A ship's officer from the Dutch harbor town of Zierikzee who became the man behind Ketel One's rise in America and the creator of Van Gogh Vodka, he then poured that same imagination into the people around him — anti-bullying buttons on backpacks at Leesburg High School, a school flag flown atop Everest, a city of student dreams bound for the Moon, and a lifetime of quiet service to the people of Lake County, Florida — much of it side by side with his wife, Suzanne.
Enter the TimewarpScroll to travel
Officer & port captain at sea
Before business, he serves as a ship officer and port captain for Holland America Line, piloting freight and cruise ships through the Panama Canal and helping pioneer the dawn of container shipping.
A terminal on Oakland's Seventh Street
In October 1969 he opens a marine terminal on Oakland's Seventh Street — the complex that became one of the great container gateways of the transpacific trade. The port captain had become a port builder.
Ichiban — Honda's number one
As Japanese cars poured across the Pacific through his docks, Dave became Honda's ichiban — its number-one import shipper — and came to know Soichiro Honda himself. The era left him treasures: a curious two-headed Honda among them, and, from Mr. Honda's own hands, the gift of a very special car.
The DeLorean chapter
When John DeLorean's gull-winged, stainless-steel dream machines crossed the ocean, Dave was their sole importer into the United States — a front-row seat to one of the automobile's most mysterious stories, from meteoric launch to sudden, cinematic collapse.
Luctor International begins in a garage
Leaving the sea, he founds Luctor International in 1982 to import beer from his native Holland — the company he would later run from his garage in Sebastopol, California. The name honors Zeeland's motto 'Luctor et Emergo' ('I struggle and emerge'), its crest a fighting lion.
The paper that started it
On January 3, 1983, David van de Velde signs the federal application to bring 'Ketel 1' vodka into the United States under Luctor International of Sebastopol, California — and the ATF approves the label on September 19, 1983. It is the earliest known record of Ketel One in America, preserved in the family archive, six years before the first case was sold.
A handshake with Carl Nolet Sr.
Around 1989 he partners with Carl Nolet Sr. of the Nolet Distillery in Schiedam to import Ketel One into the US. It began with a handshake and a single 20-foot container (~$20,000); Dave invested ~$250,000, took no salary for two years, and ran the fledgling operation out of his garage in Sebastopol, California under Luctor International.
Winning bartenders, one taste at a time
Instead of mass advertising, he built Ketel One through grassroots trade marketing — mailing VHS 'story' tapes to top bars (roughly one in five recipients watched, becoming brand ambassadors), training distributor reps to run a 'Smell and Taste Test,' and buying the entire annual production of TomOlives — pickled green tomatoes, not olives — to co-pack with bottles and spark demand.
From 7,000 to 250,000 cases
The trade-driven strategy ignites explosive growth — from about 7,000 cases in 1992–93 to 250,000 worldwide by 1997, crossing one million cases in 2002 on the way to super-premium leadership.
Leyden Dry Gin — the precursor
He revives Luctor to import premium Dutch spirits, beginning with Leyden Dry Gin — named for the Dutch university city where gin was invented in 1650, and hand-crafted at the Dirkzwager Distillery in Schiedam. It was the direct forerunner of the Van Gogh line, which succeeded it within two years.
Van Gogh Vodka paints a new category
After Van Gogh Gin debuts in the fall of 1999, Luctor launches Van Gogh Vodka in January 2000 with the original flavors Citroen and Oranje — having spent more than two years securing the rights to the Van Gogh name and artwork. Handcrafted at the Royal Dirkzwager Distillery in Schiedam, it helps pioneer the premium flavored-vodka category.
Vodka served at an art gallery
He conceives the brand as a fusion of fine art and spirits — becoming, as Packaging World put it, the 'curator' of the Vincent Van Gogh line. Securing rights to the name and paintings took more than two years, and each bottle's 16-color screen-printed artwork was held to tolerances of less than half a millimeter.
The art of flavor
With third-generation distiller Tim Vos crafting all-natural double infusions, Van Gogh pioneers flavor firsts — Dutch Chocolate and Wild Appel, the industry's first chocolate and apple vodkas, with the original Double Espresso to follow — and earns four stars from The Spirit Journal for its Melon: 'another flavoured vodka triumph.'
The $900 million chapter closes
In February 2008, Diageo agrees to pay US $900 million for a 50/50 stake in Ketel One — by then selling nearly two million cases a year, a legend built from one 20-foot container. His importer becomes Van Gogh Imports, and Dave turns his imagination toward a different kind of legacy.
The white button: 'I Pledge Not to Bully'
In Lake County, Florida, he founds the Pledge Against Bullying at Leesburg High School — students wear white buttons and stickers on their backpacks reading 'I Pledge Not to Bully,' turning kindness into something you can see in every hallway. When the pandemic closed classrooms in 2020, he kept the spirit going by inviting students from every public school in Leesburg to help build a virtual City of Leesburg on the Moon.
A city on the Moon
His 'City of Leesburg on the Moon' project put buildings, essays, and family photos from students across Leesburg's public schools on a chip bound for the lunar surface — while Leesburg High's flag flew atop Everest, draped Shackleton's grave, and was entrusted to crews bound for the Normandy beaches and the South Pole.
Rotary's 'Service Above Self'
The family celebrates Rotary honoring him in 2026 with a 'Service Above Self' award — a tribute to a lifetime of finding holes and filling them for the people of Lake County. This chapter awaits its published citation; the family is gathering the documentation to inscribe it.
A captain in the boardroom
He now lends a lifetime of business skill to community institutions — serving on the board of the UF Health Leesburg Hospital Foundation, where he and Suzanne are charter members of the Royal Palm Society — steering quietly, the way port captains do, so that others reach harbor.
The next hole to fill
Some chapters are still being written. There is always another hole to fill — and those who wear the white button know the story isn't over.
