BUCO Nelspruit celebrates a Lowveld legend, oom Calie

In BUCO Nelspruit’s rich history, Calie has played the leading role for 40 years. This journey started when he joined Nelspruit Paint as a young man.

As dreams often go, the company soon expanded to become a general building supplies dealer, and that entailed a name change as well. Under the watchful and critical eye of Calie, Laeveld Bouhandelaars continued to grow at an immeasurable pace and soon expanded to other Lowveld towns, including White River, Komatipoort, Hazyview, Malalane and Sabie.

Today, Calie runs a tight ship as district manager for the eastern region, with 11 BUCO branches consisting of  715 employees under his care and an impressive annual turnover of over R1 billion.  With several accolades for his passion with regard to the industry, one of the most memorable ones must have been when he was appointed the Nelspruit Afrikaans Business Chamber’s junior businessman of the year at the age of 36.

At this function, it was the former minister of finance, Barend du Plessis, who was one of the first to congratulate him. A humble Calie still maintains that he only deserved that award due to the support of his wife, Antoinette, and his business partners. “I was part of a team of six enthusiastic entrepreneurs who worked extremely hard.”
His former partners were Louw, Koos and Hennie Duvenhage, as well as Johan van Biljon and Kobus Boshoff.

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Calie’s legacy is evident today when you enter the premises of BUCO Nelspruit. All the staff members are friendly and ready to lend a helping hand. From a small shop in Anderson Street in 1980, with his patience and knowledge it grew into an imposing and well-loved Lowveld business.