Inspiration

Sylvia Philips-Van Lennep died in 1992. Frits Philips came to terms with this severe blow at De Wielewaal, surrounded by his children.

His fortitude was an example and a source of inspiration to the outside world. In the difficult years of Operation Centurion, in the course of which tens of thousands of workers were dismissed, Frits Philips provided moral support by accompanying Jan Timmer on factory visits.

When he was 92 years old, Frits Philips bore witness to something he would never have believed possible: on the authority of Cor Boonstra, the head office of Philips was relocated to Amsterdam. The move cut him to the heart, and he could not find a good word to say about it. Yet, in spite of everything, he remained unfaltering in his commitment to the company.

Awards
In the course of his life, Frits Philips received countless awards, including honorary degrees from the University of Louvain (Belgium) and the China Academy in Taipei (Taiwan). In his own country, he was decorated as Grand Officer of the Order of Orange Nassau. The Vatican made him a Commander of the Papal Order of St. Gregory the Great; in Spain he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit, Israel presented him with the Yad Vashem medal and France made him an Officer of the Legion of Honor.
The Dutch Royal Palace decorated him with the Gold Medal for Enterprise and Ingenuity, and he was made a freeman of the city of Eindhoven.

That year, Frits Philips celebrated carnival in his beloved Brabant, as always. He received an unusually large number of awards from carnival clubs. With a wink, he observed dryly: ‘It is as if they are thinking: Let’s give him a medal now, quickly, before it is too late. By next year he may no longer be with us.’ Well, he proved them wrong. And he was with us, too, to witness the turn of the century. In that magical year, 1999, he was delighted to hear his uncle Gerard and father Anton proclaimed the country’s greatest entrepreneurs of the twentieth century.

During a tour of North Brabant in 2001, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Máxima also visited Eindhoven. They made the acquaintance of Frits Philips in front of the entrance to the old factory on the Emmasingel.

As ever, he maintained his involvement in the company his uncle, his father and he himself had made great. He followed the progress of the building of the Philips High Tech Campus closely, taking a particular interest in the landscaping plans. He promised to arrange for eighteen almost forty-year-old beech trees to be moved from De Wielewaal to the campus. He even came and planted the first ones himself on 27 November 2001.

On 16 April 2005, Frits Philips turned 100. He had long vowed to reach this grand old age, but typically, he chose to celebrate the moment quietly, at home. In Eindhoven, however, thousands of people turned out to join festivities in his honor.