Hans Otten was 5 years old when the 1953 flood disaster struck the Netherlands. The development and execution of the Dutch Deltaplan to prevent future disasters led him to study coastal engineering at Delft Technical University where he was graduated in 1975. He joined Rijkswaterstaat, an agency under the Ministry of Transport responsible for the nation’s overall water management, where he remains a coastal engineer in Environmental Dredging. Following the 2004 Memorandum of Agreement between USACE and Rijkswaterstaat, he now takes part in the Dredging Cluster.