Jacques Botte

Electronics engineer. Founder and owner of Toptronic^® Ltd. Born in Soumoy, Belgium, in 1963. Since 1990 I custom design Electronic Circuits for Electrical Test and Measuring Equipment to Electrical Safety Standards on a global scale and miniaturise them.

Six decades of steady, honest work.

My Story Contact

A life in photographs, from the snow of Soumoy in 1968 to today.

A small boy in a red helmet on a wooden sled in the snow, Soumoy, 1968. — Soumoy. Five years old, on the sled, red helmet. 1968

A 1960s school class photograph; Jacques is the small boy at the bottom right, sitting on his eldest brother’s lap. — On my eldest brother’s lap, bottom right. 1960s

Jacques Botte on a yellow SYM scooter on a Taipei street, December 2015. — Taipei. The yellow scooter. 2015

Jacques Botte in Taipei, the city that became a second home, 2015. — Taipei, a second home. 2015

The Colorado River seen from the rim of the Grand Canyon, 2015. — The Colorado River, far below. 2015

Jacques Botte wearing the helmet hand-painted with his name. — The painted helmet, still in use. 2016

The old Elgrand. Not for sale. 2023

Roots

Jacques in the snow with his red helmet and his favourite red toy car, winter 1968.

I grew up in Soumoy, a village of less than two hundred people in Wallonia, in the south of Belgium. Everyone there knows your name. The snow still stops the school bus. It taught me patience, and that things worth building take time.

The dams

A school excursion group photograph, 1974 or 1975, the years the lakes were being built.

Between 1971 and 1978, engineers built the Lacs de l'Eau d'Heure less than one kilometre from my home. Five lakes. The largest artificial lakes in Belgium. I watched dams, tunnels and a hydroelectric power station rise out of the valley. I decided early: I would be an engineer.

The craft

Electronics became my profession. Sensing, measuring, testing, reporting. My career took me from Belgian workshops to the factories and streets of Taiwan. The full record is on myLinkedIn profile.

Toptronic®

Jacques wearing a pullover printed with the slogan Adding SMTR to Humans.

Toptronic^® is my company. We add SMTR to humans: Sensing, Measuring, Testing, Reporting. Instruments built to last. The black, red and yellow wave in the logo is a signal: steady, undulating, always moving forward.

Today

The Nissan Elgrand parked in a tropical driveway, 2024.

Today I still drive my favourite old Nissan Elgrand, a 2004 model fitted out as a boardroom: a 3.5-litre V6, an adaptive gearbox with sport mode, an electric differential up to 4x4, and every gadget kept up to date. It smokes when I want it to. I still open anything with a screen to see how it works. And I still believe my uncle was right when he built a museum in Cerfontaine to keep our village's memory alive: what is not preserved is lost.

Looking for me, or for Toptronic^®?Start here.

Do It Now.