Robert Vanman had a nickname in high school: Robbie Radar. He loved fast things, and this passion served him well. It led him to a love of technology and skill in business, selling radar detectors (much to his mother’s chagrin), then sports radar guns, police radar, police in-car cameras, and body cameras. But God also hardwired him for generosity.
That’s why he’s trying to solve the biggest problem in the poorest country in the world.
Robert remembers his parents being consistently generous. And, from a young age, he understood that God was the owner of everything they had. But one story anchored that belief in his memory.
Robert’s father had something speedy he loved, too – a Mooney M201, single-engine, piston-powered aircraft. The fastest of its kind at the time, it was dubbed “the Mooney 201” for its top speed of 175 knots or 201 miles per hour. But the Mooney 201 wasn’t just a toy; it was essential for his father’s work as an architect who built churches all over the country. He flew it to job sites two to three times a week.
Once, during Robert’s childhood, his father was looking ahead and anticipating the best year ever for his business. So, he made a promise of substantial financial support to a ministry. But instead of his best year, he experienced the worst one he’d ever had. He didn’t have the money to keep his promise.
The only thing of value he had was his plane.
“He decided to sell his beloved Mooney 201 and use the proceeds to fulfill the commitment he’d made to the ministry,” Robert says. “It was clear that he did not want to sell it. This was extreme, sacrificial giving.”
Two weeks later, the hangar at the Crystal Airport in Minnesota – where the plane had been stored – was empty. That’s when a friend from California called out of the blue. He needed a place to store his plane for a while. “If you let me store my plane at your hanger,” the friend said, “you can use it all you want.” It was a new Mooney 201, and Robert’s dad had use of it for the next three years. For free.
“Same plane, only better,” Robert says. This is what God did for this man who had quietly kept his promise, even when it hurt. His dad never tried to make it a big life lesson. He didn’t have to. He just told his five children, “God is faithful.” Robert has never forgotten.
The road to entrepreneurship
Robert wanted to be faithful, too. There are about a dozen pastors in his extended family, and his mom hoped he would choose ministry as his profession (“like everyone else in the family does”). His dad envisioned him as an architect who would eventually take over the family business. Robert tried both Bible and business school but discovered he enjoyed designing and optimizing things. He had the mind of an engineer.
Soon after enrolling in an engineering program at the University of Minnesota, Robert started a little company he hoped would cover the costs of college. But, by the second year, he had 13 employees. By 1995, his little company made Inc. Magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing companies in America. He eventually merged with another company and began dreaming up new products.
He’s been a serial entrepreneur ever since, building and selling four companies. He founded his last business, WatchGuard, in 2002. The company, which makes police in-car video technology, rapidly gained a majority share of the market. And in 2010, they began selling body cameras, too. By 2015, they’d developed the first high-definition police body camera.
Encouraging mentors and an opportunity
At a meeting of his C12 business-mentoring group one day, he met someone God would use to put him on a new path. The man spoke about his own interest in drilling water wells in a little country called Burundi. He said that, although the need for clean water is decreasing all over Africa because of the good work of so many charities, almost no one was building wells in Burundi.
The tiny country was passed over by other organizations because the government was difficult to work with, civil war had decimated the country’s infrastructure, and there were no in-country water organizations that had both the equipment and people to build sustainable water projects.
But Robert’s business success had come from looking where others were not, investing in niche markets, and digging in deep in a particular industry. He considered how he could apply this narrow/deep focus to his giving, too.
“A lot of us who come to NCF are entrepreneurs,” Robert says. “Our minds are wired to look for opportunities.” He realized the opportunity to right the problems in Burundi could lead to “impact on steroids.”
A life-altering day
In 2014, Robert stood in the village of Mutambara, Burundi. His life was about to be changed. A new road was opening up for his future, one he says he will probably stay on for the rest of his life.
Burundi is a tiny, landlocked country in east Africa, ranking among the poorest of the world for decades. Though rich in natural resources and situated on the world’s longest freshwater lake, disease, lack of access to clean water, and political unrest have kept the country and its people from thriving.
For a long time, Robert has believed that clean water provision was the most impactful charitable effort a person could support. “There’s lots of things that people need, but clean water is so basic and foundational that, until you fix water provision, nothing else is effective,” he says.
So, he and his wife, Elizabeth, along with some of his employees, joined the man he met at his C12 group in hiring a Rwandan driller to go into Burundi and dig 10 wells.
About a year later, Robert was standing at the site of the first well with a crowd of more than 4,000 Burundians. A man spoke to him in Kirundi, performing skits to show his gratitude for the work the group had done. One skit demonstrated that, because of clean water nearby, the children of the village could now go to school, and people could go to work. And since the well was built, the health of the people had improved dramatically.
But one man said something Robert had never heard before.
“He looks at me, and, through the interpreter, says, ‘Thank you for giving me a wife.’” The man could see the surprise on Robert’s face and continued. “You ask me how you have given me a wife? For 20 years, I’ve been married to this woman, but she was not a wife to me.”
She’d spent her time making four trips a day to a river four kilometers away, leaving her husband to earn a living and provide all the childcare. It was survival only, no family life.
“When she comes back from her last trip,” the man continued, “she’s so exhausted, she can’t cook or even help me put the kids to bed. So, I do it all because this woman is exhausted.”
Clean water in their community had changed everything. Not only was this man’s wife now able to care for their children and their home, she was working, generating additional income for their family. “You’ve given me a wife I didn’t have before, who helps and loves me,” the man said.
That floored Robert. “I hadn’t even thought about how lack of clean water so adversely affects family dynamics and ultimately even divorce rates.”
Another skit showed how, prior to the installation of the well, about 10 kids from the village (population 4,500) were lost to disease each month. Since the well was installed, they hadn’t lost a single one.
The results in Mutambara were mirrored in every village where a well was established. People in these villages have seen death rates plummet, have more energy, skin rashes disappear, and the red eyes that were commonplace among the people of Burundi are rarely seen.
The gift the Vanmans, their friends, and employees gave brought a greater outcome than they had ever expected. “What happened at well site number one changed the trajectory of my life,” Robert says.
Creative opportunities for a serial entrepreneur
Before that trip to Burundi, an advisor had introduced Robert to Joel Smyer of NCF North Texas. Robert thought he would eventually take WatchGuard public. And, though he didn’t want to, there was also the possibility of selling to a large competitor. Either of these events could become a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for big generosity.
Robert wanted to be faithful but also tax efficient. So, he worked with his professional advisors and Joel on a plan to make a substantial impact with his giving. He planned to give away a portion of his company over time through gifts of privately held interests.
When WatchGuard sold in 2019, the interests he’d donated were sold, and the net proceeds went into his Giving Fund at NCF. It didn’t take him long to figure out where he wanted to give, and he began supporting his favorite causes from his fund.
Keeping the water flowing
Last year, Robert took his 12-year-old daughter, Caroline, to see the work being done and to meet the president of Burundi. His wife and all of Caroline’s siblings have visited the country, too.
The gift he made from his business enabled him to set up the first and only in-country water organization – Amazi Water – in the tiny nation. It’s allowed Robert to consult with and hire some of the best water engineers in the world to do research, to set long-range goals, purchase drilling equipment and support vehicles, and build a facility that can support their 225 employees. The staff at Amazi’s headquarters in Burundi is almost entirely local, and buses have been purchased to help them get to work. God has been faithful.
They’ve built more than a thousand water wells, many of which are large, solar-powered systems with multiple water taps and locations distributed across the village. They set a goal: 20/20/100 x 2030, to provide 20 liters of clean water per person per day, within a 20-minute walk from home, for 100 percent of the communities in Burundi by the year 2030.
They’ve built a school for training government water workers and even established a hotline. Anyone, anywhere in the country, can call Amazi Water, and their well will be repaired in just days.
Serving Burundi in this way is cost efficient, Robert says, especially when you consider how much a life is worth and how little it costs to save one. This never could have happened without his C12 group, the man who came to speak to them, and the partners who came alongside him, not to mention the God who gave him the curiosity and the love of speed that led to a fruitful career.
Robert hopes to complete the work and hand it over to the people of Burundi over the next 20 years. As he runs his nonprofit like a business, with lots of operational metrics and a highly skilled, in-country team, Amazi Water is bringing clean water and the gospel to villages where death and darkness had dominated and family life was nonexistent. Now, this fast-paced entrepreneur has committed himself to the slower work of faithfully completing the job God has entrusted to him.
Photos: Robert Vanman, Amazi Water
