Cor and Helen van Opzeeland immigrated to New Zealand from Holland in 1952. Back home in Holland, Cor's family had a strong interest in transport and post World War II were preparing to restart their lives and develop transport companies.

Cor saw opportunity in New Zealand and started his new life driving trams and buses. After purchasing the Hornby coal yard from Stills General Store in 1955, Cor applied for a goods service licence and Hornby Coal and Carrying was born in 1956. After a few years of hard labour involved in moving coal, Hornby Coal and Carrying became Opzeeland Transport and focused on cartage. In the 1970's the business ran with 5 trucks and administration run by Helen from the kitchen bench. In the late 1970's Cor and Helen's son John began working at the business, their daughter Marianne and son Eddy soon joined the family business as well.

In 1979 Opzeeland Transport moved to a purpose built yard on the outskirts of Hornby. Hornby has always been a part of the Opzeeland Transport identity and likewise the van Opzeeland family's heritage. The company worked through new challenges posed by deregulation of the transport industry and moved towards transporting over longer distances and this included inter island freight to match customer demand. "It was an exciting time, nobody had any blueprint as to how you would run a long-distance transport business in New Zealand" recalls John van Opzeeland.

Distribution and storage services were added to Opzeeland's offering and assisted customers who needed stock moved nationwide. The fleet extended to 19 trucks in 1994, including Scanias and Nissans. The company fostered a strong identity and service quality orientation, and by 2000 staff numbers had reached 40. Opzeeland has always been aware of the value of their staff and their contribution to its success.

In 2006 Opzeeland Transport celebrated 50 years of service with a gala dinner for staff, friends, customers and suppliers. The focus was on thanking staff, acknowledging Opzeeland culture and, of course, celebrating success. This milestone highlighted the growth and change of what started as a small coal and carrying company and had grown into a successful nationwide transport and distribution supplier. No one could have had the foresight to predict the challenges and innovations along the way, but Opzeeland has always been careful not to lose sight of its founding values of hard work and quality initiated over 50 years ago.

In the following years Opzeeland continued to grow on the back of its well-established reputation in the market as a quality transport and logistics company that could be relied on to meet the complex and dynamic needs of its customers. In 2020 local firm Gould Holdings Limited acquired 100% of Opzeeland. By then the fleet had grown to over 40 modern purpose-built truck combinations and staff numbers had grown to 70. “We are very pleased to have had the opportunity to acquire Opzeeland,” says George Gould – chairman of Gould Holdings. It’s a great company with a bright future in the dynamic transport and logistics industry he says. “There will continue to be opportunities for expansion, which we are keen to pursue where doing so makes sense for us and our customers. However this will never be at the expense of our reliability or compromise the quality of our service.”

In 2006 at the Opzeeland 50-year gala dinner, founder Cor van Opzeeland made the observation that ‘things haven't really changed all that much…, the company is still offering its clients just what I aimed for from the very start - respectable looking vehicles and a quality service.’ This simple observation certainly still holds true today, observes George Gould. “You may not find any sacks of coal in the Opzeeland yard anymore, but you will find a company fired up with anticipation of things to come, and relishing the opportunity to do them” – Bryce Baird, NZ Trucking Magazine.”