Harold van der Heijden is a Dutch composer of chess endgame studies. He was born in Veghel, The Netherlands, on December 18, 1960. By profession, after finishing his PhD in 2009, he is head of the Research and Development department of a veterinary institute. His collection of endgame studies is probably the largest collection in the world. This collection is helpful for judges in anticipation checking. He was consulted by judges of many tourneys and also organized and/or judged several endgame study tourneys himself. In 2001 he was awarded by the Permanent Commission of the FIDE for Chess Compositions the title of International Judge for Chess Composition for endgame studies and in 2012 the FM title for chess composition. He published well over 100 of his own studies. With his 70 studies participating in tourneys, he won 22 prizes, 25 honourable mentions and 13 commendations. He was appointed by the Permanent Commission of the FIDE for Chess Compositions as Section Director of the FIDE Album for the endgame study section starting with the 1998-2000 Album. He was editor and later chief editor of the magazine EBUR of the Dutch endgame circle ARVES. [More at Wikipedia]

December 18th, 1960 in Veghel (Age 63)