Therese W. McMillan assumed her post as Deputy Administrator of the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) on June 30.
APL, the worlds seventh-largest container shipping line, was recently voted number one among Central California agricultural exporters. Photo by Joel Williams
By Patrick Burnson
Published: July, 2009
Therese W. McMillan assumed her post as Deputy Administrator of the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) on June 30. McMillan has been a member of the Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) staff since 1984 and served as MTC’s Deputy Executive Director for Policy from 2000 until her new appointment.
“The chance to work for the Obama Administration as part of the FTA is unbelievably exciting,” commented McMillan. “I am prepared to take on this new responsibility because of the rich and unparalleled experience that has been afforded me in my career at MTC.” MTC is the federal and state regional transportation planning agency, whose jurisdiction encompasses nine Bay Area counties with 101 municipalities. MTC conducts oversight of 26 public transit agencies and eight toll bridges.
APL Tops Agricultural Survey
APL, the world’s seventh-largest container shipping line, is number one in the eyes of Central California agricultural exporters and their brethren nationwide. That’s the verdict of shippers surveyed this spring by the Agriculture Transportation Coalition. Soon after the nation’s leading trade association for agricultural shippers and forwarders met in San Francisco for its annual meeting, it announced that APL placed first in its annual Ocean Carrier Performance Survey. It was the second number one ranking for APL in the three-year history of the survey.
As noted in Bay Crossings, APL is moving its North American headquarters out of Oakland, but continues to operate a major terminal at the port here.
“Notable is the consistency of the rankings over time,” said the coalition in announcing its results. It said that APL’s repeat performance atop the survey suggested that the carrier is “maintaining a superior level of service performance.”
APL is a top-five carrier of U.S. exports. In the survey of leading agricultural shippers, it placed ahead of 19 other ocean carriers. The lines were rated on bookings, equipment and space allocation, documentation and customer service practices.
“The ocean carriers’ performance in these areas frequently matches and at times can prevail over freight rates as the basis for an agricultural shipper’s selection of carriers,” said the coalition. “The carriers that can perform well will be more likely to get the business.” The coalition said the purpose of its annual survey is to recognize carriers who consistently perform well and to encourage others to do better.
MOL Announces Departure From Bay Area
A second major container line has announced that it is leaving the Bay Area. MOL (America) Inc.’s North America Headquarters, which includes the Trade Management staff, announced in June that it had decided to relocate its Concord Headquarters to Lombard, IL.
Noboru Kitazawa, President of MOL, said, “The consolidation will allow for a greater synergy among the interactions between Trade Management and the Product Management Team, which is already located in Lombard. This will improve our ability to optimize vessel and intermodal networks to enhance revenue and cost management, as well as broaden our employees’ career opportunities.”
The relocation of staff into the company’s current location in Lombard is scheduled for early August 2009.
MOL was also falsely rumored to be giving up its cargo business altogether, but the company was quick to shoot down this news service report. “We immediately sent out a letter to our customers assuring that this was not the case,” a spokesman for MOL said. “We have included an accurate version of the remarks made to the news service.”
The letter said that statements purportedly made by MOL CFO Kenichi Yonetani, regarding the possibility of spinning-off the container shipping business and consolidating it with another carrier, were taken out of context. “The container business is the biggest drag on [MOL’s] earnings due to unprofitable rates and sagging volumes,” said Yonetani in a revised transcript.
