DC Velocity - June 2016

inbound

An April 16 earthquake wrought destruction on Ecuador, leveling elevated highways, wiping out shopping centers, killing hundreds of people, and displacing tens of thousands.

Within days, the rapid-response humanitarian relief organization Airlink Inc. had led a choreographed effort to deliver a shipment of vital medical supplies such as antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals.

Airlink coordinated the delivery by combining resources donated by a number of industry players. They included Lift NonProfit Logistics and its partner Scan-Shipping A/S, which provided customs and forwarding services; the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN) and its partners Saddle Creek Transportation and Performance Team, which arranged for domestic ground transportation from Brunswick, Ga., to Miami International Airport; and Atlas Air Inc., which provided air transport from Miami to Quito.

A quirk of the calendar was one reason the team was able to find aircargo capacity so quickly, said Michael Rettig, founder of the nonprofit disaster logistics organization Lift. Mother’s Day fell on May 8 this year, meaning that Atlas had been running empty 747 jets to Quito to be filled with fresh flowers for export back to the U.S. When contacted by Airlink, it quickly donated that empty cargo space and a critical connection was made.

The effort didn’t end there, however. By press time, the partner organizations had coordinated with four airlines and provided transportation for 50 relief workers and 43,793 pounds of cargo to supply critical aid to Ecuador.

When disaster strikes …

The 138-foot ship Calypso has had a long career
as a naval minesweeper and a ferry boat, but
the ship gained its greatest fame as the oceanic
research vessel featured in the 1970s-era tele-
vision series “The Undersea World of Jacques
Cousteau.”
Now, decades later, the Calypso has made the news once again—this time,
for hitching a ride on a freighter across the Mediterranean.

Accidentally sunk in 1996 after a collision with a barge in Singapore harbor, the ship had been sitting in dry-dock for years in Marseille, France. After years of legal wrangling, the French scuba-diving pioneer’s nonprofit organization, Equipe Cousteau, arranged for the vessel to be rehabilitated and continue its role as a roving educational ambassador for the seas.

On March 14, the French liner company CMA CGM loaded the 110-ton Calypso onto a freighter and steamed across the Mediterranean Sea to Turkey. The specialty job required a customized marine railway and a vessel large enough to accommodate two cranes but small enough to fit in the shallow-wa-ter port where the Calypso lay. The voyage was successful, and the wounded ship arrived at Izmit, Turkey, on March 25 for renovation and refitting.

You can follow the Calypso’s future adventures at www.cousteau.org.

Hitch a ride

A new website allows shippers with diversity requirements to exchange freight information with certified minority-owned trucking companies, streamlining a process that can be expensive and time-consuming.

The Minority Carrier Exchange is a communication portal that allows a shipper and carrier to swap information on freight and truck capacity. The site also provides freight movement reporting to help shippers track their supplier diversity compliance.

Shipper members of the exchange can submit an RFP for either freight that needs truck capacity in the spot market or freight that will require trucks in the future. In response, carrier members of the exchange, which are all certified minority-owned carriers, can view, bid on, decline, or accept those shipments.

“The Minority Carrier Exchange website was developed with the help of shippers, freight brokers, and trucking companies who recognize the communication gap in the transportation industry to connect shippers with freight to certified minority-owned carriers’ truck capacity,” said website founder Leigh Foxall, principal of Skyway Marketing, a minority-owned public relations, marketing, and consulting firm specializing in the transportation industry. For more info, visit www. minoritycarrierexchange.com.