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The resource magazine for cargo professionals

Winter 2013Vol. 21, Issue 2

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TO RUSSIA WITH LOVELynden celebrates 20 years of doing business in the CIS

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popular Russian proverb avows “With a helper, a thousand things are possible.” In other words, working as a team pro-duces better results. 2013 marks Lynden Interna-tional’s 20th year operating in Russia as Lynden subsidiary AmRusTrans. Lynden’s Russia Busi-ness Development Directors LaDonna Black-well and Dan Gotham are commemorating this milestone by acknowledging the customers who helped Lynden establish success in the Russian market – the helpers – and looking ahead to future possibilities by fine-tuning products and services.

Russia is now Lynden’s top international mar-ket. And, although much has changed from the early years of supporting the oil and gas industry in the Houston-St. Petersburg lane, one thing hasn’t changed: Russians’ appreciation for a personal re-lationship in business transactions. Lynden shares that focus and just added a dedicated salesperson in its Moscow Service Center, Business Develop-ment Manager Natalia Vlasova.

“We use the term ‘partner’ instead of cus-tomer,” Blackwell explains. “Our goal is to build relationships around customer’s needs. We con-sider ourselves partners working together toward a common goal. We are always looking for new potential partners, but we have not forgotten the ones who have been with us from the beginning.”

In the early 1990s, some of Lynden’s core

oil customers began to move resources into Rus-sia. In response, Lynden created a Russian stock company in Moscow in 1993, which grew into AmRusTrans in Moscow and AmRusTrans RFE in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Since then, Lynden has provided transportation and logistics services into the Russian Far East and Commonwealth of In-dependent States (CIS), offering Western-man-aged local services. They include air and ocean transportation for oil, gas, mining and other proj-ects, customs clearance, warehousing, and rail/air services coordinated through company-owned service centers and strategic partners in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Nakhodka and Vanino. Lynden also coordinates charter vessel and cargo charter flights from Europe, Asia and the U.S.

According to Pavel Mayorov, AmRusTrans Manager in Moscow, Lynden’s local service and knowledgeable staff set it apart. “Over two de-cades we have honed our services, completed many projects and are now considered the experts in Russian transportation and logistics services. Our team knows Russia’s business practices and government relations, and we have established relationships with air, ocean and ground carriers. Our routing and documentation skills are unsur-passed.”

A lifeboat is loaded into an Antonov aircraft in Warsaw, Poland, on its way to Sakhalin Island as part of a charter move Lynden International arranged for an oil and gas customer.

Executive Perspective AW

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NORTHLAND JOINS THE LYNDEN FAMILY

s managers and executives, we are constantly looking for ways to improve our business and operate more efficient-ly. Most of us have heard of Business Intelligence or “BI.” Over the last few years it has become more widely utilized by companies as an integral part of business decision making.

Business Intelligence is a broad term that es-sentially means capturing and formatting the raw data in your business and allowing your manage-ment team to use it effectively in making sound business decisions. The data is stored in a “data warehouse” and available for queries from the BI software. The software converts it into a format for reporting and analysis. It is critical that the data is clean, accurate and timely. Lynden invested in a BI system a few years ago and we are now beginning to see significant positive results. We have been implementing applications that give our managers specific information for improving

business performance.Getting the most out of BI requires a team ef-

fort. It takes a commitment by top executives to provide the IT resources and buy-in from business level management teams to support developing the tools and systems for driving the process.

At Lynden, we have found broad acceptance of BI and eagerness among managers to use it. Our team is excited about digging deeper into business data to boost quality and productiv-ity. BI also allows us to identify problems and focus attention on poorly performing areas of our business. If your com-pany hasn’t yet invested in BI, I strongly recommend taking a look at it.

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of Alaska. Both companies share a commitment to keep customers’ freight moving smoothly and efficiently through the transition process.

“Lynden provides an ideal situation to bet-ter serve our customers, our employees and the communities where we operate,” explains Larry Stauffer, President and CEO of Northland. “We have seen significant growth in our business over

he Lynden family of companies is pleased to welcome Northland Services, a marine transportation company provid-ing shipping between Seattle, Alaska and Hawaii. “Northland is a dynamic company with talented people and a great reputation,” says Lynden Pres-ident and CEO Jon Burdick. “Its barge capabilities to Hawaii and Western Alaska complement Lyn-den’s current service offerings and allow us to provide expanded services to our customers. We can now offer integrated service to more Alaska destinations with more frequency and greater combined capabilities.”

Northland’s barge service from the Pacific Northwest to Hawaii enhances Lynden’s current ocean and air services to the islands. The addition of Northland’s Western Alaska barge services en-ables Lynden to service ports throughout the state

David RichardsonPresident

“We can now offer integrated service to more Alaska destinations with more frequency and greater capabilities.”

the past decade, and bringing two great compa-nies and teams together will help improve and ex-pand service in the communities we serve.”

“We are excited about the new opportunities that will emerge from the combination of Lynden and Northland,” explains Executive Vice President and COO Alex McKallor.

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shipping times,” Gotham says. “Lynden has many services to offer them including final-mile delivery in Russia, customs clearance and warehousing of their goods.”

Gotham was based in Moscow for 10 years and now goes back and forth each month to meet with customers and Lynden’s Russian employees (see photo above). He says the Russian market-place of today is more stable than 20 years ago, with a higher level of transparency in commercial transactions.

“You see more western brands in the retail sector and it is a safer, more lucrative market for our customers considering doing business there. There are 15 million consumers in and around Moscow with a high median income and a very low fixed cost of living.”

A recent building boom and road develop-ment are requiring imported materials. Shippers take note: it’s a good time to be doing business in Russia. “We welcome the oversized and heavy shipments we have always handled for the project industry, but also Freight All Kinds (FAK) with new, smaller customers who need an experienced part-ner to guide them,” Gotham says.

“We look forward to serving our existing and new customers for years to come,” Blackwell adds. “Working in Russia for 20 years gives us some bragging rights and also an appreciation for the complexity, camaraderie and ever-changing environment of the Russian market.”

Continued from page 1Lynden’s Russian customers include a tele-

communications company that has been a loyal customer for 15 years and oil and gas customers with projects still going strong after 17 years. In many cases, Lynden and its customers nurtured each other. “We began working with a couple of small procurement companies back in 1997, mov-ing equipment to support drilling activity in West-ern Siberia. What started off as a few containers now and then grew to shipments of coiled tubing, chemicals, nitrogen trucks and even a few drill-ing rigs,” Blackwell recalls. “We built protocols to-gether, modified warehouse and logistics systems to support the cargo volume and fostered loyal relationships.”

Gotham predicts the next relationships will come from the aerospace sector and from smaller niche industries. Lynden is shipping freight from Los Angeles to one of the largest Russian aero-space companies, a project uniquely suited to the company’s capabilities. “The factory is in a remote part of the Russian Far East, near our Sakhalin location,” he says. “Very few carriers have knowl-edge of all of the regional connections and differ-ent ways to get goods into remote areas like we do. For this project, we can coordinate on a real-time basis with our staff in Moscow and suppliers in the U.S. Smaller shipments require multi-routed air; others require trucking. We definitely have a multi-modal advantage.”

Lynden’s presence in Russia is indeed an advantage for shippers. Some competitors only offer delivery from the port to the terminal, then outsource freight to an agent. Lynden does all of the routing in-house, controlling the shipment until it reaches its final destination.

Gotham is now shepherding another new customer based in Skokie, IL, as it teams up with Lynden to deliver hundreds of air freight ship-ments to Moscow each week. This customer is an Internet fulfillment company for U.S. web-based retailers like eBay and Amazon. Orders are sent to their facility for processing and repacking at which point Lynden offers flexible, fast routing to mul-tiple airport destinations in Moscow. The company was previously using the Russian Post for U.S-Russia delivery. “We offer a faster, less expensive consolidated service to help them reduce their

Dan Gotham (top left) with Lynden’s Moscow team.

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tlantic Ro-Ro Carriers (ARRC) is the only direct all-water service between the U.S. and Russia and it uses its unique position to foster diplomacy between the two countries.

In 2005 ARRC performed an extraordinary feat by transporting the colossal sculpture “Tear of Grief” by Russian artist Zurab Tsereteli to New Jersey. The 150-metric-ton piece was created to honor the victims of the 9/11 tragedy in New York’s World Trade Center.

“Since ARRC provides the only non-stop service between the U.S. and Russia, and has a reputation of successfully handling challenging cargoes, we were selected as the carrier of choice for this difficult and delicate piece of art. It was a proud moment for ARRC as it represented more than just cargo, but also a token of Russia reach-

ing out to the U.S. during a difficult period in our history,” says AARC President Rick Shannon.

The “Tear of Grief” was delivered to St. Pe-tersburg, Russia, by heavy haul trailers and rout-ed to avoid crossing any city bridges. Its safety required minimal dismantling so special handling technology was designated for loading and lash-ing the over-sized pieces of the sculpture on AR-RC’s M/V Valga.

The Valga sailed to New York where the structure was erected on site and dedicated on Sept. 11, 2006 at the Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne, NJ. Russian President Vladimir Putin and former U.S. President Bill Clinton attended the dedication.

In another high-profile international project, ARRC was approved and certified as the sole carrier for the HEU-LEU intergovernmental program between Russia and the U.S. The HEU-LEU project, or Megatons to Megawatts, is a Rus-sian-U.S. nuclear disarmament program which recycles nuclear warheads into fuel for U.S. nu-clear power plants. Since 1994 the program has significantly enhanced world security by reducing stockpiles of nuclear bomb grade materials while creating clean uranium for use in nuclear fuel. ARRC carries the low-enriched uranium (LEU) material from St. Petersburg to approved ports for discharge two to three times a month.

By the end of this year when the program is complete, 500 metric tons of Russian highly en-riched uranium (HEU), the equivalent of 20,000 warheads, will have been recycled into low-en-riched uranium. In recognition of the program, ARRC hosted a presentation on their vessel M/V Atlantic Navigator in St. Petersburg in November followed by a reception at the American Consul General’s Residence. The event was attended by more than 60 top U.S. and Russian diplomats as well as nuclear experts from both countries.

“We are happy to be a part of the goodwill ambassadors on both sides of the Atlantic and pleased that our dependable service and integrity is recognized by being entrusted with these im-portant shipments,” Shannon says.

Atlantic Ro-Ro Carriers was established in 1995 as the only direct all-water project liner ser-vice operating between the Port of St. Petersburg and the U.S. East Coast and Gulf ports. ARRC

Dynamic. Dependable. Direct.

PULLING OUT ALL

THE STOPS

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cargo arrives with no stops, no transshipment and no re-handling, providing shippers with the advan-tage of guaranteed delivery times, regular sail-ings, security and the shortest routings.

Two decades after its initial sailing, ARRC remains the only direct Trans-Atlantic service between North America and St. Petersburg. Ap-proximately 130 employees book millions of tons of cargo each year in the North America to Russia trade route. Regular ports of call include New York, Baltimore, Houston, New Orleans and Tampa.

ARRC’s fleet of multi-purpose Astrakhan ves-sels include Mark 1 and Mark 111 Ice Class L-2 for year-round operations through extreme ice conditions. “Our vessels allow us to match a very different east-bound and west-bound cargo com-position and reduce port turn-around times, reduc-ing the cost of operations to benefit customers,” Shannon says.

Westbound, ARRC carries some of the base commodities from Russia such as aluminum, lum-ber, plywood and containers. Eastbound traffic consist of a wide variety of rolling stock includ-ing agriculture machinery, trucks and passenger cars, project cargo and oversized and overweight equipment for the oilfield, mining and construction industries.

Eastbound shipments also include special

project cargo from the U.S., some requiring di-rect port-to-port service such as oversized airport bridges for Pulkovo Airport and special tunnel bor-ing machines for the Moscow metro expansion.

Although ARRC has an enviable position as the only liner service in its unique trade lane, this alone is not enough to make the company suc-cessful. The quality of the service and the people who book the sailings and see them through really makes the difference, according to Shannon.

“Our company has one of the most highly educated marine staff in the world,” he explains. “We have former ship captains and mates onboard our vessels and in our offices, and most of the key personnel are graduates of maritime academies.” Most are bilingual in Russian-English, and all em-ployees are continually trained in handling Class 7 and Class 1 hazardous cargo, one of ARRC’s spe-cialties. Compliancy with all government require-ments is also part of ongoing training as Russia joined the World Trade Organization as the 156th member last August.

“As a company we are quite fortunate that most of our employees are with us for many years giving ARRC continuity in the operation and for clients,” Shannon says. “We still believe that peo-ple need to talk to people for the best service and efficiency.”

Rick Shannon

ARRC delivers direct from East Coast to Far East

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ffective communication between two people is not easy. You really have to practice to make it work. Through the ef-fective use of feedback skills, you can create a good communications climate. The following gen-eral guidelines will help you use your feedback skills more effectively.

Give And Get DefinitionsThe interpretation of words or phrases may

vary from person to person, group to group, re-gion to region, or society to society. When people believe or assume that words are used for one and only one meaning, they create situations in which they think they understand others but really do not. The words you use in everyday conversa-tions almost inevitably have multiple meanings. In fact, the 500 most commonly used words in our language have more than 14,000 dictionary defini-tions. For instance, according to Webster, a per-son is considered ‘fast’ when she can run rather quickly. However, when one is tied down and can-not move at all, she is also considered ‘fast.’ ‘Fast’ also relates to periods of not eating, a ship’s moor-ing line, a race track in good running condition, and a person who hangs around with the ‘wrong’ crowd of people. In addition, photographic film is ‘fast’ when it is sensitive to light. On the other hand, bacteria are ‘fast’ when they are insensi-tive to antiseptics. The abundance of meanings of even ‘simple’ words makes it hazardous to as-sume to understand the intent of a message with-out verifying and clarifying that message.

Don’t Assume Do not assume anything in communications.

If you do, you stand a good chance of being incor-rect. Don’t assume that you and the other person are talking about the same thing. Don’t assume

that the words and phrases you are both using are automatically being understood. The classic phrase of people who make assumptions is: “I know exactly what you mean.” People who usually use that statement without ever using feedback techniques to determine exactly what the other person means are leaping into a communication quagmire. Use more feedback and fewer assump-tions, and you’ll be happier and more accurate in your interpersonal communications.

Ask QuestionsA good rule of thumb is: “When in doubt,

check it out.” One of the best ways to check it out is through the effective use of questioning skills. Clarifying questions, expansion questions, direc-tion questions, fact-finding questions, feeling-find-ing questions, and open questions can be used freely during conversation to test for feedback.

Speak the Same LanguageAbstain from using words that can easily be

misinterpreted or mistranslated, especially tech-nical terms and company jargon. These terms, which are so familiar to you, may be totally foreign to the people with whom you talk. Simplify your

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KEYS TO EFFECTIVE FEEDBACK

Tony Alessandra, PhD, is founder of www.AssessmentBusinessCenter.com, a company that offers online assessments in a variety of critical areas. He was inducted into the National Speakers Assn. Hall of Fame in 1985. Contact Tony at DrTony@Assessments24x7.com or at 619-610-9933. Website: www.Alessandra.com. © 2003-2013 Dr. Tony Alessandra. All rights reserved.

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“The interpretation of words or phrases may vary from person to person, group to group, region to region, or society to society.”language and your technical terms so that every-one can understand you, even when you think the other person knows what the terms mean.

Stay Tuned InConstantly be on the lookout for and recog-

nize those nonverbal signals that indicate that your line of approach is causing the other person to become uncomfortable and lose interest. When this happens, change your approach and your message accordingly. Observe the other person. Be sensitive to the feelings they are experiencing during your interaction; above all else, respond to those feelings appropriately.

InsideInformationNews briefs fromaround the LyndenInternational system

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Freight forwarding and more Lynden’s Seattle Service Center is complet-

ing the second year of an ongoing project with customer Fluent, formerly Campus Entertainment. The Boston-based company ships products from retailers to more than 1,000 college campuses na-tionwide. Fluent provides its customers with mil-lennial consumer insights, digital and social media strategy. Its clients have included major brands such as Microsoft, Macy’s, PacSun, Zipcar, Dove and L’Oreal. “We just shipped 130 pallets out of Seattle via air for Fluent,” says Sheri Coluccio, Seattle District Manager. “In addition to arranging air transportation, Lynden provides inbound re-ceiving, kitting and just-in-time deliveries to U.S. campuses and installations where needed. The company came to us for expertise beyond freight forwarding, and we were happy to offer an array of services such as pre-packaging inspections, track-ing and vendor management.”

2013 an award-winning year for Lynden companies

The Lynden family of companies received several awards for excellence this year. Lynden was named one of Inbound Logistics’ Magazine’s Top 100 Third-Party Logistics Providers (3PLs) and one of its Top 75 Green Supply Chain Part-ners. Sister company Lynden Transport was ranked No. 1 for on-time performance among Less-than-Truckload (LTL) carriers in the Western Region in the annual Quest for Quality Awards as well as being named one of Inbound Logistics’ Top 100 Motor Freight Carriers for 2013. LTI, Inc. and its Milky Way division received an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Excellence Award and was ranked in the top one percent of partners with superior environmental performance. The compa-

The Inside ScoopWhat customers are sayingabout Lynden International

“We’re looking to use you in other markets. Outstanding job.”

Andre SpauldingGlobal Logistics Manager

IPC SubwayMiami-Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Warren Wilson in the Seattle warehouse with freight bound for college campuses.

ny earned the top score among all large tanker fleets in the U.S. for fuel economy, payload, idle time and emissions equipment. Last but not least, trucking company Alaska West Express joined the EPA’s SmartWay Partnership this fall.

Burning the midnight oil for U.S. Coast Guard charter

A midnight meeting on the tarmac was part of a charter move Lynden recently coordinated for the U.S. Coast Guard. Eighty-two crates of radio equipment were flown from Chicago to Anchorage and then loaded onto two Lynden Air Cargo Hercules aircraft waiting to carry the cargo to Kodiak and Juneau for final distribution to various points in Alaska. Chicago Operations Manager Jason Hiti-Shannon was part of the welcoming committee who met the chartered 747 on the field in Chicago at midnight to ensure the loading to Alaska was carried out perfectly. “It was a great team effort and resulted in a very happy customer,” he says.

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Lynden in the Spotlight

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LYNDEN MOVES THE MOON

T he Lynden International teams in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Honolulu handled an out-of-this-world move this fall for NASA. A Titan Microscope, weighing 20,585 pounds and insured for $4 million, was transported from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA to the University of Hawaii. Also included in the shipment were mineral samples, including moon rocks.

“We shipped the Titan on behalf of Professor John Bradley as he was transferring from Law-rence Livermore Labs to the University of Hawaii,” explains Chuck Paterson, District Manager in San Francisco. “As we loaded the final packages, Pro-fessor Bradley showed me the moon rocks and meteorite samples he was packing in the cartons. This was definitely one of the more unique moves we have coordinated.” NASA actually owns the Titan and agreed to allow Professor Bradley to take it with him. The microscope will continue to be used as a resource for the agency at the Uni-versity of Hawaii.

“What made this move unique was the sheer size of the microscope and its highly sensitive equipment,” Paterson says. Lynden arranged for a company that provides specialized packing and transportation of high-tech equipment to oversee the packaging and transfer to LAX airport where the valuable shipment was loaded on Pacific Air Cargo to Honolulu.

Once in Hawaii, Lynden coordinated the delivery to the university where a crane was used to position the massive microscope on campus. The assembly process takes three months to a year.

“I guess we can say that Lynden can move the moon if we have to – and technically we did!” Pat-erson says. Incidentally, Titan is the largest moon of Saturn.