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the power of choice

in memoriam

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[newsletter@seashipping.com]
 

Just FYI, anything in our newsletter in red type is usually a hyperlink of some sort. We purposely remove the underlining for aesthetic purposes. This hyperlink may be a mailto email address or a linkto another website or a linkto a document of some sort. Don't be afraid to click on them. They are all scanned for maliciousness and will always open in a new window.
 

If you approach us via phone or email and get no response, please know this is not normal and usually an indication that Sea Shipping Line is most likely enjoying one of our seven holidays or enduring some type of power outage. To see a full list of days that we are closed for business, click here.
 

The fastest way to get a rate from us is to use our generic customer service email addresses. These addresses forward your mail directly to all of our customer service personnel for the quickest turnover time. Here they are again for your convenience...

Seattle

sea.customerservice@seashipping.com

Oakland

oak.customerservice@seashipping.com

Los Angeles

lax.customerservice@seashipping.com

Houston

hou.customerservice@seashipping.com

 ••• The Power of Choice | One Point of Contact ••• 

Ask yourself - Are you passionate about what you do? Sales personnel must ask themselves this everyday. Are we passionate about what we do? Are we motivated by what our company has to offer? If we are not, most certainly we will not succeed because prospective clients can read right through the mundane. Do you bring value to esoteric or everyday work processes? Do you have a mission?

If your goal revolves around making money as your highest priority, then most certainly your return will be mediocre. You must have passion for what you do to really succeed. Money will follow and sometimes in greater amounts than you could have imagined. Cultivating this passion throughout your entire staff is certainly the challenge every employer faces.

At Sea Shipping Line we recognize that the level of customer service that many facets of our industry experiences is sub-par. We are not satisfied with this status quo, and this reality has allowed companies like ourselves to sneak in and prosper. Our passion lies solely in providing a rewarding customer experience. We take massive amounts of workload and shorten it into one approach - whether this be via phone, fax, email, internet, or instant messager. In our sales program, we glow when one of our clients says, "we love working with your company, so and so [customer service person] is the greatest." We know our mission has been accomplished. We have made someone's day that much easier. We want to make your day just that much better.

Our core competency is moving full container load ocean cargo from anywhere in the United States to virtually anywhere in the global marketplace. We negotiate with multiple carriers, we manage multiple contracts, and we offer multiple carrier choices so that you do not have to waste valuable time away from managing your clients. We are small enough to know your voice on the phone, yet large enough to wield our volume to secure better pricing options.

Our target market, that is the accounts we feel we best service, continues to grace us with their support for which we have been, are, and always will be grateful. The above graphic charts our slow, continuous growth over the course of the last 8 years. You can clearly see the grotesquely deformed years of 2008 and 2009 as we continue to struggle towards normalcy as a nation. Our perseverance separates us and indicates our passion. We are as local as is feasible, our profits stay here and get circulated into the respective communities. Our passion is to make your day just a little bit more comfortable - a little less stress, and a lot more productive.

Our intention this year especially has been to congeal our present relationships and foster new relationships with the shipping community. We treasure your support.

Interested in seeing who our agent or partner is at the destination port of discharge? Feel free to click on over to our Global Network - most of our international friends are listed there along with all their relevant details.

Interested in knowing how many cities & countries we service via mostly any point in the United States? We welcome your inquiry! we service 552 cities located within 155 countries facilitated by over 35 individual carrier confidential contracts. Click here to download a full list of the ports and points that we service.

Wanna see the carriers we have contracts with? click here. Those liner operators listed with a red * are contract carriers. You can also check scheduling by clicking on the calendar icon .

Our accounting supervisor based in our Oakland corporate offices formerly known as Suyun Yang, is now Suyun Vaneveld. On May 15, 2011 Suyun was married to Loek Vaneveld in a beautiful ceremony at the Valley Presbyterian Church in Portola Valley, CA. The church is on a spectacular setting with an entire window wall as a backdrop, looking out onto a redwood grove with a stream in the forefront. The ceremony was followed by a reception at nearby Ladera Oaks, also in Portola Valley. Portola Valley is a very nice little community on the peninsula just to the west of Menlo Park and Redwood City. Suyun and Loek have now joined their little families, each had a son before, Richard age 7 for Suyun, and Ross age 17 for Loek. Attendees included Suyun’s parents visiting from Hunan province in China, Loek’s parents who live in Palo Alto, Frank Rosenberg with his wife, Stella Lui with her husband, and Kriss Slate. All the guests admired the flower arrangements at the church and reception hall which were all produced by Suyun herself, with some help from a few friends.

Suyun and Loek, we all wish you the very best with your new life together. Suyun supervises a small but very efficient accounting department for Sea Shipping Line (California) Inc.

 ••• Short News Articles ••• 

Afghan transit cargo piling up at ports...
Kriss Slate, the Vice President and General Manger of our Oakland office, offered this bit of information regarding the movement of goods into Afghanistan based on a email conversation with our partners in Dubai:

Dear Kriss: Regret to advise that currently we have stopped accepting to Afghanistan via Karachi, Pakistan. Currently cargo is piled up at the ports and seems no improvements as of now. US/ ISAF Military cargo is also air freighted on charter flights out of UAE. Sea option is not advisable at this point. Copy of the public release as attached (click on the graphic to the right for more details). Trust clarifies.

"FMC reforms aimed at household goods shipments...
The U.S. Federal Maritime Commission unanimously approved a series of recommendations to prevent unfair, unlawful or deceptive practices in the shipping of household goods or personal property. The FMC set up the investigation because of the substantial number of complaints from individuals who have experienced problems with shipping household goods internationally.

The recommendations include:
• Better education of consumers through improved communication and outreach.
• Improving the consumer experience through the fostering of best practices and use of model forms.
• Protecting the consumer through strengthened partnerships with other government entities and private industry associations.

For example the FMC said it would promote alternate dispute resolution processes, and establish a new and voluntary “household goods participant program” for licensed non-vessel-operating common carriers, and establish a new NVO license category for ocean transportation intermediaries that operate solely in the so-called "barrel trades." (The barrel trade is where individuals send small shipments of personal goods to relatives or friends in their home countries in Latin America and the Caribbean Basin on a semi-regular basis.)

The FMC also approved an expedited process to allow more timely suspension of OTI activities that harm the public, and two recommended rulemaking projects to address abuses in the marketing and operation of OTIs." [excerpts taken from the JOC email news feed]
 

Karen Elken immortalized in a pillow...
Our field sales representative covering the Pacific Northwest, Karen Elken, has been immortalized as a mermaid in a pillow. You can pick one up for around $38.00. Click on the picture and the website will open so that you can read more and maybe purchase one as part of your Sea Shipping Line memorabilia. Sell it on eBay 20 years from now, may be worth something big.

Susie Farris off the market...
That's right folks, Susie has tied the knot and is no longer public domain. Susie Farris, who now sports the name Susie Moore, is based in our Houston offices and is a key figure in our customer service department there. Well liked for her speed and efficiency, Susie has been an important cog in the growth of our Gulf based team. Here is a short blurb in Susie's own words..."We (Dylan and I) had a small intimate ceremony with close friends and family on May 7th. We then went to Amsterdam and stayed two weeks. On Friday May 13th we went to Rotterdam and met up with everyone from FCL Marine Agencies (the SSL partner in Northern Europe). When we got to our hotel we had a bottle of champagne and cupcakes from FCL."

ricardo (fcl), peter (fcl), dylan (hubby), rick (fcl), susie (ssl)

peter (fcl), ricardo (fcl), rick (fcl), susie (ssl), claudia (fcl)

Well, Susie, looks like you had a great time on your honeymoon and the cupcakes were delicious. I am sure the time went by too fast, but we're glad you're back and booking cargo. Congratulations are in order.

Looking back at the structure of our newsletters in 2006, it is apparent that the stories are based on groups of three. The third article in the June 2006 newsletter is very interesting to us. It is a synopsis of our Los Angeles staffing structure at the time. Interesting to note that we have almost the same team then as now with the addition of Dora Rodriguez (international agent customer service) and Laila Lozano (field sales representative). The changes are Rani Sehwani (import customer service) has replaced Lourdes Guerrero and Ingrid (Keller) Roberts (export customer service) has replaced Anthony Pineda. After all, we are all influenced by the force of change.

Our Los Angeles team has established itself firmly as the top workhorse of our group of offices - producing top sales numbers in almost all categories that we track. Aptly managed by Ram Sehwani, congratulations to you and your team.

 ••• Archives: Between the Lines ••• 

All of our newsletters are available on-line via our website. Due to space restrictions and outdated information, we have initiated the process of removing our oldest newsletters. However, it is fascinating to see what was going on just a half decade ago, so take a peek back in time before they disappear forever into the digital twilight zone. Click on the image to the left and revisit Sea Shipping Line circa June 2006.

The Archives: Between the Lines section was created to highlight one of the key articles from our newsletter exactly five (5) years ago. An excerpt from June 2006 - Volume 3, Issue 6 is below. Please be aware some of this may be old news so please do not get confused:

Whatever It Takes | we try hardest
 

Shown below are some Sea Shipping Line employees on a recent quest to deliver cargo as booked. You may notice the amount of man-power we had to secure in order to guarantee delivery - well somebody has to lift the container off the vessel now don't they. As we have said, once you make a booking with SSL, we will do whatever it takes to make sure that your cargo is delivered as intended. Of course, there are instances that can develop that are out of our control, but even then it is always our intention to ultimately satisfy.

OK, we are stretching it a little bit, we know - the picture is not really our employees (did we have you fooled?) - but what matters is the thought and our commitment to your total satisfaction. Your confidence in our performance is what leads to repeat business. However, I just love this picture so much - I know that is a person on top but I so wish it was a dog - that would be the ultimate☺.

We are always interested in feedback regarding our service levels, rate competitiveness, documentation issues, etc. Click here to send any comments you may have regarding Sea Shipping Line (California) Inc.

The last thing we want to be is an interruption to your busy day. If you do not want to receive our newsletter, you can opt-out by clicking on the link at the very bottom-left. This will take you to our opt-out form, enter your email address, and click OPT OUT (no stress). We will remove your address immediately (although reluctantly). We do hope that you stay with us and that our monthly publication is a peaceful sanctuary in your otherwise chaotic day.

Donna Poyet


Mary Shapiro

Laila, Maria, Marti, Flower


Jim DeMask, Maria Lemus, Sam Perez

Just a couple of notables seen at the Memorial Mixer. All pictures provided by Sam Perez.

Every single booking is important to us. Here's why - our numbers show that our average booking size is now 2.68 teus. A teu is a twenty-foot equivalent unit, so a forty-foot container would be two (2)  teus. So doing the math, our average booking is between 2-3 teus. This logic proves that each booking is valuable and we are grateful for each and every account that graces us with their support. We especially cherish bookings that have multiple containers - would you mind helping us out?

 ••• In Memoriam ••• 

Very recently two well known and well beloved Los Angeles industry personalities were laid to rest - Mary Shapiro and Donna Poyet. Both succumbed to some form of cancer. Seen immediately above is a picture taken from a January 2011 mixer where you can see both appear healthy and in fine spirits. By May 2011 both were taken from us. Seen from left to right - Mary Shapiro, unknown friend (to me I mean), Donna Poyet, and Michael Kuhfal of All Logistics Cargo based in Compton, CA. A memorial get together was staged by long time industry veteran and friend to all, Sam Perez, to celebrate their lives and remember. See a few pictures to the left.

Mary was one of the very first people I met in the industry. She worked for my Aunt's forwarding company (Loya International) which was housed in my Uncle's warehouse (Intercountry Distributors Corporation), and she was instrumental in helping me move forward with my career. Yes, I started in a warehouse, driving a forklift. Our paths crossed constantly over the years.

Donna's career also criss-crossed my own, both as a competitor, as a vendor sales rep, and as a good friend. Our friendship was closer than ever these past two years. Although as time passes things do change, memories of them with remain with me always. We know they are in a better place.
 

What I'm Reading Now

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Privacy Policy: Sea Shipping Line (California) Inc respects our client's right to personal privacy. It remains our policy and our commitment not to distribute, sell, rent or in any way make available your name, email address, or other information to any third party. Sea Shipping Line (California) Inc: 520 3rd Street, Suite 207, Oakland, California 94607. Copyright Sea Shipping Line (California) Inc © 2011. All rights reserved. To cancel your free subscription to  our monthly newsletter click OPT-OUT.
 

 ••• In the Author's Opinion ••• 

Employer's Disclaimer: Any views or opinions presented in this newsletter are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Sea Shipping Line. Employees of Sea Shipping Line are expressly required not to make defamatory statements and not to infringe or authorize any infringement of copyright or any other legal right by email communications. Any such communication is contrary to company policy and outside the scope of the employment of the individual concerned. The company will not accept any liability in respect of such communication.

I have been obsessed lately with success. I often wonder where people get the energy to push themselves to greatness. Reading numerous books and magazine articles over the years they all point to the same thing, a CEO who has no ego with a passion to put a dent in the world. Of course having access to lots of money helps. No matter which company it is, those that have climbed the hill to greatness had the same basic formula - a formula that Jim Collins and his team chronicled in the book Good to Great.

Let me list them for you - 1) level 5 leadership, 2) get the right people in the right position, 3) confront the brutal facts, 4) simplicity - focus on your core competencies, and 5) a culture of discipline.

Besides Howard Schultz of Starbucks, Steve Jobs of Apple ranks right up there with the best of the best. A passion to change the world, and boy has he done that. The book listed to the left, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs by Carmine Gallo, is a 200+ page study of how Steve Jobs presents his company and its products. I was getting on a plane returning from a Sea Shipping Line Sales & Trade corporate meeting in the Bay Area and needed something to keep my mind active for the very boring flight back. Airline flights have to rank up there as the most boring events of all time. Anyway, the book has changed the way I will view sales & marketing collateral in the future.

Mr. Jobs is a Zen minimalist - he believes in simplicity at all cost. Present the product and show how it will make your life easier, who cares about the details. My first attempt at this is in the first article written above - "The Power of Choice". Our Trade and Sales meeting proved as always to expose lots of things - but we do have some new tools that will be unveiled over the course of the next few weeks/months. I hope to be talking about them in depth in upcoming newsletters. In the meantime, remember to stay positive in your thoughts and focus on what really matters, the rest will take care of itself. Will someone keep reminding me of this also?

Thanks for reading and thinking Sea Shipping Line...
Frank Belsito
Director of Marketing & Sales - Sea Shipping Line (California) Inc.

www.seashipping.com