Malcom McLean

Malcom Purcell McLean (born 14 November 1913 in Maxton, North Carolina, USA; † 25 May 2001, Manhattan, New York, United States) was an American shipowners and carriers and is considered the inventor of multimodal transport with the help of containers.

Life

McLean was originally baptized in the name of Malcolm, but later decided in favor of adopting the traditional Scottish spelling of the name.

McLean was born in 1913 near the small town of Maxton ( the U.S. state of North Carolina). After graduating from high school, he worked as a gas station attendant until 1934 by the money saved bought a used truck. Together with his brothers Jim and Clara McLean, he founded a small shipping company. In the early years the company made its sales mainly with the transport of tobacco.

Already in 1937, was annoyed McLean, who worked at that time itself as a driver in the company, about the long waiting times that occurred during unloading of a vehicle. In the next few years he developed the idea, instead of laboriously carry a single box and sacks of goods from truck to ship, easy to load the complete semi-trailer of a truck on the ship and put back on a vehicle at the destination. The system was also easily transferred to trains, but first there were no takers, who were willing to finance McLean's idea. Although there were several approaches to transport larger transport containers both on the rail and ships, but McLean's ideas surpassed all unprecedented approaches.

1955 McLean sold his shares in the McLean Trucking Company - decreed the meantime a fleet of almost 1,800 vehicles - for $ 25 million. A short time later he took over the small shipping company Pan - Atlantic Steamship Company, which was previously owned by the Waterman Steamship Corporation, for $ 7 million. Shortly after completion of the acquisition McLean acquired two tankers used by the U.S. Navy, which were rebuilt under his direction to container ships. On April 26, 1956 finally left the first of its container vessels, the Ideal X, the port of Newark (New Jersey) with the aim of Houston in Texas.

In the following years, both the idea of ​​using containers, as well as McLean's company Pan - Atlantic established. In 1957, the first scheduled service was set up in 1960, the company is in Sea-Land Corporation renamed (the company was acquired by Maersk in 1999 and exists as a daughter to date). McLean sold the company in the late 1960s to the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company and founded in the years to more successful forwarding company. The last one was Trailer Bridge, which was led by McLean until his death in 2001, in 1992.

2004 McLean was taken in recognition of his achievements in the Logistik Hall of Fame.