One of our IT guys, Kevin Gorny, was honored to participate in the Let’s Roll Flight 93 Memorial Ride sponsored by the Erie Manufacturer’s and Business Association. The riders drove down to Shanksville, Pa. for the memorial service on Sunday, Sept 11 at the crash site in the fields there.

Also here is a link to an article about what actually happened on Flight 93 from my favorite magazine, “The Week”.

Thanks to Kevin for representing us there, and thanks to The Mfg and Business Association for doing this. Over $250,000 was raised towards the completion of the memorial.

And, of course, our deepest thanks to the heroes of flight 93 who gave their lives to save another attack on our nations’ capitol on that black day. True Heroes!

Saturday we had a pig roast at my place on the lake. A good time (and good pig) was had by all.

Here are some pictures of the day’s event:

Tim and Illya preparing to get the main course out of my bathtub. Nice getup, Tim!

Illya was sure surprised when he got to my house 2am Friday night and found this in his bathtub.

Mmmm…

The theme for Diana’s birthday was the 60’s. Here a bunch of the girls show off their 60’s duds. That’s Diana on the right with Abi and Jenn.

I can’t recognize the two girls in the back, but, man, they are butt ugly!

I am proud to announce that the Logistics Plus team WON the recent kickball tournament for kids sponsored by the Young Erie Professionals (YEP). (not really)

TO PROVE IT–Here is a picture of the championship Logistics Plus kickball team at the recent Young Erie Professionals Kickball for Kids Tournament. (Please note–even though this picture shows our team holding the championship trophy, we really did not win the event–not even close. We just took a picture of us holding the trophy before the tournament began).

Front Row: Diana (Tiny) Sanchez, Gretchen (G2) Nuber, the trophy (please note we did not really win it), and Adam (Mook) Mook.

Back Row: Khash (Cash Money) Azizollahi, Andy (Biker Boy) Seidler, Kama (Kama kama kama chameleon) Ford, Abi (Killer) Lopez, Yuriy (the Yurinator) Ostapyak, and Jarrod (J-Rod) Fedor.

In honor of their victory (please note they really did not win) I am treating them all to dinner at La Bon Vie Steakhouse (not really–maybe McDonalds) to celebrate.

I’m SOOOO proud of them! (not really).

Can’t wait til next year J

JB

PS–the funniest thing is that all of them were sore as hell for the next couple of days. Most of them are in pretty decent shape, work out and are athletes, but they were walking around Union Station all messed up. Hilarious! J

Hey, been out of commission for awhile (just busy–LP is having a record year this year!) but I wanted to fill people in on some of the latest developments.

The acquisition of Horizon Logistics has been a huge success. Not only did we acquire great people and great businesses in Dallas, Lexington, NC and San Francisco, but we have a whole new customer base in the US and around the world. The Horizon folks are just like us–a passion for what they do to satisfy the customers–and it has been a very easy transition. Several of them have visited Erie (and really liked what they saw) and more will be coming soon (they all want to come before winter–why? J). You know, I always joke that I get over-enthused about things, but in the case of Horizon, even our finance and IT folks come back loving the people who became LP J

So, believe it or not, we now have a dozen US offices (and over 20 around the world), even though our corporate HQ is still here in Erie. More to come.

You’ve seen the new mural on the Wayne St warehouse.

And we are opened up our newest office in Montreal on August 1st. LP Afghanistan to open up Oct. 1.

I attended Rotary today and Lorenzo Simonelli, CEO of GE Transportation made a good point. One of the features shaping the world today is the growth in the developing world–Asia, Africa and S. America. As more and more people start to live better they need roads, housing, they buy toasters and refrigerators. Since everything comes from someplace and goes someplace, it just means more and more shipping, more and more production, and the need for people who know how to get things there on time, in good shape at the right price.

Logistics is a true profession of the future. And we are happy to have customers all over the world, managed from Union Station in Erie, Pa.

More to follow!

JB

I love exercise. I think it is important and good for you to work out, stay in shape. So, for the past few years I have had a personal trainer come over to the house a couple of days every week as well as walking or running every day and going to Best Fitness a couple of days at week as well.

But having the trainer come over (at 6am) INSURES that I am up and at it, no matter what. So it is good discipline and effective.

Also, having a GOOD trainer matters. I love mine. He is not a “knucklehead” (normally) and has a good and balanced approach. In fact, for the past 2 years he has come to Union Station and trains several of our employees there as well. I always recommend him.

Until today that is.

Our trainer, who shall remain nameless (Jeff Wright) for some unknown reason this morning decided to drink a can of Red Bull before coming over at 6am to train us.

Motherf******r!!!

I think we did 6 sets of 15 reps on 4 different machines in the first 10 minutes. He was all pumped up and I guess forgot that HE drank the Red Bull not us.

Apparently it’s not just for hangovers anymore.

So, please beware–Red Bull can be dangerous to your health. Even if someone else drinks it!

Saw Buddy Guy at Mercyhurst the other night. What a great showman and show.

Buddy Guy is a famous blues guitarist who has influenced folks like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Buddy and his band played to a packed hall of 800 (sold out 6 weeks in advance) and played the guitar, sang, told stories, walked through the crowd playing and bought on a local 13 year old guitarist who also knocked em dead.

Great show. Thanks so much to Michael Fuhrman for “pushing the limit” and bringing a talent like this to Erie. As Michael said, the size of the crowd, and the response to the show, will generate more such events in the future.

Unforgettable night!

Well, the 3 week journey is about to end. We are heading back to Erie tonight and I am sure that by now all the snow is gone and the weather is beautiful, right? Ha ha!

We ended up making half a dozen US stops on the way back from Turkey. Laredo, Dallas, Houston, KC, Quincy and Chicago–right up the gut of the good old USA. We got to visit some friends and customers, get some new business, and explore new opportunities. All things I really enjoy doing. One thing I’ve learned over the years that no matter here in the USA or around the world–RELATIONSHIPS MATTER.

I believe it matters in EVERYTHING, but in business–and especially in a service business like ours–it makes a big difference to get to know (and understand) people you deal with. It’s not so much that knowing them GETS you the business, though that can help–but when things happen/when something goes wrong (which it inveitably will at some point–this is not a perfect world) it tends to help when you know someone, have sat with them, relaxed with them, partied with them (Yuriy?). They are less likely to “shoot you” at the drop of a hat.

Even internally, for our own employees sitting in offices all over the world, you think of/act differently towards someone with whom you’ve broken bread and is not just a voice on the phone.

Anyway…

A wonderful, enjoyable and successful trip. Thanks to my various travel partners and to the people we met with along the way, and of course to the terrific team back in Erie and around the world who “keep on keeping on” when I am away trying my best to continue to grow the business so that we can bring new good people into the LP family.

Thanks,

JB

While in Istanbul we were also able to finalize our latest venture, a partnership between MTS and LP to start LP/MTS Canada. LP has been in Canada for years, and it is a market largely untapped by Turkish forwarders. We are joining with our friend, Timur Fidan of MTS to bring his lifetime of experience and relationships in the forwarding industry to our presence and knowledge of the Canadian market to take us to the next level there. Timur’s younger son, Cem, will join LP/MTS as we open a Montreal office under Chris Dennis’ direction. Cem’s brother, Can, runs MTS USA, based in NYC and is already a good friend of ours. Timur and Zoeb (Zobi) go back a long time together and this is the next step in that relationship.

We spent 2 very memorable days with Timur concluding the details of this arrangement. This was highlighted by one of the best meals any of us have ever had, at Timur and Nur’s beautiful home in Istanbul. No exaggeration, I bet we had 15 different items, one better than the other, all hand prepared by Nur herself (she is a lovely lady). Dinner was followed by a wonderfully relaxing evening of Andrea Bocelli on tv.

Since we are all (except for Chris) trying to lose weight, I wrote Timur later that night suggesting that our celebratory dinner at his favorite Bosporus restaurant the next day be made a much lighter meal since it is so hard to turn away any of this food–it is SO GOOD–that gets placed in front of us. So, true to his word, we only ate one meal to celebrate the next day. The only problem was that it ran (literally, I am not kidding) from 1pm til 9pm and included 7 bottles of wine. Timur made it a point to mention that while my email asking to “go light” on the next day’s dinner was 4 paragraphs long, my email to him about our partnership was only 3 lines : ).

So, in the end, we had 2 of the best meals of our lives back to back and we concluded and celebrated this newest venture, LP/MTS Canada. Much more on that to come in the days, months and years ahead, I’m sure. Thank you Timur and Cem and Nur. Onward!

The last stop on our round the world tour was Istanbul, one of the coolest cities and best countries in the world. I really love Turkey and its beauty, its people, its food.

We were here to open up our newest office, our 2nd in Turkey (Mersin is the first) and to meet our newest employee and Operations Manager, Basar Kandil. We also came to meet an old friend, Timur Fidan, Chairman of MTS a large Turkish forwarder. Joining us on this part of our journey was Chris Dennis, the Managing Director of LP Canada and Emad El Amed, the MD of LP Libya. Also, Aziz Oztoprak, the MD of LP Turkey and Alev Semiz who heads up our Mersin office, and Bahadir Erdil, the head of our Sales and Marketing. Also rejoining us was Zoeb Raniwala (Zobi) who oversees N. Africa as well as Europe for us. A very fun group.

The new office is right on the Bosporus–a beautiful view, and our opening was joined by many friends from different forwarders and shipping lines and customers. I can tell already that the LP Turkey team is going to take the company to new heights there. They are a young, energetic, experienced team that are going to grow and have fun doing it.

Alev, Aziz and Bahadir have all been to Erie already and Basar will be next. Of course, we have our own Turkish girl,Bedriye Yortanli, working in Erie already as an unofficial part of the LP Turkey team. We have also made Illya part of LP China (our LP China US office in Chicago) and LP China is going to hire a Chinese-Turk who speaks both languages to help develop that trade lane as well. Always helps to have someone focused exclusively on certain parts of the business.

We have a fairly big office in Shanghai, with about a dozen folks there. Wonderful group led by Naran Andreyev a New Jersey born and bred Mongolian who has worked for several of “the big guys” and is a licensed US Customs broker. Frederik Geirnart, a smart and experienced Belgian, who speaks about 8 languages, runs our projects there. Keila Oropeza, from LP Mexico, heads up our N. American business. Our ops team consists of Bruce (Kung Fu Panda) and Jane and Pony and Vlad–great guy all. And Jenny heads up our finance team of Jo Jo and Alice. LP China is growing and looking for other good ops folks to join the team.

Shanghai is an amazing city. It always reminds me of New York, even the look and the feel of it. Very worldly, the finance capital of China, with lots of ex pats living and working there. We spent (and when I see “we” I mean Yuriy and Naran) LOTS of time in the clubs there. They were usually joined by Illya from our LP Chicago office who spent a month there helping LP China handle the rapidly growing workload (thanks, Illya) and sometimes Frederik (“Little Tiger” who is learning all kinds of BS stories to tell his wife, Karen so he can join in the late night fun). Unfortunately none of them gave me too full a report on those late hour activities, so I can’t report back in full detail here. But the only picture we have of the goings on is scary as hell–so probably best I DON’T know.

As you can clearly see, at some point during their adventures, somehow Illya’s head got shrunken. Don’t know how or why, and nobody’s talking, but by daylight when they were back in the office, Illya’s shrunken head had gotten pretty much back to normal, so no real big concern on my part–as long as they make it back to work in time and with their normal head size–I’m cool.

Off for a 2 week business trip that will take us to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Istanbul to visit offices, customers and friends. I know I have not been keeping up with the blog. Not because I don’t want to or don’t have the time (you can always find the time) but because it seems not too many folks are interested. So, Ill just do this for whomever. (warning, names shall NOT be changed to protect the innocent : )

Hong Kong

Hong Kong was our first stop. Yuriy met up with us there after spending a week visiting his parents in beautiful Ivanofrankivsk, Ukraine (where once again, his Mom and Dad unsuccessfully tried to marry him off to a nice, local girl. Craig–you lucked out : ) Also joining us was our Managing Director of LP Europe, Mr. Zoeb Raniwala, and our MD of LP Germany, Jorg Druhmel, both great guys. Zoeb lives in London and is a 35 year vet of our industry, having been a director of P&O “back in the day” and the consummate “fixer”. Knows people and how to get things done. Jorg (a Sabres fan, by the way) also has a lifetime in the industry (with great stories to tell from his days working across the globe all the way from South Africa to Archangel) and brought us there to meet one of his colleagues, Mr. Aaron Lau.

As is the custom, Aaron took us all out to a wonderful seafood dinner by the water. You actually walk outside where there are huge tanks of live fish, shrimp, octopus, lobsters etc. and you choose which ones you want. They throw them into big buckets and then you walk to your restaurant where the dinner is cooked. Unbelievably fresh and good. Amazing. Of course the other tradition is drinking rice wine (Mao Tai) til you puke. Luckily, our host, who claimed to be “the best drunker in China. NO ONE can outdrunk me” only had one bottle (52%/not 58%) so Yuriy and Jorg and Zoeb helped him polish it off without much damage. (that does not count the dozen of so beers–Blue Girl mostly–if you look at the pictures you will understand why) that we washed the rice wine down with.

All that liquor did command Aaron,who has known Jorg and Zoeb for 15 years, to somehow morph their names into Josh and Zobi which is how they will now forever be known to us (Julie, can you please order some new business cards for them?)

We also got to visit the island of Macau, which I think is a bigger gambling center than Las Vegas. Pretty incredible place though none of us gambled (we called Bosko for advice but he was asleep–12 hour time difference–sorry, Matt : ). We went to the Venezia Hotel which has real (well, fake real) canals with gondolas and does look remarkably like Venice (without the smell).

Hong Kong is an incredible city and we will look to grow our presence and business there.

You know the main drum I have been beating for the past couple of years is EXPORTS. Seems like an issue that, in spite of all the divisiveness between political parties in the US, everyone can agree on.

It creates American jobs.

It expands manufacturers’ audience from a few hundred million to several billion potential customers.

It puts American products all over the world.

It helps serve the rapidly rising middle classes in Asia, India and Africa.

And it connects countries and people, which, in my book, is always a good thing.

That has been the focus of our message at Logistics Plus–that you don’t have to be a Fortune 500 company to export. Medium-sized and even small businesses can do it/are doing it. And we can help.

I hate to sound like an ad, but truly, this is important.  Even if you choose to use someone else besides LP, manufacturers–you should explore the global market and the opportunity to sell to it.  People are still hungry for American made goods, and it brings them closer to us when they are able to acquire them.  Plus we have a lot of competitors out there selling to them if we don’t.

Thanks,

Jim Berlin