A Twenty-Five Year Look Back!

A Twenty-Five Year Look Back!

I can’t separate my 25th Excargo Anniversary from a retrospective on Port Houston, formerly Port of Houston.

Little did I know that when I applied for an order entry position in this small container trucking company that I was walking into a career that would take me into a whole new world of global commerce and customer service for fascinating companies and cargoes. Transportation is truly in my blood now and I am anxious to see what new developments await us.

When I first started work, we were very manual.

• Paper, telephones, and fax machines were our primary tools.
• We have gone from calling Conics phone line to see if our containers were released.to many evolutions of Port systems and now being online
• We actually talked to each other!
• We had to call steamship lines to release equipment.
• We had to wait for Fax Machines to receive orders.
• We had to write or type orders from faxed orders and then hand them to drivers!
• We had to call customer service at the Port to solve driver issues.
• Barbour’s Cut and Sealand were the main terminals, now we have Bayport.
• Chassis yards have dramatically improved
• The Panama Canal has opened China volumes to us.
• Cameras on the gates, our trucks, our drivers make decisions easier.
• The driver’s workday has also changed with Electronic ELOGS and technology– no more using a ruler to draw lines for your hours of service. (Another blog for that!)

What has not changed in 25 years:

• The port and steamship data exchange are not what we need, still lumpy and unreliable.
• Resin is king in the market and is highly volatile.
• Customers want to haul max, and we can now do it safer.
• The port is continually growing and improving.
• Weather events challenge us, whether fog or hurricanes.

As I reflect over the years, it is great to see the changes in Excargo, too!

• The Excargo Snail has changed 3 times.
• Marcia’s vision to be paperless is a reality.
• And I got to be a key part of the digitization process.
• We went from FoxPro to the latest online tools.
• We automate everything we can.
• We have led the way in track and tracing and intermodal web tools.
• Our investment in chassis has also been exciting and beneficial.
• We have added locations and services.
• Our customer retention remains excellent.

So proud of our team!

Cheers to many more years of happy trucking.