All five of us hit it off like a house on fire and apart from Gary, who moved over to Qantas after the FedEx merger, Ron, Jim and Mike have enjoyed a twenty-one year friendship and business relationship. CII in the nineties became on of FedEx’s largest forwarder customers in the States and today we still remain a big supporter. Ron, Jim and Mike may have seen a number of bosses come and go at Memphis HQ, but for us FedEx has been a constant. All this will come to a close, when the junior of the three Mike Scanlan retires at the end of the month. For the CII team and me personally it will be a huge loss for us with Mike no longer around. Mike made the mistake many years ago giving Peter and me his home phone number. In the days when Pete and I together spent all day Saturday fifty weeks a year overseeing operations and even building the ULD’s and then following the freight over to the Allied Way terminal to make sure all was okay for acceptance, if there was a slight chance our freight would not ride as booked, we had no hesitation calling Mike at home, “Hey Mike, we’re worried you’re heavily overbooked, our freight including the extra units have to move!” Mike was always a great sport and Pete and I can vouch he always followed through and his confirming call on Sunday told us the good news and sometimes the bad news. His wife Ginny and daughter, Kelly in those halcyon days always wanted to meet this Peter and Julian, the two guys who consistently turned Mike into a seven day a week FedEx manager at the expense of them enjoying a relaxing family weekend! “Just who are these guys, don’t they have families too?”

After twenty-one years sadly we are going to miss Mike. When daughter Kelly was five, Mike made a conscious decision that family was more important than his career. At Flying Tigers he had became part of senior management which involved much travel. In 1988 he took a demotion to L.A. rep and as far as he is concerned it was the smartest move he ever made. From a selfish point of view FedEx’s loss in not being able to take advantage of Mike’s true worth was our gain. There is not one man in the airline industry who can hold a candle to Mike. No airline executive has worked as hard for us as Mike. But apples don’t fall far from the tree! His old Flying Tiger family of Ron Labac, Jim Haggerty and Beverly Bolin also rank among the best of the best. When CII started in 1993, we had to ask for airline credit. The only airline at the get-go that put its hand up was FedEx. Mike placed a little pressure upon Jim to go into battle for us and Jim told the V.P. of credit in Memphis, “I know this guy Keeling and I am so confident of him being a great customer into the future, I will personally vouch for him.” Without Mike and Jim, there would be no CII and Pete and I to this day owe them both a huge debt of gratitude.

So there it is; the end of a wonderful era where CII without the start Jim and Mike gave us, this blog would not exist and CII will have remained an unfulfilled dream. For twenty-one years I have dealt with Mike and he has been an outstanding ambassador for his company. On many an occasion we didn’t get what we were seeking, but Mike was always fair. In fact, more than fair; he is a total class act as a human being. In this age where we now live in an “it is all about me” society and friends remain friends so long as they are useful, gentlemen like Mike Scanlan are going the way of the dinosaur. Little wonder Pete and I know there will be a real emptiness from next month because Mike will not be picking up extension 4166 anymore. Some consolation is we still have Jim, Ron and Bev!

We will never forget when Ron Labac and Mike Scanlan of FedEx supported and endorsed our application for credit in 1993 and our first schedule had us supporting FedEx to every destination. By the end of 1993 we had secured IATA registration and this allowed us the benefits of expanding our horizons. For the first two years, every night we followed our freight to the airlines to make sure we went home knowing we had done everything possible to ensure the consolidation would ride as booked. We love the challenges that moving over size freight brings. Our very first shipment on FedEx was a forty foot long packaging machine ex Monroe, Louisiana that we shipped to Melbourne. Because of the weight and dimensions it took all our powers of persuasion (and Peter’s intimate first hand knowledge) with the loadmaster to center load the freight with spreaders. We won! The twenty-six tonne machine was three days after dispatch being installed at Coca Cola’s plant.

Fast forward to 2007 and Peter convinced Qantas to divert their freighter into Nadi, Fiji to drop off a twelve tonne spool of cable ex N.Y. to meet a cable laying vessel held up in port eagerly awaiting its arrival. Tony Feist, now our VP Special Projects approached us with his dilemma while working for another forwarder. CII made the impossible happen and while the shipper and consignee were ecstatic that 24 hours later the spool was being loaded on board the vessel in Lautoka, we received not one word of thanks from the forwarder, apart from Tony being over the moon. The rest is history. Tony decided to join a company that put a can do spirit mingled with unbridled passion into everything it does.

When we negotiated with new South Pacific entrant Air Pacific back in 1994, we promoted the service as “Coconut Express”. Back then we had a competitor in the name of Patrick Keelaghan. His life was tragically taken from him some ten years ago and we still mourn his death. Patrick was a character in the truest sense of the word. For a few weeks our twice weekly fax broadcast was full on about “Coconut Express”. Patrick decided he needed to counter this nuisance promotion so he faxed everyone around the airport, “No, we have no coconuts today. If you want some, use the competitor. You can sit under a palm tree in Fiji enjoying eating it while your freight is also stuck there. If you want your freight to arrive as per schedule on a prime carrier better that you ship with us!” Dealing with a competitor whose passion matched ours actually brought so much more fun into our everyday lives. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery and with the one or two motley competitors in the marketplace today, watching and copying our every move, we still yearn for the days of Patrick Keelaghan. Without going head to head with him in those halcyon first five years, that burning desire to provide great service with a passion would not still be in our veins today. What a shame there has been not one competitor to even come close to Patrick.

Our team is a little larger today, but Pete and I rest happy the culture of our company is engrained in every team member. Examples; Graham Burford our VP Global Sales elects to travel Sundays when visiting out of town customers, so first thing Monday morning he sees his first customer. Pete and I don’t expect that of him. That is what he elects to do himself. The man is driven by passion to pack as many productive hours into each and every day. Both Mike Castro, VP Operations and Lyne Enzweiler, VP Admin arrive at work at seven every weekday morning. And they don’t leave at five either. Both will burn “the midnight oil” if there is still work to complete! The same can be said of Greg Melissinos in N.Y. and Christian Calderon in Atlanta. Thanks Pete for helping us build a company we can all be proud of.

Apart from Ron Labac and Mike Scanlan at the “old” FedEx, I have never mingled such worthless people as I did when I was in the clutches of the integrators. As far as I am concerned UPS can take a permanent hike as they will never see another kilo of our freight because we absolutely have three of the best airlines with the best people in the world looking after our freight and we need look no further than them for our Asian and South Pacific needs. I don’t know why it took so long for me to see the light.

Thanks again SQ, NZ and QF. You all run a great operation and we feel privileged being your customer.