Page 34 - Port of Baltimore Magazine May/June 2011

[34] The Port of Baltimore ■ May/June 2011 To subscribe or renew, visitwww.marylandports.com
The company started in 1970 when
Gianluigi Aponte bought a used ship
and began a shipping line between the
Mediterranean and Somalia. Other used
vessels followed, but that era ended in 1996,
when MSC commissioned the MSC Rafaela,
a brand-new container ship with a capacity
of 3,301 TEUs.
The size of the ships grew along with
the business: In 2005, MSC brought the
8,300-TEU Rachele into being, and in 2011,
the brand-new Irene was launched with a
capacity of 13,800 TEUs.
Today, the Geneva-based company
owns 208 ships and operates a total of 432
vessels worldwide along 200 trade routes.
The company is ranked No. 1 for U.S. exports
in containers and No. 2 for U.S. imports in
containers.
But in recent years, MSC has shifted its
focus from growth to something that can’t
be measured in TEUs: customer satisfaction.
“Today, our goal is to finally dedicate more
time to understanding the customer’s
needs,” Dal Bo said. “We are a company
continuing to evolve and working to satisfy
what the market wants. I would be proud if
a client says, ‘We use you not only because
you have a lot of ships and services, but
because you are No. 1 in customer service.’ ”
Dal Bo, a Verona, Italy, native who has
been with MSC for 11 years, has a degree
in business and economics, and explains
he wasn’t initially interested in shipping.
“I was working in Italy and they asked if
I wanted to work in New York,” he said.
“New York was the magic word for me.”
But he quickly found himself fascinated by
the shipping business, and he moved to
Norfolk. “Accidentally, I was sucked into it,
and now it’s part of my life,” he said.
MSC made headlines in 2009 when it
signed a six-year extension of its contract
with the Port of Baltimore, agreeing to move
a minimum of 100,000 containers through
the Port annually, preserving 628 jobs.
Some 260 MSC vessels call on Baltimore
each year, with five weekly services. And as for
moving a minimum of 100,000 containers per
year — in 2010, MSC nearly doubled that goal,
shepherding 181,000 containers in and out.
The Port of Baltimore is well known for
its proximity to Midwest and Mid-Atlantic
markets, but Dal Bo said that it’s also a stra-
tegic port for direct service to Europe and
even the Far East. “Our ace in the hole is
the Far East service,” which started a year
ago and uses the Suez Canal. It accounts
for about 1,300 containers per call, or 1,700
TEUs. “That has been a success,” he said.