Crowley Announces Senior Management Appointments and Restructuring of Some Business Units
(Jacksonville, Fla.; June 28, 2005) – Crowley Maritime Corporation today announced three appointments to senior management positions and the consolidation of some of its business units effective July 1 to better focus on the company’s main business segments and to create synergies and efficiencies across traditional service offerings.
John Douglass has been appointed senior vice president and general manager of the newly combined business unit made up of the ship assist and escort services and the energy and marine services groups. Replacing Douglass will be Rob Grune as senior vice president and general manager of the company’s Puerto Rico and Caribbean liner services business unit. Rocky Smith has been named senior vice president and general manager for all of Crowley’s petroleum transportation and distribution business. This new business unit is comprised of Crowley’s Marine Transport Lines subsidiary and the companys petroleum transportation, distribution and sales business on the West Coast and in Alaska. Previously, these activities were operated and managed separately.
The three executives will continue to report to Tom Crowley Jr., chairman, president and CEO.
“Each of these gentlemen brings a wealth of experience to his new position,” Crowley said. “The appointments also reinforce our management philosophy of placing highly effective managers in technically different businesses. We believe this strengthens our ability to serve our diverse customer base.”
Crowley’s commitment to commercial and government customers was a consideration in the decision to group certain business entities under common management.
“Business entities will remain separate with respect to contracting and procurement, technical, operations, and finance,” Crowley said. “Collective bargaining agreements currently in place with our various labor partners for these entities will also remain intact. What will change is an organizational structure that now complements Crowley’s corporate safety and quality vision, ensuring consistent implementation of procedures and policies across similar business entities.”
Douglass has been with Crowley for 18 years during which time he has held numerous positions in sales, pricing and general management on the liner side of the business, most recently heading the Puerto Rico and Caribbean Services business unit. In his new position he will be responsible for ship assist and escort services, both commercial and government ship management, global contract marine services, Alaska North Slope services and salvage operations. Douglass will relocate from Jacksonville to Seattle. Prior to joining Crowley, Douglass held senior management positions in the areas of sales, marketing, and pricing for United States Lines’ European, South America, and Far East services. Douglass holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Seton Hall University in New Jersey.
Grune will relocate from Seattle to Jacksonville to assume the overall management responsibilities for the Puerto Rico and Caribbean liner services group. He joined Crowley in 1995 as director of strategic accounts in Seattle and was appointed vice president and general manager, ship assist and escort services in 2001. Before joining Crowley, Grune served three years as manager of tanker chartering at Continental-Tosco Limited Partnership in Stamford, Conn. He launched his maritime career sailing for Texaco, Inc., as an officer on its U.S. flag tanker fleet from 1980 to 1986. He then served as economics and planning analyst with Texaco in Harrison, N.Y. In 1989, he took the post of chartering manager at OMI Corp.; an independent New York-based oil tanker firm. Grune graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, N.Y., and received an MBA from Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, N.C.
Smith, a 24-year Crowley veteran, will be responsible for the combined oil and chemical transportation and distribution business. He joined Crowley on the West Coast and has held positions in oil transportation, harbor services, tanker services and operations before being named senior vice president and general manager for Crowley’s Marine Transport Lines subsidiary in 2002. His new responsibilities will cover bulk petroleum transportation, chemical parcel transportation, tank farm storage, and retail and commercial petroleum product distribution in Alaska. Smith graduated from Pomona College in 1977 and earned an MBA degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986. He is a member of the American Bureau of Shipping.
Oakland-based Crowley Maritime Corp., founded in 1892, is primarily a family- and employee-owned company engaged in worldwide logistics, liner services, contract towing and transportation, energy support services, ship assist and escort services, vessel management and petroleum and chemical marine transport. Additional information about Crowley, its subsidiaries and business units may be found on the Internet at www.crowley.com.
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