Mixing Business with Pleasure

SSA Marine's CEO enjoys his job, runs a highly successful stevedoring company, takes very good care of his employees and claims he has never had to make major job cuts. Oh, and he recently landed the first Iraqi port contract...

One of SSA Marine's senior executives portrays his boss, Jon Hemingway, as "a man who enjoys what he's doing", and the description of the CEO of the world's largest privately owned port management company could not be more accurate. In times when transport corporations are mostly public, the family-run SSA Marine is a unique example of how people make a difference, and Hemingway is a case in point. As he walks in the room in casual dress, shouldering a small backpack with a laptop and smiling cordially, Hemingway does not look the typical managing director and owner, but more like a guest of SSA Marine's Manzanillo International Terminal (MIT) where we meet, on Panama's Atlantic coast.

Today is a local holiday and port activity is in slow motion. After a cheerful "hello guys" to the small group of executives in the office, his first question is about productivity and he becomes excited when informed that the record was broken again at end-November with 42.6 crane movements per hour, ranking MIT second in the list of the world's five most productive ports. "You see, we have terrific people," Hemingway turns to inform me. Being a lawyer and a certified public accountant, he says he had no interest in the maritime industry in his early professional years. "I was practising law when my grandfather and company founder, Fred R Smith, passed away," he explains. When his uncle, Ricky Smith, who had run the company since 1962, asked him to join in 1985, he thought "it was fair to get involved because my grandfather paid for my education, so I came on board as general counsel". Two years in business development brought him more responsibilities on the company's administrative side, leading to his replacing his uncle as CEO and president when he retired in 1991.

"We are fortunate to have a family that gets along well," Hemingway says, explaining it was a family's decision to have only one member responsible for managing the business with the only condition "that [I] kept the interest of employees in mind. "I meet with my folks once a year to update on the business, but most of the meeting is about how our people are doing," he adds. "My grandfather was always a people person. It was his management style, and that was the reason we survived as a company," he recalls. "When my uncle Ricky promoted me, he only gave me one piece of advice: 'all CEOs are rewarded for cutting employees. Our mission is to grow a business for all the employees' benefit and that's where the family's benefit is. So, if you are going to make cuts, you will be the first'."

Hemingway credits his uncle not only with being a role model, but for helping create the culture of the organisation in terms of employee recognition, transparency of management, open shared offices, lack of pretension in officers and ensuring that the senior officers of the company are here "to support what happens on the docks, not the other way around, by working the hardest to see we survive and serve our customers". While his relatives have developed the US company with ventures from Alaska down to San Diego, Hemingway set an expansion course by starting operations internationally and on the US East Coast. Once again, he praises the company's "deep talent base to try new things" and the "common effort to create operations" in some 300 profit centres in more than 100 locations.

The 47-year-old executive believes in only one management formula: "We don't make high-level hires but do our promotions internally," adding that the company creates jobs by respecting four elements: competence, by training - the company has the only dedicated superintendent school in the US, in Seattle importance - by offering challenges to all employees fairness - he personally reviews bonus and compensation for some 450 employees each year and security - the company has little turnover, which provides better security. "Good results are driven by infrastructure and relationships, and the drivers are the people willing to do it," he states. With regard to the USAID contract SSA Marine won in April 2003 to reopen and operate the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr, Hemingway finds it "hilarious" to have been portrayed as a Republican donor.

"Neither me, nor any member of my family has made a contribution to a presidential campaign of any side," he says, betraying a slight impatience. "And over the past five years, more money has gone to the Democrats than the Republicans. "The only politicians I have contributed to are those I personally know and have great admiration for, such as Norm Dicks, congressman for Washington State, and senator Patty Murray - we [Murray and I] grew up together," he explains. "We got the contract because we had worked with the AID in other places and we had the best people and the best bid," Hemingway states. Would he like to see his children taking the helm at the group, and becoming a fourth-generation management? He replies that they are still young and it would be foolish of him to project any expectations. "To be honest, my own selfish preference is that they don't do something like I did, as I would like to see more of them when they become actively engaged in their career than they saw of me when they were little," he admits.

Name: Jon Hemingway

Born: 27 March 1956 , in Seattle

Family: Married with two sons 19 and 13, and two daughters 20 and 11. Older son and daughter studying at the Universities of Washington and Madrid respectively

Education: Graduated from the University of Washington in business with a degree in accounting (CPA), and from UOW law school with a degree in accounting in law

Career: Joined the family company Stevedoring Services of America - now known as SSA Marine - in 1985 as general counsel. In 1989, became administrator and, in 1991, CEO and group president

Hobbies/activities: Skiing with the family from November to April in their winter home in Crystal Mountain. "My best time is to watch the children play soccer and baseball. We - my wife Kim and I - are slaves to children's athletics. My only regret in life is missing a good deal of the older children's childhood while I travelled"

Company profile
In 1949, Fred R Smith founded the Bellingham Stevedoring company in Seattle, later to become SSA Marine, owned by the Smith-Hemingway family. SSA Marine is under the corporate umbrella of the Carrix Group (named FRS Corp until May 2003) based in Seattle and is the largest privately owned terminal and cargo handling operator in the world.

The group includes RMD (rail terminal services), Tideworks Technology (marine software) and other related marine and cargo-handling services. SSA Marine operates in 150 locations around the world, including Mexico, Chile, South Africa and New Zealand. It employs more than 10,000 people of which 2,500 are staff. Through an acquisition from Mexico's TMM, in 2003 SSA became the sole owner of the ports of Manzanillo, Cozumel, Vera Cruz and Progreso in Mexico. It won a USAID one-year renewable contract in April to reopen and operate Iraq's port of Umm Qasr. In 2002, Stevedoring Services of America was ranked 39 on the Forbes list of 500 largest private companies.

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