Clearfreight, Inc.

cause you have to be 24/7.We are also brokers for big furniture and retail companies in the mid-west. “For air export, a lot is less than container load and we do full containers, airplane charters, everything for trade shows–we shipped monkeys to Canada for a show. In air freight,we have the ability to containerize in unit load devices,which the carri- ers have.We do packing and crating, and I spend a good part of my day consulting, telling people what they have to do to get a product into, say, Pakistan. We’re actually bringing in cadaver corneas from France to cure the sight of people in the United States. It’s very complicated because the FDA and the USDA got involved and customs can be arbi- trary. So,we have to work our way through each situation, especially when it’s a new kind of product that, on the import side, the U.S. government hasn’t seen.” BVM: “What’s planned for the future? Reynolds: “There are three or four things on the drawing board all the time.The Taiwanese acquisi- tion is still in progress; the company owners want to retire and we’re taking it over.Most recently,we absorbed 10 new people in Los Angeles because the company they worked for folded and closed, so we took all of them in. It’s a constant thing, some- times serendipitous. For example, after my house burned down in the California fires in November, I met someone at the hotel where I was staying.His aunt and uncle own a firm in Toronto that’s mostly domestic trucking.They’re older and can’t run it any more, so there’s a good chance we’ll buy that.We’re always looking for good deals from people who, for one reason or another,want to sell. “The long-term plan is geared more toward tech- nology. In our industry,whether it’s the three largest integrated carriers, the track and trace of contain- ers, the flow of information by way of ease (where the customer just has to hit a button to locate their shipment) is what’s happening.The challenge is that it’s not all uniformwith carriers and customs