Chris Goss Talks About the TB Europe Expansion with Freight Business Journal Editor
27 Sep 2024
Trailer Bridge Vice President, Government and Projects, Chris Goss sat down with Freight Business Journal Editor Chris Lewis to discuss the European market and TB’s growth into the region. The article featured in Issue 6 of the publication highlights the transportation and logistics needs of the U.S. military and its allies and how private sector businesses are stepping up.
Read the full article below. For more on what’s going on in the German market, visit the full Freight Business Journal Issue 6 2024 here.
Article featured in Freight Business Journal Issue 6 2024:
US-based transportation provider Trailer Bridge has opened a company in Frankfurt, Germany, marking its first owned entity in Europe.
Trailer Bridge Europe will be led by industry veteran, Jason Trubenbach and will provide end-to-end solutions for both commercial and government shippers with a full suite of land and ocean transport services, warehousing, freight forwarding, air transport and contract services.
The company was founded in 1991 by container pioneer Malcolm McLean to serve the Caribbean market but has since expanded to be a full-service, asset-light logistics solution provider headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. It now has a Government Division solely focused on military freight.
Vice president, government and projects, Chris Goss, said that having its own entity in Germany would allow Trailer Bridge to develop closer relationships with its customers and would help increase its knowledge base. On a practical note, having an office operating on European time would also make contact easier.
The company plans to recruit further personnel in Germany to join Jason Trubenbach in due course over the next few months.
A large part of Trailer Bridge’s work is for the US military and other arms of the US government. Trubenbach himself brings two and a half decades of transportation experience including 20 years with the US Army. The company provides a range of logistics support services for the US military, including moving all the equipment needed to set up bases and camps where needed.
While the Cold War has been over for 30 years now, the US continued to maintain a military presence in Germany and with the renewed tensions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it has one again been increasing number of troops on the continent. Its interests also extend beyond Germany to Poland, the Baltics and Scandinavia, although Trailer Bridge has no immediate plans to open up entities outside Germany for the time being. “It would really depend on what the need is,” said Chris Goss. “However, what we would do is partner with other companies and reach out to the market through them.”
Trailer Bridge has a network of partner agents through Europe, including Poland, Denmark, and the UK.
While much of the company’s business is US military and government related, it is also keen to develop commercial cargo.
For the military and government business, Trailer Bridge uses a lot of breakbulk and project shipping, but it also uses containers and RORO capacity. It will also charter tonnage where necessary.
For the US military business, US flagged vessels are the preferred option, but with such ships relatively few and far between – and also with the continued disruption to global shipping which means that vessels are frequently swapped at short notice – these aspirations sometimes must be tempered with reality, says Goss. “We may wait for a US-flagged ship in some cases, but there are not a large number of them, particularly container vessels.” (German carrier Hapag-Lloyd does however have a couple of US-flagged ships in its fleet.)
Surprisingly, perhaps, the US government and military does not enjoy any priority over commercial cargo.
“Often, the biggest challenge is obtaining container equipment,” says Goss. “That might sometimes mean cargo having to be rolled over to another sailing.”
Trailer Bridge uses a variety of ports to access the European theatre, including Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp and increasingly, Poland.
