Crowley Maritime

Crowley Maritime has pushed and pulled its way into prominence as a tug and barge operator. The company's  Liner Services unit provides scheduled transportation of containers, trailers, and other cargo, mainly among ports in Latin and North America, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean Basin. Other units transport oil and chemical products and oil field equipment and provide ship assist/escort, marine salvage and emergency, towing, logistics, ship management, and fuel distribution services. Overall, the company's fleet includes more than 200 vessels. Founded in 1892 Crowley Maritime is owned by members of the founding Crowley family, including chairman/CEO Thomas Crowley, and company employees.

Geographic Reach

Crowley has operations in Africa, the Asia/Pacific, Canada, the Caribbean, Central America, Europe, and the US.

Operations

The company functions through its six operating lines of business, which include Puerto Rico/Caribbean Liner Services, Latin America Liner Services, Logistics, Marine Services, and Technical Services. Its sixth business line, which is Petroleum Services, provides transportation, distribution, and sales of petroleum products for the fuel industry in Alaska through its Service Oil and Gas Group. Crowley Maritime operates fuel terminals and a barge and truck fleet to transport fuel throughout Alaska.

Crowley operates RO/RO (roll-on-roll-off) and LO/LO (lift-on-lift-off) vessels, as well as tankers, tugs, and barges. In less than 10 years Crowley Maritime has invested almost one-quarter of a billion dollars in cargo equipment for its Liner Shipping Services segment. While Liner Shipping Services handles more traditional cargo, such as automobiles, trucks, buses, construction equipment, refrigerated cargo, apparel, and even hazardous materials, its TITAN Salvage subsidiary occasionally contends with more untraditional cargo. In fall 2010 it established a salvage base in Australia, which is strategically located to respond to marine emergencies in the Great Barrier Reef and in other South-West Pacific regions.

Strategy

Crowley is also building up its logistics capabilities through acquisitions. It picked up Houston-based Jarvis International Freight in early 2011. In addition to logistics, Jarvis conducted freight forwarding and export packing services; it was merged into Crowley Logistics in 2012. Also in 2011, Crowley built its presence through the acquisition of Puerto Rico Freight Systems, a company that specializes in freight consolidation and less-than-container load transportation for islands in the Caribbean. In 2010 the company bought sea and air freight logistics company Islandwide Air and Ocean to serve customers in Puerto Rico.