Crowley Maritime - History

History

Crowley was founded in 1892 when founder Thomas Crowley, the grandfather of current (as of June, 2010) Chairman, President and CEO Thomas B. Crowley, Jr., purchased an 18-foot Whitehall rowboat to provide transportation of personnel and supplies to ships anchored on San Francisco Bay. Within a few years, services broadened to include bay wing and ship assist services. In addition to acquiring larger vessels, the company expanded in the 1920s into Los Angeles Harbor with tugboats for ship assists and into Puget Sound with tug and barge transportation. Bulk petroleum transportation joined the list of company services in 1939.

In 1958, Crowley moved into Arctic transportation with an agreement to resupply the U.S. government’s Distant Early Warning Line on the Alaska coastline. It was the first penetration of the Arctic by commercial tug and barge services. This led to Crowley’s Alaska common carrier services whereby railcar, breakbulk, containerized and bulk petroleum cargoes were delivered to more than 130 villages, many of which lacked docking facilities.

Beginning in 1968, utilizing the earlier pioneering experience in the Arctic, Crowley began summer sealifts of equipment, supplies, buildings and production modules to Prudhoe Bay. Since then, 334 barges carrying nearly 1.3 million tons of cargo have been successfully delivered to the North Slope, including modules the size of ten story buildings and weighing nearly 6,000 tons.

In the 1970s, Crowley began transporting cargo between the U.S. and Puerto Rico and later expanded into the rest of the Caribbean, Central America and South America. The service primarily consisted of ships and large, triple-deck barges, some of which were 730 feet in length, carrying cargo in trailers and containers.

In 1987, Crowley was fined $800,000 by the Alaska Attorney General for violating Alaska's antitrust laws relating to fuel sales in Dillingham, Alaska and the surrounding area.

In 1989, Crowley tugs were first on the scene of the crippled tanker Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The Exxon Valdez oil spill was the second largest in U.S. history (after Deepwater Horizon, 2010) and Crowley was the prime supplier of marine equipment and personnel for the cleanup. To try to avoid future disasters, the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company contracted with Crowley to provide tanker assist and escort work in Valdez and Prince William Sound using tugs with “best available technology.”

In mid-1994, the top leadership of the corporation changed for only the second time in more than 100 years. Following the passing of his father, Thomas B. Crowley, Jr. was unanimously elected president, chairman of the board, and chief executive officer.

In 2011, Crowley was fined $17,000,000 and plead guilty to one federal price fixing charge for conduct arising out of illegal agreements between Crowley and its competitors in the Puerto Rico freight market.

In the last 20 years, Crowley has shed some of its businesses, including its Red & White Fleet passenger ferry services in San Francisco and its South America shipping services, while expanding in other areas through a series of acquisitions. Crowley bought Marine Transport Corporation, a petroleum and chemical transportation company; Speed Cargo Services, a non-vessel operating common carrier (NVOCC); Apparel Transportation, a Central America logistics services provider to the apparel industry, Yukon Fuel Company and Service Oil and Gas, which are Alaska-based fuel distribution and sales companies, TITAN Salvage, a worldwide salvage and emergency response company, Jensen Maritime Consultants, a Seattle-based Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering firm, and Customized Brokers, a Miami-based customs clearance company specializing in perishable, refrigerated cargoes.

Crowley has expanded its petroleum carrying capabilities in recent years with the construction of four new 155,000-barrel articulated tug barge (ATB) tank vessels and ten 185,000-barrel ATBs, the last of which was delivered in 2011. In 2007, the company placed orders for three, 330,000-barrel ATBs, which are scheduled for delivery by mid-2013.

The business was incorporated in the State of Delaware as "Crowley Maritime Corporation" on December 1, 1972. The present structure, in which Crowley Maritime Corporation is a holding company for the business lines, was put in place in 1992. The Company is predominantly owned by members of the Crowley family and company employees, and its shares do not trade on any national securities exchange or in any market. Revenue in 2009 was nearly $1.6 billion.