Malcom McLean: the father of containerization.

• Author: Sommer, Susan
• Position: SIDEBAR

Born in 1914 to a North Carolina farming family, Malcom McLean started his own trucking company at age 20 to transport farmers' goods and supplies. Throughout the next few years, he learned how much time it took for dock laborers to load and unload individual items by hand. McLean envisioned a system in which his trucks could simply be lifted onto the ship, make their journey to a destination, then lifted off and driven to wherever they needed to go. World War II saw this practice enacted, and in the early 1950s, McLean decided to try it for commercial gain.

He developed the metal shipping container, sans truck chassis, to save space on ships, in 1956 and changed the way consumer goods were shipped worldwide.

McLean then sold his trucking company to pursue maritime shipping. His new company was the precursor to...