26 Years of Freightplus

Picture this: It’s January 19th in the year 2000. It’s a Wednesday. We just celebrated ‘like it’s 1999’ and survived the feared ‘Y2K bug’. Macy Gray’s I Try is at the top of the ARIA charts, the film, Next Friday, starring ‘Ice Cube’, hits number one at the Box Office, the D6R-II and D7R-II are the latest CAT dozers on the market… and somewhere in the suburbs of Sydney, Freightplus is born.

 

 

To celebrate 26 years of Freightplus, we sat down with the two blokes who, in their mid-30s, were ambitious enough to build a company together from the ground of their small (4x3m) warehouse office, up.

John Gleeson and Steve Townsend saw the turn of the century as the perfect time to risk it all — John with a 2-month-old and Steve with a baby on the way. Both 35 years old, and with $15,000 in their Freightplus bank account, 3 customers, and a plan, John and Steve swapped the comfort of their senior management roles, with big salaries and plush company cars, for used pallet racking, secondhand Ford commercial vehicles and six months without pay. John said it was a “scary but…awesome feeling.”

 

Steve and John discussed their commitments—which Steve wrote down—before looking each other in the eye and shaking hands. The paper had just five handwritten bullet points:

• • We commit to a 10-year partnership
  • We’ll never f*** each other over
  • WE will decide the outcomes of any claims or disputes with customers, not lawyers or insurers
  • We will always do business in a fair and ethical way, and
  • We will give 10% (minimum) of operating profits to local charities and community groups.

 

All these years later, the partners have always kept those promises. To commemorate Freightplus’ 26th birthday, we asked the two co-founders 26 Questions for 26 Years

 

1. What drew you to this field, and how did it fit into your career journey leading up to the birth of Freightplus?

Steve: I fell into the world of freight forwarding by accident at 17, and despite trying to leave it a couple of times, I was always drawn back to it.

John: Like most people in the freight forwarding business, I just fell into it. From school, I embarked on a career in banking—a very brief and unremarkable career. I tried other roles and industries and found I had a penchant for sales. I was selling TONKA—my first foray into big yellow trucks—when I was approached by a recruiter who had placed me in a previous sales role, who suggested I’d be a good fit for a freight forwarding sales position that had come up. I had no idea what freight forwarding even was, but I took that position and worked my way up to an international directorship. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

2. What is it about the oversized and heavy machinery niche that attracted you?

Steve: I spent many years handling general freight, which can be a bit drab and repetitive. Shipping machinery requires a lot more out-of-the-box thinking, and, to be honest, the customers are more down-to-earth and fun to work with.

John: Steve’s passion for it was contagious, and I got hooked. Compared to shipping containers of general cargo, it’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s challenging, it’s rewarding, it’s global, and it’s taken us to places on the planet we may never have even heard of prior.

 

3. How did you land on the name ‘Freightplus’?

Steve: John actually came up with the name, and we were surprised no one had thought of it before.

John: I wrote a handful of names on a piece of paper, and it took Steve and me around 3-4 minutes to whittle the list down to just one—“Freightplus”—plus-size freight; freight plus associated services.

4. What drove you to choose Steve/John as your business partner?

Steve: John was a great salesperson, and I am an operator with zero interest in sales. Perfect partnership.

John: We had worked together really well as agents. Steve was a very capable operator. I knew he genuinely cared for his customers and would do whatever needed to be done. Just as importantly, we clicked. Same values, same high standards, and always open to each other’s ideas. It was a natural fit. We’re two quite different personalities, but we work together exceptionally well.

 

5. What is his most annoying trait or habit?

Steve: Long-winded emails.

John: Being right.

 

6. Considering this annoying trait/habit, would you choose the same partner today?

Steve: Every time.

John: Yes.

 

7. What would you say are the key ingredients that have sustained your partnership?

Steve: Trust in each other’s ability and strengths.

John: Aligned core values; mutual respect; trust; realistic expectations; not taking ourselves too seriously; supporting each other’s ideas – even those slightly crazy ones; always backing each other’s call on ‘doing the right thing’ (i.e. admitting fault and accepting liability, despite not having to, because we believe it’s the right thing to do).

 

8. You are both now 61 years old. Given the chance to travel back in time, what advice would you give your 35-year-old self?

Steve: I would not. I think we did OK.

John: “Do the right thing. Trust your instincts. Be true to yourself and others & the rest will work itself out.”

 

9. You must have picked up a few bumps and bruises along the way. What would you say has been the toughest professional challenge you’ve faced since founding Freightplus?

Steve: Always financial. We have survived a recession, Pandemic, and a lot of other market conditions out of our control and have always managed to keep all of our staff through each situation, which I am very proud of. Too many companies cut and run when things get tough.

John: Rather than any specific time or event, the hardest times for me have been when our business has suffered financially, as a direct result of us doing the right thing, and losing work to someone we know is doing some very wrong things.

 

10. What’s your process for turning a bad day into a good one?

Steve: Suck it up and keep going.

John: I don’t really have bad days as such. If/when something bad happens, I isolate it and deal with it as an individual issue rather than allowing it to influence other parts of my day. Once it’s dealt with, I focus on something positive, like my kids, for example, and then move on.

 

11. What is your favourite way to spend a day off?

Steve: Sailing.

John: Time relaxing with family, connecting with nature, being in the mountains or bush, or being on the water.

 

12. What is your favourite thing about Freightplus?

Steve: Our team and our customers, and how we have been able to improve people’s lives through our business.

John: I just love everything about Freightplus; it ticks all my boxes. We have a great team, very capable and experienced, and with a can-do, will-solve attitude, working hard, and really adding value and helping people, while also having fun—there’s no shortage of adventure… 

 

13. What do you envision for the next 26 years of Freightplus?

Steve: Same company ethics, driven by a younger, more energetic team.

John: An even better version of what it is today. Same values, but younger blood, fresh ideas, and new energy.

 

14. If you had ended up in any other career, what would it be?

Steve: Boat builder.

John: Plus-size supermodel. Or rock God. Probably both.

 

15. Do you have a personal aspiration you’re working towards?

Steve: A healthy retirement!

John: Yes, to write more concise answers.

 

16. What is a fun fact about you that may surprise some people?

Steve: I sailed in the Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race back in my younger years.

John: As a 5-year-old child, I learned that my two older sisters were born in Disneyland and possessed special powers, including the ability to make me invisible. It could take 2-3 days for the spell to wear off, before they could see and hear me again.

 

17. Funniest memory?

Steve: I can’t share that here!!

John: Too many to mention, and I expect the funniest are still to come.

 

18. What are you reading?

Steve: Training manual for 3D design printing.

John: Raising Boys in the 21st Century by Steve Biddulph.

 

19. Watching?

Steve: ‘Landman’.

John: Watching the first season of ‘Stranger Things’ with my 9-year-old son, Elijah.

 

20. Listening to?

Steve: Sirius XM.

John: Ian Moss – Purple Haze (Acoustic)

 

21. Early riser or night owl?

Steve: Early Riser.

John:  Both.

 

22. Happy place?

Steve: Home.

John: On the ocean, lake, river…

 

23. Favourite quote or saying?

Steve: “Good from afar but far from good”.

John: “Before you judge someone, walk a mile in their shoes…”

That way, you’re a mile away, and you’ve got their shoes.

 

24. If you were to write a memoir about your life, what would you title it?

Steve: “No Regrets”.

John: “Has anyone seen where I put my Memoir?”

 

25. Most memorable shipment?

Steve: Our first vessel charter as a company: pipelayers out of Port Kembla.

John: Gosh, so many. I’d have to say the Washington Dam Project demobilisation around 2005; two full ship-loads of mining assets from the Philippines and Indonesia to Mali, Senegal, Ghana, and Uzbekistan, via Iran.

 

26. Any last words?

Steve: I am glad this is the last question!!

John:   Sorry, but I can’t let this opportunity go to waste. My wonderful, brave daughter, Ruby, is shaving all of her hair off on the 28^th of February for the World’s Greatest Shave! If at all you have the means, please consider donating to her fundraiser at this link: Ruby’s shave!

 

Freightplus (which was once a single-office, two-man operation) has now expanded into an 8-office, globally reaching, award-winning name with a reputation for doing things right.

A big part of Freightplus’s growth and success is our amazing team of dedicated, customer-focused professionals who are very good at moving heavy machinery and thoroughly enjoy doing it. Our long-term staff at Freightplus are proof of our ongoing passion and the trust we have built up amongst our customer base and community. Our average employee tenure is 12.6 years, with an average of 19 years of industry experience each. In addition to John and Steve’s  26^th anniversary, these are the most recent milestones hit by our longest-standing team members, who have been valued members of the Freightplus family for:

 

12 years

• • • Logan Mihuata – North America, General Manager.

 

13 years

• • • Lisa Keel – Freightplus USA vice president.

 

14 years

• • • Michelle Arana – Atlanta, USA-based heavy-freight specialist.
    • Robbie Sichigea – Freightplus Mobile Services Team biosecurity specialist.
    • Marco Andreoni – Japan-based mobile field services team, specialising in both heavy freight and biosecurity.

 

18 years

• • • Chris Katcher – Freightplus USA

 

19 years

• • • Ben McKirdy – head of our Mobile Field Services Team and heads our Thailand transshipment hub.

 

21 years

• • • Craig Sheehy – Senior Customs Broker.
    • Rod Mackay – Japan Country Manager.

 

24 years

• • • Paul Jackson – Director of Freightplus Customs, General Freight Forwarding Specialist and Licensed Customs Broker.

 

The big question, of course, is where to from here? What does our second quadranscentennial have in store? The simple answer is, we’re going to continue to work towards our mission—to be the world’s best and most trusted provider of heavy and complex logistics solutions. It’s been a fantastic 26 years. Here’s to 26 more.