And now there are two

In this era of mergers, buyouts and takeovers, this 21st century version
of Darwinian selection, it shouldn't be surprising that the Port of Duluth-Superior is now down to two grain stevedoring companies.

Nonetheless, it's a little sad, somehow, to see all the company names — names that once embossed hundreds of longshoremen's paychecks — reduced to remnants in someone's scrapbook.

With the recent closure of the American Grain Trimmers office in the Duluth Board of Trade, the Port now has two stevedores specializing in grain-handling: Ceres, Inc., and Rogers Terminal & Shipping Corp.

But before going further, a note to the general reader: Contrary to popular misconception, stevedores are not dock workers per se. A "stevedore," in maritime vernacular, is a company (or its management personnel) employed to supervise and direct a vessel's loading or unloading. Put another way, stevedores are not longshoremen — indeed, they hire the longshoremen who do the physical labor.

There was a time when we had no fewer than eight grain stevedores here. They, along with a flock of vessel agents and others who saw opportunities in the Port's exploding new trade, descended on the Port from parts east when the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959.

Until then, one company, Superior Grain Trimmers, had done all of the Port's "grain trimming" for some 30 years. The late Jim Sauter, whose grandfather founded the company, ran the family business until joining one of the newcomers, Empire Stevedoring, in the early 1960s.

Some of the company names — Atlantic & Gulf, Cullen Stevedoring, J.F. McNamara Corp. — were gone within the first 20 years. Empire survived until the 1990s.

But American Grain was the first to hang its shingle on the port roster in early 1959. The company, then an affiliate of Montreal-based Wolfe Stevedoring, was managed by the late J. Mullen Quinlan from 1959 through 1968. "Mull" and his wife Mary are still fondly remembered by senior members of the Duluth Curling Club and Ridgeview Country Club.

For the past 30 years, American Grain has been locally synonymous with Angus MacLeod, a Scotsman who went to sea as a teenage cadet and rose to second mate before coming to North America in 1966 to join Ceres, Inc., first in Chicago, then in Toledo, Ohio. He later became a National Cargo Bureau surveyor in Toledo before coming here in 1972. (Residents of Superior, Angus and Lilian MacLeod became American citizens in 1986.)

American Grain's parent company, Logistec Stevedoring, of Montreal, closed its U.S. Great Lakes stevedoring operations in August because of the general decline in grain exports. Although Duluth-Superior's grain trade has held fairly steady at about four million tons a year for the past decade, there simply hasn't been enough business to sustain three companies.

But the two survivors have a wealth of experience and expertise, assuring the Port's customers of competitive, first-class service.

Ceres, recently sold by founder Chris Kritikos to NYK Line of Tokyo, is managed locally by Duluth native Chuck Ilenda, a former ocean ship officer who has been with the company since 1965. Rogers Terminal, a subsidiary of Cargill, Inc., has been managed locally since 1980 by George Foutch, longtime president of the Duluth-Superior Marine Association.

So our grain trade is in superb hands … but we'll miss American Grain and Angus MacLeod. He will be long remembered for his professionalism, even-handedness and warm disposition.

And we still expect to see him from time to time — with kilt and bagpipes — performing in special events involving the Duluth Scottish Heritage Pipe Band or the Aad Shrine Pipe Band. He's no longer a stevedore, but he'll always be a Scot.