Low-profile business has provisions for all occasions

Much has changed over the past couple of decades as the shipping industry has downsized. Fewer vessels sail the Great Lakes today than before, and they have fewer men and women on their crews.

An Allouez Marine Supply truck sends a crate of goods to the Indiana Harbor.

But one mainstay of Great Lakes shipping still holds true: On pleasant Saturday evenings, crews gather around charcoal grills on the fantail for a steak fry; the T-bones and porterhouses are still as hefty as ever; and many of those steaks still come from Allouez Marine Supply.

Groceries to go.

But Allouez Marine is not a specialty meat market. As owner Jim Banks says, "We're still the general store. What you need, we have. And what we don't have, we can get."

Mr. Banks has likened his business, which includes the Duluth-Superior Ship Chandlery, to a "big grocery store or hardware store, except there's no checkout counter.

The company has been in business since the turn of the century (the 20th century) originally as Duluth Marine Supply with Allouez Marine Supply merely the Superior branch of the company.

For many years the company was owned and operated by Henry DeBruyne and later his sons Wally, Gayle and Dean. Mr. Banks and his former partner, Bill Rogers, bought the business in 1987. Mr. Banks's experience before becoming a business owner included sailing the Great Lakes and even a couple of years of salt-water sailing.

Duluth-Superior Ship Chandlery was started by Norman Camenker in 1959, when the St. Lawrence Seaway opened. Allouez Marine acquired the chandlery business in 1990. Today, Allouez Marine Supply services U.S.- and Canadian-flag vessels while Duluth-Superior Ship Chandlery services ocean-going vessels.

Mr. Banks isn't comfortable in the spotlight. He defers photo opportunities of himself to the company's employees, and he agrees to requests for interviews reluctantly if graciously. His business, he says, has "a pretty low profile," and he's content to keep it that way.

On the other hand, he's proud that his business is "absolutely necessary for the smooth functioning of a port. The lakers and the salties are small floating communities that need an appendage on shore."

He heaps praise on his staff. "We're known for our service with a smile," he says. "Our guys have great relationships with our customers. For ten and a half months of the year this is a 24/7 operation. If a boat needs us before departing at 2 a.m., we'll be there. If it's 6 o'clockon a Sunday evening, we'll be there. Our employees are the ones who make that happen. We get great reactions to our merchandise and to our service from our customers.

"Our business philosophy is clear," says Mr. Banks. "We appreciate our customers, and if there's ever a problem, we fix it. Every order is important. Every item is important. And every customer is important. The people who work for me know that, and they believe it. We're blessed with a shop full of good attitudes and long-time employees. They know their business, and they like what they do."

Every item that Allouez Marine and Duluth-Superior Chandlery sell, they deliver in one of their eight vehicles or on board their 40-foot steel-hulled boat.

Their business isn't limited to just the Twin Ports. They also deliver to vessels up the Shore in Two Harbors and Silver Bay and along the South Shore in Ashland. They even make runs to ports in Michigan. "We go where our customers are," says Mr. Banks.

After all these years, the staff at Allouez Marine and the chandlery have a pretty good idea of what to expect when a customer places an order. The shelves in their buildings in Superior are lined with the stuff that keeps a ship sailing.

Not fuel for a vessel's engines, but fuel for the crew — beans and rice and flour and soups and meats and potatoes and coffee and cereals and sugar and salt and bath soap and laundry detergent and toilet paper and, well, you get the idea.

Walking the aisles of Allouez Marine is very much like walking the aisles of your favorite supermarket, although your market might not have ships' ropes, lubricants, brass and stainless steel fittings, chemicals and hardware. "We're never surprised by an order," says Mr. Banks. "But sometimes we do have to do a little detective work."

The nature of some of the supplies has changed over the years as galley crews have shrunk. Where once four or five cooks might have baked breads from scratch, now one or two start with frozen dough. On some vessels, fresh fixings for soups have yielded to big cans of soups that are ready to heat.

And where Allouez Marine once bought sides of beef it now (just as your supermarket does) begins with roasts and loins. Still, the crew of a Great Lakes vessel has a meat and potatoes appetite, and the fulltime meat cutter at Allouez Marine (one of seven employees) satisfies that appetite with custom cut steaks, chops, Cajun brats, Italian sausage and lots and lots of hamburger. "We'll process 20,000 pounds of ground beef this year," says Mr. Banks.

"We have fewer mouths to feed on the Great Lakes now," says Mr. Banks, "but they still demand quality. And that's what they expect of us.

"Our business is changing. We used to get orders via ship-to-shore radio and we'd have only a few hours to fill them. Now we have computers on board the boats, and we'll get orders by fax and e-mail. That can give us a little more notice. But the expectation is still the same — fill the order on time and with the right goods.

"We've got competition all over the Lakes — Chicago, Toronto, Clevland, the Soo, Montreal, Alpena. If our customers don't like our quality or our price, they can find another supplier. We have to keep our pencil sharp and stay on top of things."

And keep those steaks coming.

Photos by Tim Slattery