GERMAN Michael Kurt Raeuber has built Royal Cargo Group of Cos. to become the first Philippine multinational freight-forwarding company with presence in over 100 countries worldwide and with offices in Asia and Europe.

Raeuber, who is the current chief executive officer of Royal Cargo and the face of the company since its humble beginnings in 1978, says the company continues to be in an expansion mode and is very much proud to be a Philippine company with an international footprint.

“Year by year, we were not surprised by the growth we have achieved. Our success is because of the people within the organization. We are grateful for the opportunities we had in the country and how we grew from our Philippine operations,” Raeuber says.

Over the last three years alone, this company of more than a thousand employees in the country and 300 outside the Philippines has invested $10 million for its expansion program. By next year, it will invest another $14 million in equipment acquisition, including 330-, 250- and 150-ton cranes. The company is also looking to partner in the near term with a big company in the United States that specializes in household removal.

Raeuber, the company’s managing director for nine years until he became its head, first arrived in the country in 1973 as a 19-year-old student who joined a United Nations inspection trip for relief operations in the country. It was also at this time that he met his future wife, Leny Umale, who was then a student at the University of the Philippines.

Raeuber says that, even when the Philippines was under martial law then, he found the country to have peace and order, with businesses not being affected by the situation.

By 1976, he returned to the country as station manager of Hermann Ludwig GmBH, a pioneering German logistics and forwarding company that had presence in Asia. He says that during this time he made up his mind to stay in the Philippines for good.

Two years later, the company became Royal Cargo Corp., a small company that was purchased after Hermann Ludwig stopped operations. Since then, the company has diversified to include 11 subsidiaries, including Royal Cargo Combined Logistics Inc., Royal Cargo Agencies Inc., Royal Heavylift Inc., Marzell Inc., Royal Cargo Lines Inc., Royal Global Services Inc., Plastic & Tools Inc., Regent Ace Co. Ltd., Stein Art Inc., Combined Supply & Logistics Inc. and Kawayan Hills Inc.

Among the services it offers include air freight, sea freight, customs clearance, projects and heavylift, contract logistics, trucking, shipping agency, liquid solutions and clinical trial depot. It has also established offices in China, Cambodia, Germany, Guam, Hong Kong, Palau, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Vietnam.

In its company profile, Royal Cargo proudly states that it goes “further than most, by providing specialized logistics,” while also recognizing the “need for state-of-the-art information-technology systems.” It adds that its best assets are its “people who are highly trained to serve well by implementing specialized logistics concepts.”

Moreover, Royal Cargo has been an ISO 9001:2008-certified company since 2001 and is now preparing for ISO 14001 certification in 2014. It also is Transported Asset Protection Association-certified since 2009.

Raeuber is proud that the firm’s heavylift projects are the biggest in the Philippines, and that they can process customs clearance within three hours. Its cold storage is among the leaders in the country, and that it is armed with a business-process outsourcing and knowledge-process outsourcing office.

He has also spearheaded the formation of the company’s own Emergency Response Team that is capable of assisting local government units during times of distress while, at the same time, sponsoring Gawad Kali¬nga projects.

Last year Raeuber was elected president of the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP), a job that added another dimension to his already busy schedule.

Under his watch, Raeuber wants to see the ECCP have stable footing internally and on all its activities.

“It has to have a solid internal structure, successful in its operations, and externally represent its members’ interests,” he says.

Inside his expansive office, Raeuber starts work at 9 a.m. However, he adds that there is usually no regular routine due to the many natures of the work he does. He admits also that because of the workload, his day can end anywhere between 8 p.m. and midnight.

To relieve stress, he says he amuses himself by studying the workings of the exquisitely designed grandfather clock in his office.

Among the other notable artwork pieces inside his office are a replica of an Egyptian cat that is supposed to be a gatekeeper, an aboriginal painting about the afterlife, and a delicately woven framed cross stitched image from Vietnam.

In his free time, he loves to go sailing. He has a boat named China Rose that is currently docked on Roxas Boulevard. He said the boat regularly participates in regatta competitions, including the Manila-Subic-Boracay Regatta.

Raeuber, who is planning to go into semi-retirement in five years’ time, would like to consider himself as a bridge between the Filipino and German cultures.

Source: BusinessMirror(www.businessmirror.com.ph); News; 07 September 2013