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Profile of Mark Leese
- On leaving the CONWAY and surviving an Outward Bound School course in Eskdale, I joined Alfred Holt & Co. sailing mostly to the Far East on Blue Funnel and Glen Line ships for the next ten years. During this time I acquired my various “tickets” in Liverpool under the eagle eye of Captain Fletcher.
- I married Sandra, an ex Glen Line passenger, in Plymouth in 1964 and we set up house in Heswall on the Wirral.
- Shortly after obtaining my Master’s in 1966 I was asked to join the new Cargo Handling Department in Blue Funnel’s Head office in Liverpool, for supposedly three months, to conduct unitization and container experiments in Birkenhead and Liverpool docks and subsequently the Far East.
- In 1968 I was posted to Japan as Cargo Handling Superintendent unitizing anything and everything I could get my hands on. We lived with our son, Martin in Kobe for nearly two years.
- In 1970 I was transferred to Hong Kong with my family that now included our daughter, Joanna. There I was seconded to Overseas Containers Ltd. to conduct container experiments prior to the full service being introduced.
- A year later I was asked to consider joining Modern Terminals Ltd., the first purpose designed container terminal in Hong Kong that was still in the planning stage. I joined as Assistant CFS Manager and over the next ten years worked my way up through Commercial and Operations Managers to become Managing Director in 1982.
- These were exciting and rewarding years but after fifteen years as the chief executive, and by now 57 years of age, I decided that I and the company,
- (by now handling in excess of 2 million teu container per annum) needed a
- change.
- Having become Pacific-rim orientated during our 29 years in the Far East we
- chose to seek new pastures in the Pacific NW of the U.S.A. So we left Hong Kong in October 1997, (coincidental only with the handover), and, having obtained our “Green Cards”, we now live in Bainbridge Island, some seven miles due west of Seattle across the Puget Sound.
- We sail and enjoy cruising the Puget Sound and up into Canada. I hike in the Olympic National Park, and generally try to keep fit.
- Our son, Martin still lives in Hong Kong and married Laura in Virginia last year. Our daughter, Joanna lives in Southern California with Adam and their son Jack.
- I keep in touch with the industry by having two part time jobs; Secretary of
- the General Stevedoring Council, which is a world-wide body of port
- operators, and I’m on the Board of a stevedoring company that operates
mainly on the West Coast, U.S.A.
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