Gerd Drossel retires

After an active career spanning 47 years with Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA), Executive Board member Gerd Drossel retired at the turn of the year. Having trained as a forwarding clerk, he has experienced the container era from the very beginning.



“Today there can be only a handful of people in the world so extensively acquainted as Gerd Drossel with processes at container terminals and the adjacent links in the transport chain. He used this knowledge for the close intermeshing of operations and sales & marketing. We owe it very largely to him that the combination of proximity to the customers, strong performance and in-depth service has today become the distinctive hallmark of HHLA,” said Dieter Peters, HHLA Executive Board Chairman at the official farewell reception for Gerd Drossel, Executive Board member, attended by around 300 invited guests from the world of business and politics.



Gerd Drossel commenced his apprenticeship with HHLA as a forwarding clerk on 1 April 1962. From 1967 he experienced the structural transformation that led to the beginning of the container era in Hamburg. As head of the container sales & marketing department, along with HHLA’s shipping company clientele from 1979 he developed tariff structures for container handling that are still relevant today. In addition to responsibility for sales & marketing, in 1987 he became head of HHLA Container Terminal Burchardkai, thus satisfying the requirements of sales & marketing and operations together. In 1998 Gerd Drossel was appointed to the HHLA Executive Board, assuming responsibility on this for sales & marketing as well as the intermodal division with the then recently expanded rail affiliates.



Gerd Drossel’s complex expertise and his multi-facetted grasp of detail have secured him an outstanding reputation in international port and logistics circles. From the start he was involved in the structural transition from dry cargo to container handling in the Port of Hamburg, helping to form this with innovative and integrated service and tariff systems.



Gerd Drossel’s responsibilities in the sales & marketing area are being taken over in the Container Segment by an expanded management team headed by Dr. Stefan Behn, Executive Board member. Since 1 January 2009 Executive Board responsibility for the Intermodal Segment has rested with board member Dr. Sebastian Jurgen, who also heads the Logistics Segment.



To mark Gerd Drossel’s retirement, marebuchverlag is publishing a book covering 40 years of container handling in the Port of Hamburg.

Source: Transportweekly