MALCOM P. MCLEAN DEAD AT 87
Malcom P. McLean, founder of Sea-Land Services and known as “The Father of Containerization”, died Friday, May 25 from complications related to heart failure. He was 87.
He started McLean Trucking Company in the middle of the Depression and, with his sister Clara and his brother Jim, built it over the next two decades into the second largest trucking company in the United States.
In 1955 McLean purchased Pan Atlantic Steamship and in 1956 the IDEAL X, a converted World War II tanker sailed for Port Newark , NJ to Houston, TX, launching containerization. He soon changed the name of the company to Sea-Land Service and expanded the company and the concept of containerization globally, becoming the largest liner operator in the world.
He sold Sea-Land to R.J. Reynolds in 1969 and remained a member of the Reynolds board until 1977.
In 1978 he purchased U.S. Lines, quadrupling it in size by 1985. A key aspect of the expansion was the construction twelve huge new vessels, known as Econships, that each carried more than 2,000 forty-foot containers, making them the largest container vessels in the world. However, these vessels never achieved needed utilization levels resulting in U.S. Lines going bankrupt.
In 1992, at the age of seventy-eight, McLean founded Trailer Bridge which operates between the U.S. mainland and Puerto Rico.
Last May, McLean was recognized by the International Maritime Hall of Fame as the “Man of the Century”.
His second wife, Irena McLean, survives him. He was predeceased by his first wife, Margaret McLean, with whom he had a son, Malcom, and two daughters, Nancy McLean Parker and Patricia McLean Mendenhall, as well as 11 grandchildren, all whom survive him, as do three great-grandchildren. He is also survived by his sisters Clara McLean, Mary McLean McFadyen and Margaret McLean Newberry and his brother John Luther McLean.
Services will be held at 11:00 A.M. on Wednesday, May 30 at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, 7 West 55th Street, Manhattan.