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An inside look at Squamish Terminals

Doug Hackett talks with his hands. They hover, swoop and twist above a boardroom table in the offices of Squamish Terminals Ltd., where he works as manager of information systems and administration. Seldom, though, do they wander up to his face, where they might find anchorage on his glasses or a perch on his chin. Unlike many hand-talkers, Hackett seems neither nervous nor exuberant. Rather, he has a head for detail, and his busy hands call to mind those of a file clerk calmly and quickly thumbing through dossiers in search of the right information.

Hackett has been with Squamish Terminals since 1996. Previous to that, he worked at Blackcomb, also with computers. In the latter situation, he came armed first with computer knowledge, and then immersed himself in the world of tourism and mountain recreation. He brought that same thirst to the terminal, and now he’s something of an authority on the shipping industry.

“I came because of the computer systems,” he says. “I get hired because I understand computers, and then I get to learn about the rest of the industry, which I really enjoy.”

No doubt Hackett’s adaptability stems from his childhood. While his parents hail from B.C., Hackett was born in Paris. A self-proclaimed military brat, he spent a good deal of his formative years moving from one place to the next, a lifestyle in part defined by the constant absorption of new people and systems.

Thanks to its location in the Squamish Estuary, few people are fully aware of the terminal’s existence. Kiteboarders, who congregate all summer on the wind-swept Spit, know it well; the two interests have worked out at a deal to share the waters dividing their respective land bases. Local environmentalists are also in the know, as the estuary is sacred to their philosophy, and the presence of industry rankles them. But, for the most part, the terminal does its thing outside the public consciousness.

And it’s been doing that thing for quite some time. Built in 1972, Squamish Terminals is owned by a Norwegian company called Star Shipping. It began as just a solitary berth and one warehouse at the head of Howe Sound. Over the years, it’s grown to include two more storage buildings and another berth. These days, the terminal handles some 750,000 metric tons of product each year, all of that shipped in and out of Howe Sound aboard approximately 100 vessels. At times, there can be 160 people working on site — it all depends on how much freight arrives on a given day.

“We’re a pretty small terminal,” Hackett admits.

Small, sure, but also quite specialized. When most people think of shipping terminals, they visualize stacks of large containers behind chain link fencing. Others see conveyer systems rolling heaps of sulfur or woodchips from land to sea, or vice versa. Dealing largely in exports, Squamish focuses on something called break-bulk, which is anything that can be craned on or off a ship. The list includes yachts, steel and lumber. Product arrives on railcar, and gets loaded from there.

That specialty approach is working in the terminal’s favour. As surrounding ports, like the one in Vancouver, deal more and more in container freight, the break-bulk market naturally converges in Squamish. The Pacific Gateway project also has implications for the terminal’s future.

“That project looks at getting more containers through Vancouver,” Hackett says. “They couldn’t do that if there was nowhere for break-bulk to go. We become a very good outlet for making sure there’s a way for break bulk to be handled, and the other terminals can look at whether or not they want to move to containers.”

Freight exported from Squamish is largely forest product. Destined for markets in Asia, it gets loaded onto vessels in Star Shipping’s Pacific fleet. Another company, called Medbulk, does business here, too, with its ships headed for the Mediterranean.

While less active, the import side of things also promises potential for growth. With Canadian steel manufacturers busy servicing the needs of the auto sector, the Alberta oil sands have presented foreign interests with a lucrative market in pipeline steel. Companies like Japan’s Sumitomo and China’s Bayo have been filling this demand.

“We unload the steel and put it on the ground,” says Hackett. “It’s then loaded onto trucks. TMS (Transportation Management Services Ltd.) takes the pipe from our site to the industrial park, sorts it in their yard and loads it onto railcars. It has to be banded and secured, and then it goes from there.”

According to Hackett, this scenario is just the tip of the iceberg. He’s aware of about 12 North American pipeline projects in various stages of proposal.

“As those get underway, there’ll be a huge amount of steel that has to come in.”

The steel comes in raw. Rust has to be cleaned off, and various fittings too fragile to be attached prior to oceanic transport have to be affixed. Bayo has expressed interest in opening a plant in Squamish’s industrial park to provide a stage for this work.

These are the sorts of things that occupy Doug Hackett’s thinking on a day-to-day basis. It’s technical, global and industrial. Unlike Hackett, who looks gentle in a pinkish button-up shirt that matches his freckled skin, the terminal looks cold and institutional, every bit the forum of globalized trade one might expect. There are forklifts and loading docks, floodlights and train tracks. And Hackett understands it all.

But he also seems to understand the terminal’s position in its surroundings, and, when possible, is open to building professional relationships with people whose interests have nothing to do with break-bulk.

Researchers with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans are some of those people. When releasing fry into the estuary from Cheakamus River, the folk at DFO were unwittingly serving a feast to local gulls. The survival rate was piffling. Whether in the interest of public image or because of genuine corporate citizenship, Squamish Terminals stepped in with floating pens for the fish to reach a certain level of maturity free of predatory interference.

“We’re very proud of that,” adds Hackett.