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Shap Talk

"85 Years of Old - Fashioned Service"
by Lynn Honeywill

Reprinted from the Port of Baltimore Magazine - November, 2000

During his university days, M. Sigmund Shapiro almost became a newspaper reporter. Instead, he followed his father into the international freight - forwarding business that turned 85 this year. Shapiro, 72, doesn't show the slightest regret about his decision not to make a living as the proverbial ink-stained wretch. Perhaps that's because Samuel Shapiro & Co., Inc. has kept this Baltimore native's finger tightly pressed against the pulse of worldly affairs. Just as tightly as many a journalist's, if not more so.

"This business reflects everything that is moving in this world...the most interesting things in the world. And I enjoy it," says Shapiro, today the CEO and chairman of the Baltimore based Samuel Shapiro & Co. "It touches so many different kinds of businesses."

Different indeed. The way 1,000 bags of fertilizer differs from a Vincent Van Gogh exhibit destined for the Baltimore Museum of Art. Or fine old antiques from the latest fashionable apparel. And heavy steel and machinery is a different matter altogether.

"Take everything and anything," Shapiro says. "We're travel agents for cargo." One half-hour's business might concern both medical equipment for Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and this month's bestsellers from Random House's Westminster distribution center.

Now, with 150 employees spread over 10 offices in ports and airports around the country, Shapiro's access to customs, and their varied cargo is even broader than it was when Shapiro was a young man.

Given the absorbing variety of international commerce even back during Shapiro's college days, it wasn't too hard for him to pass up a job opportunity at the Evening Sun. Still, as Shapiro reminisced one recent morning in the World Trade Center, he almost took the offer. It was proffered by A.D. Emmart, on of his professors at The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. Emmart, then editorial-page editor at the Evening Sun, told the five or six students in his journalism class, to come see him. Labor was in short supply during World War II, Shapiro explains.

One day, Shapiro rode the streetcar and bus down to the Sun's office building. He made his way into the lobby. Then, Shapiro says, "I turned and left and walked down Baltimore Street to my father's office."

Emmart's offer to the young students was immortalized by another member of the class, Pulitzer Prize winning writer Russell Baker, in his book "Good Times." Baker accepted a job as an Evening Sun police reporter, eventually making his way to the New York Times.

"As he [Baker] once said to me, " Shapiro says with a humorous glint in his eye, "You are the only guy in the class who made an honest living."

Yet Shapiro never actually gave up writing. He says he writes humorous bits for his friends. And he employs part of the company Web site to showcase his views on trade issues and the company history. To check it out, visit www.Shapiro.com (the domain name his son Robert registered back in 1984 could probably sell for a million now, Shapiro says). Then click on "Sig's Corner." You'll be greeted by Shapiro's frank, friendly grin and a menu of his essays.

An essay sample that takes aim at past trade policies: "I remember my father telling me that he was in the Senate gallery back in 1929 and heard Senator Smoot, co-author of the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, speak on he need to pass the legislation.

He was quoted as saying that the bill, which bore some of the highest duty rates in the country's history, would bring about 'the greatest prosperity we've ever known." Talk about a clouded crystal ball !

"We know now that raising tariff barriers was the wrong medicine at the wrong time, as the country plunged into the deepest depression in modern history. Indeed, it's been proven, time and again that raising tariff barriers is a self-defeating process that does nothing but bring retaliation."

Shapiro also strongly voiced his opinions on trade issues as president of the Baltimore Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association and as a member of other such organizations such as the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders of America, Inc.

Shapiro's outspokenness didn't stop at the doors of the family business, which he entered at age 14 as a 'runner' or errand boy. "I used to fight with my father (Samuel Shapiro) day and night about this business," Shapiro says. One argument was over the son's idea that the company offices should be moved from Gay Street to the World Trade Center. The junior Shapiro finally got his way in 1978. "He fought me tooth and nail about it," Sig Shapiro recalls. "Then said it was the best idea he ever had."

At one point, all three of Sig Shapiro's children had followed him into the business, starting at a young age working in the office on weekends and summer vacations. Marjorie, the youngest, remembers helping her dad sequence checks at the family's dining room table when she was just 7. Now, however, daughter Rosellen works in the home and son Robert, 39, has become a lawyer in D.C.

Robert, who left the business in 1993 for Cornell Law School, says his hands-on experience at Samuel Shapiro & Co. provided practical knowledge that is invaluable to him today as a Customs and International Trade attorney.

Daughter Marjorie, 36, remains as the company's vice president for compliance, working out of the Philadelphia office. "It's fun, but it's not easy." she says about working in the family business. "Especially since my dad and I are such similar, strong-willed personalities. We argue in a fun way."

It probably would be as hard for Shapiro to give up writing as it would for him to give up the Customs broker business. It's in his blood - literally. He counts among his blood-relatives Pulitzer - Prize winning poet Karl Shapiro and author Jeffrey Kluger, who co-wrote a book about the space voyage of Apollo 13. Another relative writes TV scripts, one is contributing editor to Time magazine, while yet another worked on the Playboy editorial staff.

Perhaps it's his innate writer's approach that makes Shapiro a cogent commentator on life in general as well as on international trade. For instance, he's not that enamored of our hot new technology, even though his company employs it for its profit and that of its customers.

"Obviously, some day you're going to be able to push a button, and the world will be in front of you," Shapiro says. "But I don't find that to be a great boon. I think it's a very necessary tool. But it shouldn't be the be-all and end-all of our culture.

"Culturally," he adds, "I'm 18th century. Except that I'm a jazz pianist."