|
Container use: ‘swords-to-ploughshares’ venture
By Shelia Watson
Contributing Writer
A charitable donation may evolve into a business venture that Herb Ellis, president of Charleston Marine Containers Inc., refers to as “swords to ploughshares.”
When Molly Greene, president of Water Missions International, saw one of CMCI’s specialty containers at a Rotary charity auction, she recognized its potential for housing the water treatment units WMI manufacturers and ships to disaster areas around the world.
She won the bid for the container and contacted Ellis to get more of CMCI’s containers for use with WMI’s units.
“Molly found that it was a great size for their water treatment system,” Ellis said. “We immediately donated several and sent them over.”
When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast last year, George Greene, Molly’s husband and co-founder of WMI, came up with the idea to incorporate the container into a new design for the units, called Rapid Response.
“The Rapid Response unit has their system in our container with a chassis beneath it,” said Ellis. “You can fold and put the chassis inside the unit to ship it as a container, but when it gets to the destination, you put the chassis under it and pull it with a pickup truck.”
George Greene said the Rapid Response unit was developed primarily in response to Hurricane Katrina.
“Once on site, it is designed to be set up within an hour, and it can be used with any water source,” he said. “It can be a river, a lagoon, a salty river.”
The units can be moved to other locations when they are no longer needed.
George Greene said the unit will remove all suspended contaminants and dissolved contaminants, such as salt. The water is treated with reverse osmosis, which does not require the extensive testing and permitting typically required with water systems.
The units are designed to provide 10,000 gallons of water per day, George Greene said. Water is a critical need after a hurricane, and trucking in bottles of water is often problematic at such a time.
“We were thinking that this is a sellable product,” Ellis said. “George wants to get these units into place in areas prone to hurricanes and have them ready for immediate deployment. We could help them with marketing this idea to the Department of Defense or FEMA because of our relationship with these government agencies.”
CMCI’s relationship with these agencies is well established. The company manufactures specialty intermodal container systems the military uses for shipping and storing supplies.
The specialty containers are a fraction of the size of a regular 20-foot container. Three Tricon containers and four Quadcon containers may connect to equal the 20-foot container footprint, which allows for standard intermodal shipping. The small size has helped transportation logistics in the military, particularly in war zones.
CMCI is the largest supplier of the specialty containers to the Army, which last year awarded the company a $500 million contract that covers production and delivery of the containers over a five-year period. That contract was the largest ever awarded for containers.
In addition, CMCI will receive $6 million to produce specialty containers for the Department of Defense, marking the third year the company was awarded such a contract.
The Rapid Response container is a modified Quadcon. Besides the removable chassis, the primary difference is that the container is painted white instead of the camouflage green required by the military.
Providing containers for WMI has had little effect on production at CMCI’s facilities.
“George asked us how many we can furnish,” Ellis said. “But our production is very high. I told him, ‘We’ll just keep up with you.’”
Ellis sees a market for the Rapid Response units in cities along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
“We’re in a hurricane zone ourselves,” Ellis said. “Charleston should consider having these on hand in case another Hugo comes through.”
So far, CMCI has donated all containers to WMI.
“But if we’re looking at doing business and marketing them, CMCI would put the proceeds back into Water Missions for its charitable mission,” Ellis said. “It’s a great way for us to give back to community.”
|
E-Mail This Article
Printer-Friendly Version