DCLI’s CEO, Bill Shea, to Receive 2019 Connie Award

Award to be presented September 17, 2019 at the Renaissance Hotel in Long Beach, California

Direct ChassisLink, Inc. (“DCLI”) is pleased to announce that its CEO, Bill Shea, has been selected by the Containerization and Intermodal Institute (“CII”) to receive the organization’s prestigious Connie Award. The award ceremony honoring Mr. Shea will be held on Tuesday, September 17, 2019, at the Renaissance Hotel in Long Beach, California. J. Christopher Lytle, Executive Director of the Port of Oakland, will also be honored at the event with a Lifetime Achievement Award.  The 2019 awardees were chosen following an industry-wide poll and announced by the CII last week.

Mr. Shea has more than three decades of experience in the transportation leasing industry, starting his career with Itel Rail Corporation. Years later, he co-founded Kelley Transportation Services. Mr. Shea was the key executive who oversaw the creation of DCLI, formerly the chassis leasing division of Maersk, as a stand-alone business.  He was also the thought-leader behind the creation of the Pool of Pools in 2015, the gray daily-use chassis pool that operates in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Mr. Shea also engineered DCLI’s acquisitions of REZ-1 and IAS, now called Blume Global, to provide asset management and logistics software services to railroads, ocean carriers, logistics companies, motor carriers and BCOs.

Presently, Mr. Shea serves on the Boards of Directors of DCLI and Blume Global and on the Board of the International Institute of Container Lessors. Mr. Shea has a long history serving charitable organizations and founded three charity wine auctions that have raised over $40 million for children’s causes. He also sits on the advisory board of Family House, Inc., an 80-unit facility that houses families whose children are undergoing treatment for life-threatening illnesses at the University of California San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital.

CII, founded in 1960, promotes industry awareness, preserves the history of intermodalism, and engages scholarly interest in the field by organizing educational conferences and seminars, serving as an information resource, providing networking opportunities, offering career guidance, arranging internships, and facilitating scholarships. The organization has presented the Connie Award, which has become the most coveted honor in the field of containerization and its ancillary industries, since 1972. In receiving the award, Mr. Shea joins an impressive group of more than 65 previous recipients including Malcom McLean, the inventor of containerized shipping, James McKenna, president of the Pacific Maritime Association,  Knud Stubkjaer, CEO of SSA Marine, John Wolfe, CEO of The Northwest Seaport Alliance, Helen Bentley, former chair of the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission, and Matthew Cox, chairman and CEO of Matson, Inc. “I am humbled to be receiving this award,” said Mr. Shea. “To receive the Connie and be named among containerization and transportation industry titans such at these is truly the highlight of my career.”

To learn more about the upcoming Connie Award event, please visit the 2019 Long Beach Connie Registration Page.