There’s more to OD freight logistics than meets the eye. Sure, there’s the myriad of details required to facilitate transporting oversized freight from point A to point B. Getting those details right is what we do best. And it’s very fulfilling. But, it’s not the whole reason we set the bar so high doing what we do every day.

Here at ZMac, what keeps us continually striving for excellence is the story behind the shipment. It’s recognizing the role that our work plays in making a difference to whoever will benefit from the freight we are transporting. To us, we’re never just transporting freight. We’re helping grow communities; we’re bringing supplies to disaster-ridden cities, we’re providing energy to areas where there is none, and, in some cases, we’re helping to save lives. That’s exactly what happened in the spring of 2011, shortly after the devastating tsunami hit Japan.

Back in 2010, ZMac was in its first months of operation. Our days were spent procuring clients, including cold calling one particular steel fabricator in Colorado Springs. We contacted this business on a weekly basis for six months straight.They never picked up the phone, never replied to an email. Fast forward to the late afternoon of Good Friday, 2011. They finally pick up one of our calls. He tells us that after hearing our voices for half a year, he already feels like he’s working with an old friend. He’s got an urgent need and is emphatic that he work with a trusted partner to provide logistics help immediately. He says he only has 48 hours to make this all possible. We instantly spring into action.

Over the course of the Easter weekend, we find carriers for multiple loads. First of many loads from Los Angeles to his plant in Colorado, then even more loads from Philadelphia to Colorado. We work with him straight through the holiday weekend, ensuring that the freight from LA and Philadelphia were delivered to him as quickly, safely, and securely as possible. There were so many last-minute, critical requirements for this freight; this was a sitting-on-the-edge-of-your-seat operation for all of us at ZMac. We were all in.

But, we still didn’t know one thing. What was this cargo for? We had to know. We could sense it was important, but for what? Finally, after the successful delivery of the fourth load to the Colorado plant, we had the opportunity to take a breath and ask. The manufacturer’s answer forever changed how we do our business.

On March 12, 2011, a devastating tsunami hit the Japanese coast, causing a nuclear emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. By April 12th, shortly before we were contacted by the Colorado manufacturer, Japan’s nuclear agency had raised the nuclear crisis to its highest level, on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The tsunami disabled 12 of the power plant’s 13 generators, and contaminated the power plant’s water supply used for cooling down the reactor core and safely distributing reactor waste back into the sea. The Japanese government reached out to the United States Government in search of urgent help to decontaminate this water supply before it caused more life threatening damage.

That’s where our Colorado manufacturer came in. They worked to begin manufacturing pods of 8-foot tall by 4-foot wide stainless steel tanks. These tanks would be used in Japan to filter the contaminated water. They needed to design 250 tanks over the course of the next few weeks, but to do that, they needed to get a lot of stainless steel, a commodity that’s difficult to find.

Enter ZMac. We secured the transport of stainless steel from LA and Philadelphia to get to the Colorado plant to build the tanks that later would be flown to Japan.

There’s always a story behind the shipment. And that story makes us that much more committed to doing the right thing for our customers. No matter what. Because that’s what you get when you work with ZMac.