Malcolm S. McLean: Father of Containerization & Inventor of Intermodal Shipping
Malcolm S. McLean — The Man Who Revolutionized Global Trade Malcolm S. McLean (sometimes spelled Malcom McLean) is a name you might not hear at the dinner table—but he changed the way everything gets from one side of the planet to the other. He is widely recognized as the inventor of the modern intermodal shipping container, a technology that made global trade cheaper, faster, and a lot less messy. Early Life & Trucking Roots Born in Maxton, North Carolina, in 1913, McLean left high school and jumped straight into the trucking business with his siblings. They hauled goods like empty tobacco barrels, and McLean quickly realized how inefficient the old method of loading individual crates was. Thousands of hands. Thousands of hours. All to move something that could’ve stayed in one big box. The Big Idea The spark came around 1937, when McLean was sitting in Hoboken, New Jersey, watching dockworkers slowly load cargo onto a ship. He thought: Why not have the entire truck trailer ...