Thunderbolt’s Jim Shapiro: Logistics Is a ‘People Business’
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By DERON SNYDER (as published by Port of Baltimore Magazine)
When Jim Shapiro decided to grab a backpack and head overseas during a gap year from the University of Massachusetts, he wasn’t thinking about a career in logistics. He was feeding his innate curiosity about people and places.
“I had a Eurail pass and traveled for four months by myself in Europe,” said Shapiro, director of Thunderbolt Global Logistics. “That kind of opened me up to a lot of different things. I was interested in just everything.”
Shapiro returned and graduated with a degree in business management, intent to focus on international commerce. He moved to Baltimore in 1984 and used a Port of Baltimore directory to conduct a job hunt.
He knocked on doors at the World Trade Center — beginning on the 26th floor — and worked his way down to the fifth. That’s where he found work at Samuel Shapiro & Company (no relation), a 100-year-old shipping and logistics firm.
“Initially I was basically doing clerical work,” he said. “I was typing export declarations with carbon paper. I didn’t have much exposure to the Port, but I realized it’s a very close-knit community. I got to know a lot of people at companies in trucking and warehousing. Your competitors were your friends and you didn’t have an issue with it.”
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