Page 9 - Robeson Living Fall 2018

Pan Atlantic a small oil tanker company. His first task was
the overhauling of the ship Ideal X to carry 58 trailers. On
April 26, 1956 the first ship left Port Newark. Ports had to
reconfigured to allow the larger ships to dock and to have
room to hold thousands of containers.” He enlarged his
shipping interests by purchasing Waterman Steamship. He
next formed a new parent corporation, McLean Industries,
to oversee the operations of his three companies; McLean
Trucking, Pan Atlantic and Waterman Steamship. Soon he
was plagued with a new problem, competitors were com-
plaining about McLean Industries having a transportation
monopoly. The Interstate Commerce Commission told Mc-
Lean that he was going to have to choose between trucks
and ships. He chose to go forward with his shipping inter-
ests and sold McLean Trucking.

In 1960 McLean changed the name of Pan Atlantic to Sea
Land Services, to better represent the nature its business.
Never one to be satisfied, McLean began looking at ways
to enlarge Sea Land. Lying ahead of him was Europe and James and Malcom with models of a McLean Truck
its vast shipping needs. Knowing that it would be much and a Sea Land ship
more profitable to return his ships and containers full from
Europe, he hired 325 European truckers and choose Rotter- ovated the Carolina making it a proud example of south
dam as a location for a containerport. Hired to design the hospitality and renamed it Pinehurst Hotel. They built
new facility was a Hollander named Frans Swarttouw. In the Member’s Club addition to the Clubhouse. They built
1966 the new facility opened. The first cargo was loaded course No. 6. Diamondhead inaugurated new events and
upon the SS Fairland in Port Elizabeth that April, which fully embraced a new modern approach to golf. It brought a
made its round-trip voyage four weeks faster that its equiv- PGA event to Pinehurst.
alents. New customers were lining up to bring McLean
business. “McLean began running ads in the trade pa- The most lasting creation was the Golf Hall of Fame. The
pers that said, “Use Sea-Land and we’ll ship your goods PGA of America took over management in 1983 and ac-
for free,” meaning that the money saved from extraneous quired full ownership in 1986. In the late 1980s, then-PGA
packing and other unnecessary charges would pay the Tour Commissioner Deane Beman began touting the bene-
company’s entire transportation bill” fits of having the facility near PGA headquarters in St. Au-
gustine, Fla, where it could lure in visitors traveling along
McLean Industries, Inc began trading under the New York the popular Interstate 95. In 1982 Pinehurst was sold to
Stock Exchange symbol MII for the first time on Monday, Club Corporation of America.
December 2, 1968. On that day McLean remembered his
home town roots by bringing his first-grade teacher, Miss
Marguerite Townsend to New York for the event and pur- Shipping was in McLean’s blood and he could not stay
chasing the first one hundred shares at $48 per share for her away. He found his opportunity at U.S. Lines, a prestigious
as a special thank you.
but ailing carrier he purchased in 1978. He eventually added
Moore McCormack Lines and Delta Steamship Lines and
McLean shocked the shipping world when in 1969 he opened new routes to South America, Africa and around the
sold Sea-Land Services to RJR Industries and joined their world. Deciding to take a new risk, McLean set about the
board. His answer to those who asked why he would have building of the 12 950-foot ships -- each capable of carry-
done such a thing – his answer was simply greed. The sale ing 2,240 containers -- enough to fill a train 20 miles long.
price of $500 million, realized McLean a personal profit of McLean had banked that oil prices were going to continue
$160 million. to increase but by the early 80’s this was seen not to be
the case. Battered by rate wars with competitors, McLean
To keep busy McLean focused his energies on Diamond- Industries began piling up losses and debts. When asked
head Corporation, his company that developed resorts in about the company’s problems “If I had to do it over, I’d
the south. In 1970 he purchased the resort village of Pine- do the same thing,” including launching his super freight-
hurst North Carolina for 9.2 million.
During the decade the McLean owned Pinehurst they ren- Page 9