It started with two men and a vison on how to embrace the future of the stevedoring industry

Meet Owen and Henk

During the 1960’s, Captain Owen O. Thomas, of Furness Withy, London and Henk van Walt Meijer, of Furness N.V., a Rotterdam based Agent and Stevedore, had a close working relationship. The two men had much in common, starting with a visionary insight on the changes occurring in cargo handling and the consequences of containerisation for the stevedoring industry.

They decided to set up a body wherein stevedores from all over the world could meet and, whilst they had no commercial or financial links, talk to each other about business related matters of mutual interest.

First General Meeting was in 1970

And thus the General Stevedoring Council, GSC was founded at that first meeting in New York on February 3rd, 1970.The first Annual General Meeting was held in Rotterdam in 1971. At this meeting, the official name – General Stevedoring Council – was adopted together with the Articles of Association. The Council was and still is incorporated under Dutch Law and Royal Charter.

GSC’s membership is spread all over the maritime globe. With companies active on all continents it is an ideal cross cultural networking and benchmarking platform for industry experts. Member companies are represented by their executive level.

since 1970
The founder members recognized
that the members who possessed the vision
to embrace the future would be the leaders in our industry tomorrow,
and the Council will continue to actively promote the spirit of its founders.

Today the Council has two prime roles

  1. First to act as a forum for its members to exchange information, knowledge and contacts within the stevedoring and port operations industry. Since the Council acts as a catalyst, the strength of the Council is the product of what the individual Members contribute and how much use they make of the potential network of contacts. In addition to direct contact the GSC offers its members regular annual networking and benchmarking events.
  2. Second, the Council promotes the involvement of, and training for, the next generation of leaders of the member companies through the holding of its’ own hands-on Management Courses.

Read our profile Discover our structure

Mission

Building a worldwide, collegial network of stevedoring, terminals and ports knowledge & expertise.

Vision

Developing the next generation of proactive managers in an everchanging, global, maritime world.

Values

Leading by confidence and passion.

Anti trust policy

The General Stevedoring Council adheres to an Anti-Trust Compliance Policy that requires its member organizations to refrain from any discussion of nonpublic competitively sensitive information.

Accordingly, any discussion on topics such as pricing, costing, strategic plans or recommendations for parallel or concerted conduct by or among member organizations that may harm competitors is expressly prohibited.

Articles of Association

You can download our Articles of Association on this page after you have logged in.