A Canadian-based terminal and freight logistics company that's using Spokane as a base for its year-old U.S. division has secured a key license that gives Inland Northwest ocean freight shippers another shipping option and should help them obtain lower shipping rates, says Teri Zimmerman-Reynolds, division manager.

The company, Ray-Mont Logistics, of Montreal, obtained on Sept. 3 what's called a non-vessel operating common carrier (NVOCC) designation from the Federal Maritime Commission, Zimmerman-Reynolds says.

The designation enables Ray-Mont to hold contracts with many different oceangoing carriers and to print bill of lading documents in-house, which it wasn't able to do previously in the U.S. as strictly a freight-forwarding service provider, she says. Bills of lading are key documents used in transporting goods.

"As an NVOCC, now Ray-Mont is able to negotiate rates direct with the carriers," and obtain volume-based discounts, which it was prohibited by U.S. law from doing as a freight forwarder, Zimmerman-Reynolds says, adding, "As a freight forwarder, I didn't have access to the competitive rates."

The designation means that Ray-Mont now can manage everything for customers from transloading, typically meaning loading raw agricultural products or manufactured goods from rail box cars or hopper cars into 20- or 40-foot-long containers, to moving the containers to coastal ports for shipping, and negotiating the contracts with the carriers, she says.

Some U.S. shippers have the resources and the federal authorization to negotiate directly with carriers, but, "To do that, they have to be large enough to manage all of those contracts," Zimmerman-Reynolds says. For smaller producers and shippers, "Sometimes it can look to them like a huge endeavor where you don't even know how to begin," which is where Ray-Mont often comes in, she says.

Matt McCoy, acting director of the international trade division for Greater Spokane Incorporated, says the Canadian company's decision to establish a base here and to offer freight-forwarding and NVOCC-related services is a plus for the Inland Northwest.

"It'll mean better rates. It'll mean better service, without question," McCoy says, adding, "To me this is another significant tool to have in our tool box when we become a port district. When you talk about putting stuff on the ocean, with good rates, no matter how big you are, that's a good thing. With small businesses, this is significant for them."

Spokane County is one of two in Washington state that doesn't have a port district, and Greater Spokane Incorporated has been exploring anew—nearly three decades after an unsuccessful bid—whether one should be created here.

Ray-Mont's newly secured NVOCC designation pertains strictly to ocean freight, meaning "anything that can be containerized," she says. The ubiquitous ocean containers seen at coastal ports typically each can hold up to about 26 tons of products, and the massive ships operated by international carriers such as Maersk and Hanjin each can accommodate thousands of 20-foot containers, she says.

The Seattle-Tacoma area probably is home to 60 to 80 freight forwarders, including one big one—Seattle-based Expeditors International of Washington Inc.—that has a satellite office here, but what Ray-Mont hopes to turn into a competitive advantage is its familiarity with inland markets and shippers' needs, Zimmerman-Reynolds says.

The company ships out of every U.S. port and currently is shipping about 60 to 100 containers a week just out of the Pacific Northwest, plus Montana and North Dakota, she says.

"We're currently working mostly with agricultural shippers, but we can ship anything, and I can get rates from the carriers for virtually anything" other than hazardous cargo, Zimmerman-Reynolds says.

She currently is working from her Spokane Valley home, but says the company employs two other people here, and she adds that the operation here is supported by a team of about 25 people in Montreal who handle documentation.

"They (Ray-Mont) wanted to take it one step at a time and grow in increments and be good at what we do" before expanding more aggressively in the U.S., although that eventually might include opening a transloading facility, she says.

Ray-Mont Logistics was founded about 30 years ago by a man and his son who opened a transloading facility that now is the largest such facility in Montreal, and it opened another large one about five years ago in Vancouver, British Columbia, she says. The company since has grown into the largest freight forwarder for agricultural goods out of Canada, she claims.

A lot of Ray-Mont's customers also needed freight-forwarding services out of the U.S., which led it to approach her about a year and a half ago about becoming its U.S. division manager, since it needed a person based in this country to register with the Federal Maritime Commission, Zimmerman-Reynolds says. "I used to work with the company (here) where they were my transloading and freight-forwarding provider," she says, declining to identify the company.

Zimmerman-Reynolds says her goal will be to expand Ray-Mont's presence beyond the Northwest and thereby to grow its shipping volume because "the bigger, the better your rates in this industry."