Marc Stefanoff leaves PSA after 40 years

Marc Stefanoff is retiring at 66. That is to say: he quits his job as Quality & Hinterland manager at PSA. The port will not let him go, and that is not surprising after a career of more than fifty years in the maritime sector – including student jobs. “I did my first holiday jobs in the port. As a fourteen-year-old I was already loading crates of oranges into trucks.”

harbor microbe
“I already graduated in the early 1980s as an industrial engineer in construction. Only about six of our class immediately found work in construction. My father, who worked as a water clerk, helped me get a job as a transport planner at Transport Van de Meersche, a frozen transporter who was very active in the port.Father Van Gestel, an acquaintance of my father and co-owner of Noordnatie, then asked me to join the ‘702’ team at the start-up.Our family has caught the harbor microbe. Son Joeri works for NxtPort.”

At 702, Marc became a yard planning officer and soon became an assistant terminal manager at what was then called Noordnatie. “We did 24-hour permanence with two men in eight-hour shifts. They did not work every night, but that form of permanence on the quay should no longer be allowed today.”

Get to work
Marc was terminal manager at the start of the North Sea Terminal. “I connected the first reefer container that arrived myself and replaced the control disc. Incidentally, the first ship that was to call on us got stuck in the bend of Bath.”

The next challenge was the merger between Noordnatie and Hessenatie. Two companies with their own culture and tradition. In order to make clear to the assembled staff that a collaboration between the two ex-competitors was indeed possible, it was decided that the management teams of the two terminals would exchange places: the managers of ‘869’ and ‘913’ exchanged positions with each other. Place.

18 months Genoa
In the meantime, both terminals will come under the wings of the Singaporean terminal operator PSA. Marc sends them to Genoa in 2007 to get the faltering truck handling at the local PSA terminal back on track. A job that would take three weeks, but dragged on so long that Marc commutes for eighteen months between Antwerp (for the weekends) and Genoa (for the working weeks).

“We had to replace the existing computer systems, but there was a lot of resistance from the staff on site. The number of containers handled per crane fell to four per hour during the start-up and we came from at least sixteen. In the end, we managed to solve the problems with a whole team from Antwerp.”

Pioneering with planning tool
Back in Belgium, Marc gets one of the biggest projects of his career on his plate: central barge planning. Before there was a unified system for planning inland waterway calls at the various terminals, it was a matter of daily measuring and adjusting to ensure coordination between the various terminals. First, the terminals at Quays 420, 730, 869 and 913 will board, later MPET 1718 and 1742 will be added, as well as DP World at Quay 1700. Later, the BTS, the Port Authority’s barge traffic system, will follow, which displays its most important visual features. derives from the pioneering technology of the original barge planning system that Marc and his team invented.

‘bapli’
Marc really regrets that the introduction of the automated system of notifications about dangerous goods at the Harbor Master’s Office from the terminals has never fully got off the ground. After all, a lot of manual input from forwarders and shipping companies can be avoided here. A duplicate message is still requested.

Marc’s honors list also includes a collaboration with the Netherlands: the ‘Baplie’ stowage system that already existed for seagoing vessels used in inland shipping. For example, you can adjust loading plans for barges to the order in which the containers come off the barge. This also saves a lot of movements on the quay.

Congestion
Last year was still exciting. “Then the problems surrounding shortages of available shifts became acute, which is among other things one of the causes of the current congestion. Unions, Cepa and companies in the port have always deliberately kept the number of available workers at just enough capacity. In a crisis like the covid pandemic and with an aging workforce, that quickly becomes an acute problem.”

In recent years Marc helped to expand the ‘Cargo Solutions’ division. “We look for solutions towards the customers, a bit like a freight forwarder: setting up connections and, above all, guaranteeing visibility of the container at all points in the chain. We used the philosophy behind this approach at Hessenatie thirty years ago. In that context, collaborations arose with Waalhaven Botlek, CT Vrede in Amsterdam and Stukwerkers Gent. The concept is now being rolled out further internationally. Customers want more and more detailed visibility of their containers in the chain.”

Don’t feel like stopping
Marc doesn’t want to stop. “I get a lot of phones for interesting projects. I’m definitely not going to take everything. In recent years I have worked way too much. Now I definitely want to work on a few projects, but at most part-time.

What am I going to do now? Spending more time with the grandchildren, cycling, supporting Royal Antwerp FC and working in the garden. I also want to re-establish contact with my circle of friends. The friendships remained, but due to the much work, the spontaneous contact fell away. While friends and colleagues at work are so important. You won’t get anywhere without their help. In the meantime, people I have worked with all these years still come by with gifts.”