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Matson
Line (Matson Navigation Co.) (Est. 1901) |
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 Matson Navigation Company is one of the leading U.S.-flag carriers operating in the Pacific, with a longstanding reputation for quality service in the transportation industry. Founded in 1882 and incorporated in 1901, Matson is the principal carrier of containerized freight and automobiles between the West Coast and Hawaii, Guam and Mid-Pacific, and is the largest subsidiary of Honolulu-based Alexander & Baldwin, Inc. In 2006, Matson introduced a new weekly service from Ningbo and Shanghai to Long Beach, California. In its 125-year history, Matson has been involved in the development of tourism in Hawaii through its luxury liners and Waikiki hotels, wartime duty during World War II and the introduction of containerization in the Pacific. The company is headquartered in Oakland in California, USA. Matson’s two subsidiaries are Matson Integrated Logistics (MIL) and Matson Terminals, Inc. MIL is a leading provider of multimodal transportation services to the North American market with capabilities that include domestic intermodal rail service, international intermodal service, long haul and regional highway services, specialized hauling and international air freight. MIL serves a broad range of customers and industries with customized transportation solutions and award-winning service. Matson Terminals provides container stevedoring, terminal and equipment maintenance services for Matson in Honolulu. The company operates a 108-acre facility on Sand Island on the island of Oahu, which serves as the primary hub for Matson’s Hawaii service fleet of containerships and barges. Stevedoring Services of America Terminals (SSAT), which is partly owned by Matson, manages the company’s container stevedoring and terminal services in the West Coast ports of Long Beach, Oakland and Seattle. The Early Years Matson Navigation Company's long association with Hawaii began in 1882. This was when Swedish born William Matson began a small shipping venture as captain and part owner of the three masted schooner Emma Claudina. This schooner sailed from San Francisco to Hilo, on the "Big Island" of Hawaii, carrying 300 tons of food, plantation supplies and general merchandise. This voyage was the birth of the Matson Navigation Company Inc. This company went on to be involved in such diversified interests as oil exploration, hotels and tourism, military service during two world wars and even briefly, the airline business. Matson's primary interest throughout, however, has been carrying freight between the Pacific Coast and Hawaii. At this time Matson's long association with Alexander & Baldwin Inc. (now its parent company) also began. In 1887, Captain Matson sold the Emma Claudina and acquired the brigantine Lurline, which more than doubled the former vessel's carrying capacity. As the Matson fleet expanded, new vessels introduced some dramatic maritime innovations. The bark Rhoderick Dhu was the first ship to have a cold storage plant and electric lights. The first Matson steamship, the Enterprise, was the first offshore ship in the Pacific to burn oil instead of coal. Matson Navigation Company became an incorporated company in 1901. Then in 1908 Alexander & Baldwin Inc took a significant step by investing $200,000 to acquire a minority interest in Matson Line. This began the formal association which lasted ever since. Matsons was carrying most of Alexander & Baldwin Inc's freight and employed Alexander & Baldwin Inc as its agent at Kahului, Maui and Eleele Landing (Port Allen), Kauai and as a result was busily expanding its fleet. In the previous decade Matson's bark Rhoderick Dhu was the first ship to have a cold storage plant and electric lights. Now the Matson steamer Enterprise was the first in the Pacific to burn oil instead of bulkier and more expensive coal. When the price of oil jumped, Matson (in his own diversification effort), formed the Honolulu Consolidated Oil Co. (later known as the Honolulu Oil Corporation) in 1910. The company had nothing to do with Hawaii except to supply fuel to power the Matson ships and to be carried aboard some of them as cargo for the islands. The company explored for petroleum, produced and sold it, and built a pipeline to link its Southern California oil fields with the docks. In 1911, Alexander & Baldwin Inc purchased a minority holding in Honololu Oil as well. Increased commerce brought a corresponding interest in Hawaii as a tourist attraction. Matson was diversifying its ocean service at this time. The second Lurline, with accommodations for 51 passengers, joined the fleet in 1908. It was configured to carry not just cargo but 51 passengers as well. The 146-passenger ship S.S. Wilhelmina followed in 1910, rivaling the finest passenger ships serving the Atlantic routes. More steamships continued to join the fleet. This helped accommodate the growing tourism interest in Hawaii. When Captain Matson died in 1917 at 69, the Matson fleet comprised 14 of the largest, fastest and most modern ships in the Pacific passenger-freight service. 1917 was also the year in which the United States entered the First World War, and the Matson fleet was requisitioned by the government as troopships and military cargo carriers. Other Matson vessels continued to serve Hawaii's needs throughout the war. After the war, Matson ships reverted to civilian duty and the steamers SSs Manulani and Manukai were added to the fleet - the largest freighters in the Pacific at that time. Tourism Development The decade from the mid-20s to mid-30s marked a significant period of Matson expansion. This was a boom time for tourism. In 1925, the Company established Matson Terminals, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary, to perform stevedoring and terminal services for its fleet. Matson was bringing tourists over to Hawaii from San Francisco and Los Angeles in droves and so with increasing passenger traffic to Hawaii, Matson added the S.S. Malolo in 1927. The Malolo was the fastest ship in the Pacific, cruising at 22 knots. She was the first of four luxurious white ships on this service. Its success led to the construction of the liners Mariposa, Monterey and Lurline between 1930 and 1932. This was the heyday of the great Matson Liners, crack passenger trains were adopted as "Boat Trains", carrying passengers from New York and Chicago to connect in San Francisco with the liner sailings. This was an era of "boat days" at Honolulu's Aloha Tower, with hula dancers, brass bands and blizzards of streamers to give visitors a greeting and sendoff that they would remember for ever. Matson was catering to a well heeled class of traveller, and the luxurious quartet of white passenger liners were outfitted appropriately with luxurious fittings and furnishings. They were truly "Palaces at Sea". But the growing crowds of tourists needed more and better accommodation than Honolulu could offer at that time. As a result Matson established a hotel chain. In 1926 it acquired the landmark Moana Hotel on Waikiki Beach (nicknamed the First Lady of Waikiki) and then set about building the luxurious, 400 room Royal Hawaiian Hotel, which opened in the following year. The opulent "Pink Palace of the Pacific" was an instant hit and visitors flocked to stay. Both hotels soon became legendary icons of Hawaii. War Service Immediately after the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the passenger liners Lurline, Matsonia, Mariposa and Monterey, and 33 Matson freighters were called to military service. The four passenger liners completed a wartime total of 119 voyages, covered 1 1/2 million miles and carried a total of 736,000 troops. 11 of the freighters never made it home. One, the Manini, sank after being torpedoed by a Japanese submarine 200 miles south of Honolulu just 10 days after the Pearl Harbour attack. Another, the Lihue, earned the distinction of being the first U.S. merchant vessel to sink a German U-Boat during the war (in February 1942 in the Caribbean). After it was torpedoed, but before it went down, the Lihue's deck guns pounded the attacker with deadly accurate fire and sank the U-Boat. The most memorable role played by a Matson ship came in November 1943 when the Monterey went to the rescue of a U.S. troop carrier and a smaller Dutch ship hit by German bombers off the coast of North Africa. The Matson crew brought aboard 1,675 survivors of the double sinking. Captain Elis R. Johanson later received the Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal for the courageous rescue. For almost a year after the guns fell silent the Matson fleet continued in national service, bringing troops and liberated POWs back home from the far corners of the globe. The Postwar Years The post-war period for Matson was somewhat difficult. The expense of restoration work proved to be very costly and necessitated the sale of the Mariposa and Monterey, still in wartime grey. In 1948, the Lurline returned to service after a $20 million reconversion. Two new Matson hotels were built on Waikiki in the 1950s, the SurfRider in 1951 and the Princess Kaiulani in 1955. In 1955, Matson undertook a $60 million shipbuilding program which produced the South Pacific liners Mariposa and Monterey, and the rebuilt wartime Monterey was renamed Matsonia and entered the Pacific Coast - Hawaii service. Matson also made a brief attempt to start up a luxury air service between the US West Coast and Hawaii. In 1946, it began running non-scheduled flights from several US West Coast cities using two four-engine DC-4s, the Sky Matsonia and the Sky Royal Hawaiian. Passengers could while away the 12-hour trip enjoying pheasant under glass and other gourmet dishes. Matson's Air Transport Division, in turn, had to while away two years awaiting a Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) ruling on its application to provide a scheduled service. Matson finally got the decision in 1948 - it was a no. Trans-Pacific air services would not be developed to its maximum by a steamship company the CAB had decided. And that ended Matson's foray into the sky. To the south of the cane fields on Maui lay Frank Baldwin's sprawling Ulupalakua Ranch with its string of beautiful, crescent shaped beaches stretching from Kihei to Wailea. This land caught the eye of the Matson Line. In 1957, anticipating the spread of tourism to the neighbouring islands, Matson made an investment in 1,500 of the ranch's shoreline acres at Wailea. Within two years, however, Matson had second thoughts about its role as a hotel operators. With the advent of jet airliners, flying to Hawaii was beginning to look more attractive than sailing by ship, and the management of the hotels was still not entirely natural for a shipping company. In 1959, Matson decided to leave the hotel business and sold its four Waikiki hotels to the Sheraton hotel group. After sale to Sheraton Hotels a new tower was built on the west side of the Moana Hotel and this became the Sheraton Surfrider Hotel. Meanwhile the Surfrider Hotel that had been built on the east side of the Moana Hotel in 1951 was converted into a wing of the Moana Hotel. Later the Sheraton Surfrider Hotel also became part of the Moana Hotel. So today these three hotels (the Moana Hotel, the SurfRider Hotel and the Sheraton Surfrider Hotel have all been integrated into one hotel as the legendary Westin Moana-Surfrider). However Matson wisely held onto its Wailea beachfront land on Maui. The Containerisation Revolution In 1956, a research department was established (the first of any shipping line) and its first major assignment was to develop the most modern, efficient and economical means of transporting cargo to and from Hawaii. The result was Matson's freight containerization program, which revolutionized Pacific cargo carrying. In 1958, Matson’s S.S. Hawaiian Merchant departed San Francisco Bay carrying 20 containers on deck, inaugurating containerization in the Pacific. When the Hawaiian Citizen entered service in April 1960, with a capacity for 436 24-foot containers, it was the first all-container carrier in the Pacific service. The fleet improvement program continued, with Matson freighters converted to combination container and bulk sugar or to container and automobile carriers. As the pioneer of this revolutionary new technology in the Pacific, Matson played a leading role in negotiating the critical Mechanisation and Modernisation Agreement of 1960 between the ILWU and the Pacific Maritime Association that made the transition away from conventional cargo handling possible. A major ship construction program was undertaken in the late 1960s. When the S.S. Hawaiian Enterprise (later named Manukai) entered service in March 1970, it carried a record load of 1,165 containers and clipped more than a day from the regular 5 1/2 day run from the mainland to Hawaii. Also in 1970, in line with the decision to concentrate on its Pacific Coast-Hawaii freight service, Matson sold its passenger vessels and suspended its Far East service. In 1961 Alexander & Baldwin Inc. made nearly $17 million profit when the Honolulu Oil Corporation was liquidated. In 1964, Alexander & Baldwin Inc. used some of this profit to acquire a majority interest in Matson Navigation. The purchase was precipitated when the Federal Government brought a civil anti-trust suit against the four of Hawaii's Big Five companies - Alexander & Baldwin Inc, American Factors, C. Brewer & Company, and Castle & Cooke. Together they owned about 3/4 of the shares in Matson Line. The suit was filed on the grounds that their joint control of Matson constituted an illegal restraint of trade. With the Government's approval, Alexander & Baldwin stepped forwards and for nearly $22 million bought out the shares of the other three companies. (The last member of Hawaii's Big Five, Theo H. Davies & Company Ltd was not involved in the case). However it would be 1969 before Matson became a wholly owned subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin, Inc., strengthening the business ties that formally date back to 1908, when A&B invested $200,000 to acquire a minority interest in Captain Matson’s company.Modern Times In 1970, Matson conceded the passenger business to the airlines and sold all its remaining luxury liners. With the focus sharpened, Matson concentrated its efforts on developing a fleet of the finest containerships in the Pacific Coast - Hawaii service and on modernizing and otherwise improving terminal operations. Meanwhile Alexander & Baldwin hadn't forgotten Matson's acquisition of the waterfront land at Wailea, Maui. By the 1970s it was clear that it would be ideal for developing as a totally planned luxury resort community. All the hotels, condominiums, sports and shopping facilities would have to comply with strict density, height and sightline restrictions. The beaches would remain accessible to the public; the visitor would be able to walk easily from place to place along meandering footpaths; and the ocean would always be in view. To realise this ambition Alexander & Baldwin set up a joint venture company, Wailea Development Company, in partnership with Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, and the resorts first golf course was soon opened to the public. This was the birth of Alexander & Baldwin's property interests and Alexander & Baldwin Properties was formed. In 1981 Matson modernised its terminals at Los Angeles and Honolulu. In Honolulu the work included the consolidation of two separate facilities into today's single terminal on Sand Island. To improve the service to neighbouring islands, Matson added two unique barges to its fleet in 1985 - Haleakala and Mauna Loa were both equipped with on-board revolving cranes to load and unload containers. Later they were joined by the ro-ro barge Waialeale. In 1987 Matson launched a new subsidiary, Matson Intermodal System Inc. to increase the volume and decrease the costs of its business in cross-country freight (arranging for the pick-up and delivery of containers by rail and truck at mid continent or US East Coast points of origin and destination). The new subsidiary would combine Matson's own inland shipments with those of other shippers to achieve greater volume - and thereby secure lower rates from railroads and trucking lines. In 2003, the company was renamed Matson Integrated Logistics in recognition of its continued growth and expanded service offerings. Matson followed up this initiative by launching another new subsidiary just two years later in 1989 - the Matson Leasing Company Inc. This was an attempt to capitalise on the rapidly growing demand by shipping companies around the world for 20- and 40-foot intermodal containers available for lease. In the six years following its founding, Matson Leasing grew into one of the world's eight largest marine container leasing companies, owning about 165,000 TEUs (20 ft equivalent units, the industry's standard measure), establishing 12 offices in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia and utilising 98 depot locations around the world. Also in 1989 Alexander & Baldwin Inc. was restructured by creating a new subsidiary A&B Hawaii Inc. Under the new structure, A&B Hawaii Inc and Matson Navigation Company would be the twin principal subsidiaries of the parent Alexander & Baldwin Inc (A&B). San Francisco based Matson and its subsidiaries would continue to conduct the company's ocean transport and related businesses. A&B Hawaii Inc, headquartered in Honolulu, would manage all the company's diverse agribusiness, food products and property development and management subsidiaries and operations. In 1984 Alexander & Baldwin had acquired the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company's half interest in the Wailea Development Company for $30 million. But in 1989 Wailea Development Company was sold to the Shinwa Golf Group for about $198 million. For 19 years Alexander & Baldwin had been developing Wailea as a luxury resort. It had created roads, landscaping, golf courses, a tennis complex, and a shopping centre, while selling parcels of land over the years for the building of hotels and condominiums. By 1989 Alexander & Baldwin still owned only about 500 of the original 1,500 beachfront acres with which it had begun. Now with the sale of the resort, it reaped the profit that had started with Matson's original investment when it acquired the land in the first place back in 1957. Shinwa continued the world-class development of the Wailea Resort, subsequently building in Wailea two award-winning golf courses, a premier clubhouse and two residential subdivisions, and acquired the Kauai Lagoons Resort property. In 2003 the remaining undeveloped landholdings were re-acquired from Shinwa by A&B Properties Inc. in partnership with the Golf BC Group (www.golfbc.com) for continued development. Equally important, Matson focused on developing an industry-leading Customer Support Center in the 1990s, providing customers with “one call does it all” customer service. That effort resulted in the creation of a Customer Support Center in Phoenix in 1995. The philosophy behind centralized customer service was extended to the Internet in subsequent years, allowing customers to have the same “ease of use” in doing business with Matson online as they had with dedicated customer service teams. In February
1996, Matson and American President Lines (APL) inaugurated a 10-year
alliance agreement which
allowed both carriers to cost effectively serve their respective
markets; for Matson, this involved the domestic trade of Guam -
Micronesia and for APL, international ports in the Far East. The most
prominent aspect of the agreement for Matson involved the purchase of
six APL container ships and certain APL-owned assets in Guam for $164
million. The agreement was revised in January 1998; for Matson, the
primary benefit of the revised agreement involved the establishment of
a direct service from the U.S. Mainland to Guam, reducing transit time
from 13 to 10 days. In 1996 Matson Leasing
Company was soldl for $350 million to XTRA Corporation, a Boston based
transport services company. Today it is known as XTRA Lease (www.xtralease.com). In 1999, Matson and Stevedoring Services of America, Inc. (SSA) appointed SSA Terminals as the manager of terminal and stevedore operations at Matson Terminals, Inc.'s facilities on the West Coast. MTI continues to operate Matson's container stevedoring and terminal services in Honolulu. In 2000, Matson Terminals, Inc. in Honolulu commenced with a $36 million terminal improvement project, which involved converting the facility to a wheeled facility and adding new computer technology, such as Digital Global Positioning Systems (DGPS), to improve overall operating efficiencies.Thus today having been founded in 1882 and incorporated in 1901, Matson is one of the leading U.S. domestic ocean carriers. Matson is the principal carrier of containerized freight and automobiles between the U.S. Pacific Coast and Hawaii, Guam and the mid-Pacific. The company is headquartered in Oakland, near San Francisco, California, USA. Alexander & Baldwin Inc. (A&B) www.alexanderbaldwin.com Matson Line www.matson.com A&B Properties Inc. www.abprop.com A&B Foundation www.alexanderbaldwinfoundation.org Matson Hotels, Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii: The Moana Hotel, Waikiki Beach (now known as the Westin Moana-SurfRider) www.moana-surfrider.com The Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Waikiki Beach www.royal-hawaiian.com The SurfRider Hotel, Waikiki Beach (now combined into the old Moana Hotel as the Westin Moana-SurfRider) www.moana-surfrider.com The Princess Kaiulani, Waikiki Beach (now known as the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani) www.princess-kaiulani.com The Wailea Resort, Wailea, Maui, Hawaii: Grand Wailea Resort Hotel & Spa www.grandwailea.com Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea http://www.fourseasons.com/maui/ Fairmont Kea Lani, Wailea http://www.fairmont.com/KeaLani/ Wailea Beach Marriott Resort & Spa http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/hnmmc-wailea-beach-marriott-resort-and-spa/ Outrigger Palms at Wailea http://www.outrigger.com/hotels_detail.aspx?hotel=25 Diamond Hawaii Maui Resort & Spa www.diamondresort.com Ho'olei, Wailea www.hoolei.com Kai Malu at Wailea www.kaimaluatwailea.com Wailea Beach Villas www.waileabeachvillas.com Makena Surf Resort, Wailea www.makenasurfresort.com Destination Resorts Hawaii, Wailea www.drhmaui.com Wailea Golf Resort www.waileagolf.com The Shops at Wailea www.shopsatwailea.com Wailea Tennis Club www.waileatennis.com |