SEATTLE (PRWEB)
February 06, 2021

The Transportation Club of Seattle honored several local companies and individuals at its February virtual meeting on Wednesday, February 3rd. The Club annually presents a Company of the Year award and a Person of the Year award. This year, those awards reflected commitment to the public good during the pandemic, and the Club also presented three special recognition awards.

The Company of the Year award was presented to SSA Marine. SSA Marine has been a valued and very supportive member of the Transportation Club of Seattle, and is an integral part of the transportation infrastructure in this region.

SSA, its terminal operators and affiliate companies adapted quickly and effectively to the global pandemic, remaining fully operational throughout. As a result, critical products such as PPE and other goods needed by health care and other essential entities have continued to flow into our region. The Transportation Club of Seattle wants to recognize SSA this year for its exceptional commitment to keeping this pipeline open and supporting the stakeholders they service. Ed DeNike, president of SSA Containers, accepted the award on behalf of the company.

The Person of the Year Award was given to Torque Zubeck, Managing Director of Alaska Air Cargo. Under Torque’s leadership, Alaska Air Cargo has responded to the pandemic by airlifting huge quantities of PPE materials to where they have been urgently needed, across Alaska and the continental United States. In addition, Torque and Alaska Air generously donated two round-trip tickets to our October raffle supporting our scholarship fund, and the Transportation Club wants to recognize Torque and his team’s commitment to supporting the communities they serve.

The Outstanding Service Award was presented to SanMar Corporation. Based in Issaquah and family-owned since 1971, SanMar is a private label supplier of imprintable apparel and accessories, and is the exclusive distributor of Nike Golf and Eddie Bauer among others. Responding to employees’ concerns at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic about the lack of availability of PPE, SanMar acted quickly to shift production in their Tennessee and Honduras factories from t-shirts to face coverings and has been supplying critical PPE to first responders since March. The Transportation Club of Seattle wants to recognize SanMar and its employees for this exceptional effort to help contain the virus and keep people significantly at risk due to their profession safe and healthy. President Jeremy Lott accepted the award on behalf of the company.

Special recognition was also given to Gary Gieser, recently retired VP of business development at MacMillan Piper, as Lifetime Member. Gary has been a long-time tireless supporter of the Transportation Club of Seattle and the transportation industry in the Seattle/Tacoma area for many years. Gary can always be counted on to support the club’s events and fundraisers, most famously for his raffle donations of gift cards for 33 dollars, reflecting being the father of triplets. We thank Gary for all his years of support to the club, wish him a very happy retirement from MacMillan Piper and hope that doesn’t include retirement from the club.

Finally, the Club Member of the Year award was given to Ian McKillop. Over his years of involvement in the Transportation Club of Seattle, Ian McKillop has served in almost every way possible…from board member up through serving as 2017 President and then right into serving as Executive Director from 2018 through 2020. Ian has given much of his time and energy to keeping the club running smoothly and bringing as much benefit as possible to the membership for their time and dues. We want to recognize Ian for all his contributions to the Club over the years.

transportationclubofseattle.org

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