John Grant Currie

JOHN GRANT CURRIE

IN the very important and constantly enlarging field offered by the exporting and freight forwarding business in New York, John Grant Currie, of the United Forwarding Company, has during the eight years he has been engaged in the business enjoyed a steady development and a rapid advance in volume in his business.

He was born in Girvan, Ayrshire, Scotland, August 8, 1884, the son of Robert B. and Agnes Pitt (Thomson) Currie. His mother was a first cousin of Baron Kelvin (foi'merly Sir William Thomson), per-haps the most noted of British scientists, and his maternal grandfather was the well known Scottish shipbuilder, Robert Thomson, owner of yards at Port Glasgow and Troon, Scotland.

Mr. Currie's beginnings in business life were at Galveston, Texas, in 1903, where he was for two years engaged in contracting in submarine cable work, and in 1905 he transferred his activities in submarine cable work to the Pacific coast. After a short time in San Francisco he continued in the same line in Hawaii,

where he did considerable work in Honolulu Har-bor, and from there went to the Philippine Islands, where he carried on his submarine cable business, centering his operations at Manila. Later he went to Guam, in the Ladrone Islands, where he also completed an important engagement. After that he carried his activities to Shanghai, China, and did important work there. In this long period of activity in Pacific islands and the Far Orient, Mr. Currie not only gained success in his contracting operations but also a wide experience and intimate knowledge of trade conditions in the Far East, which have enabled him to enter most intelligently upon the export and freight forwarding business, which he established upon a modest scale in New York in 1910. Mr. Currie from the first of his export business has enjoyed the favor of an increasing number of customers, having a wide acquaintance in many foreign countries and a reputation at home

which has invited and retained the confidence of the mercantile world. His business had already grown to considerable proportions at the time of the outbreak of .the world war, and he was one of the first to realize the great importance which America must naturally assume as a source of supplies for the countries allied in fighting the German invasion and the submarine menace. In that direction he added largely to his business, which he considerably broadened in August, 1916, when he organized the United Forwarding Company with partners, who, in May, 1917, transferred their interests to Mr. Currie, who has since then done a very large and increasing business as a freight forwarder. On the exporting side, the business of Mr. Currie is general, and with the coming of peace he has arranged affairs so as to include operations to many ports not before covered and to secure facilities for exporting and freight forwarding business to all parts of the world.

Few men in the export business have so large a fund of experience and knowledge of international trade as Mr. Currie.