Robert J. Tod
ROBERT J. TOD
ROBT. J. TOD, head- of the firm of Robt.
I T I Company, ship brokers, at 25 Beast Street. New York, was born in Cardiff, Wales May 15. 1886, the son of John and Sutherland Tod. His father was consulting engineer and educator and founder of Tod's engineering Academy at Cardiff, and was the author several standard works of great value on engineering subjects. John Tod's grandfather was the first shipowner in Leith, Scotland, and r. z :h sides of the ram iy Robert J. Tod is r Scottish ancestry.
R obert J. Tod, who v-15 educated in England and from his boyhood had determined to become connected with shipping, was only thirteen years old when he made up his mind, rather against parental opposition, to discontinue school and to go to work for the shipping firm of
. J. Tatem & Company, in Cardiff. With that firm he remained ror seven years, making close study of the shipping business, and then vrent to London, became a shipbroker, and was a member of the Baltic Exchange. And for five years continued in that business in London.
The opening of the Panama Canal was an event which Mr. Tod had looked forward to, a; beginning a new era in shipping, and, discerning the fact that the Panama Canal would add greatly to the prominence of New York as the seat or a world-wide commerce, he determined to c me to New York. Carrying out that plan, he established himself in business in New York City 1 s a shipping broker. He built up quite a good business and became recognized as a man of ability in the ship brokerage line, and after four years of independence he accepted an invitation to join the shipping firm of Hannevig & Johnson, Incorporated. During the two years in which Mr. Tod was connected with that firm its business was largely increased, and in April, 1917, he withdrew to establish his own business, which he has since conducted under the name of Robt. J. Tod Company.
In addition to his own firm, Mr. Tod was elected general manager of the Intercontinental Navigation Corporation. That company specializes in the shipment of manganese ore, principally from Rio de Janeiro and Cuba, handling more than fifty per cent of the importation of that ore from Cuba and Brazil to the United States, and also doing a general coal and cargo business for points in South America and the West Indies.
Mr. Tod, though still comparatively a young man, is one of the best informed shipping men in the port of New York; has a wide knowledge of foreign markets and of shipping routes and rates, and is one of the most representative shipping brokers in the port of New York.
He has recently been appointed manager of the Shipping Department of the Marine & Commerce Corporation, an organization backed by many of the largest Italian maritime and manufacturing interests. It already owns and controls between twenty and thirty auxiliary barkentines and steel steamers, and will rapidly become one of the largest shipping corporations of the United States.
