Crowley Maritime and Toyota Celebrate Shipping 150,000 Vehicles to Puerto Rico

Over 300 Crowley and Toyota Logistics Services employees gathered to celebrate the shipment of the 150,000th Toyota vehicle to Puerto Rico from Jacksonville.

The ceremony and luncheon took place at Crowley's Talleyrand terminal yesterday, where the Toyotas are regularly loaded onto large ocean-going barges for the trip to San Juan.

Beginning with their first shipments of cars from the U.S. to Puerto Rico in 1992, Crowley has been the exclusive carrier of Toyota vehicles to Puerto Rico. The company has nine triple deck barges, some of which are more than two football fields long, which are towed by large oceangoing tugs between Jacksonville and San Juan.

Crowley has been awarded the prestigious Toyota Logistics Services Award of Excellence in Customer Service for the past four years.

Toyota established operations in the U.S. in 1957 and currently operates eight U.S. manufacturing plants, with two more under construction. There are over 1,400 Toyota, Lexus, and Scion dealerships located in 50 U.S. states and there are 31 in Puerto Rico, including 24 Toyota, six Scion, and one Lexus dealership.

Selling over 2 million vehicles in the U.S. in 2004, Toyota has a direct U.S. investment of over $13 billion and direct U.S. employment of over 31,000. According to a 2005 Center for Automotive Research study, Toyota, along with its dealers and suppliers, has generated over 386,000 U.S. jobs - including jobs created through spending by direct, dealer and supplier employees. In addition to its cars shipped within the continental U.S. and into Puerto Rico, Toyota ships approximately 11,000 vehicles per year to Hawaii as well.

For more information on Crowley Maritime Corporation, please visit their website at http://www.crowley.com.