NOL Celebrates Opening of Northwestern University Transportation Center Headquarters
23 September 1999
NOL Celebrates Opening of Northwestern University Transportation Center Headquarters
EVANSTON, Ill., Sept. 21 -- Neptune Orient Lines (NOL), an
early donor to the Northwestern University Transportation Center's "Building
for the Future" campaign, is joining other supporters in celebrating the
dedication this month of the center's sparkling new 20,000-square-foot
headquarters building.
A conference room in the building will be named in honor of NOL, which
gave U.S.$100,000 to the center's campaign. Some U.S.$75,000 went toward the
building, while U.S.$25,000 was designated for research fellowships at the
center.
"At NOL, we have long believed in the partnership between industry and
higher education," said Andrew Goh, executive vice-president for markets at
APL, the container-transportation and logistics arm of NOL.
"Today, more than ever, we depend on the trail-blazing work of the leading
scholars in transportation and logistics," Goh continued. "As a world wide
leader in research and teaching, the Transportation Center is a critical
resource to our company and to the transportation and logistics industries.
Without our partnership with the Transportation Center, we would be far less
prepared to meet the challenges of these dynamic and constantly challenging
businesses."
For several years, Singapore-based NOL has sent its staff members to
executive seminars and courses at the center. NOL is currently a member of
the center's Business Advisory Committee, and has contributed to the center's
operating budget since 1992.
NOL's relationship with Northwestern, in fact, reflects the company's
value for higher education around the world. In the past decade, NOL has also
sent promising staff members to study at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), Harvard University, Stanford University and other
institutions in the U.K., France and Singapore. NOL has additionally
underwritten advanced transportation-and-logistics research at MIT, and has
sponsored undergraduate scholarship programs at universities in Singapore,
China, India and the Philippines.
Of special value to NOL and the transportation industry, Goh said, is the
Northwestern Transportation Center's "conscious blend of the theoretical and
the practical. By coming together, we in the transportation industry can
better understand and apply the theoretical aspects of our business -- and we
can bring scholars our first-hand knowledge of operations, markets and
technical issues.
"For that reason, we are especially pleased that NOL's gift will name a
conference room and establish research fellowships at the center. Through
communication and research, information is exchanged and analyzed and new
ideas are born. And from new ideas come new benefits to our companies, our
industries, and, most importantly, our customers. In the case of
transportation and logistics, those customers, ultimately, include everyone in
the world."
The new headquarters is centrally located on Northwestern's lakeside
campus, near the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and the University
Library, which includes a premier collection of transportation-and-logistics-
related materials in its Transportation Library. The headquarters building
has been named Chambers Hall, in honor of the late Jerry Chambers, a former
member of the center's Business Advisory Committee and the founder and
president of Clipper Exxpress.
"This building will inspire a heightened spirit of innovation in
transportation-and-logistics research and education at Northwestern, as well
as a renewed commitment to excellence and service to the industry and the
public," said center director Aaron Gellman.
NOL is a global transportation and logistics company engaged in shipping
and related businesses. Its container and logistics arm, APL, provides
customers around the world with container transportation and logistics
services through a network combining high-quality intermodal operations with
state-of-the-art information technology.
Since 1954, the Transportation Center at Northwestern University has
worked to make substantive and enduring contributions to the movement of
materials, people, energy and information. The center serves industry,
government and the public through a comprehensive research agenda,
graduate-level degree programs, executive education courses and outreach
activities.
For further information, please contact: Media contact: Angel Cheah of
NOL (Singapore), +65-371-5037, http://www.apl.com/ or http://www.nol.com/