From 10 stories up in the operations tower of Norfolk International Terminals, the view is gorgeous. Seagulls and sailboats along the Chesapeake Bay provide a soothing backdrop to the commotion below. From this vantage point at the state’s busiest port, one can see a beehive of activity.
Trucks stream into the port to deliver or pick up containers. They’re met by the worker bees of the 21st-century port: straddle carriers. This 40-foot-high piece of heavy machinery can “straddle” a truck to remove or deliver containers. In the world of global trade, all manner of goods are transported through these colorful units. Stacked across the port in colorful hues of red, green and blue they resemble giant versions of kid-sized building blocks.
But it’s the high dockside cranes — operated by workers in a cab 200 feet up — that steal the show. With their long booms and giant spreader bars, they can hoist a 50 –long-ton filled container onto a ship with the ease of a feather.
For more information on the people who move the cargo at Virginia’s growing ports, check out our September cover story.
Sprint Nextel rolled out a new advertising campaign on July 1 that doesn’t even mention Reston-based Nextel. The tagline, “Sprint Ahead,” will focus on the speed of the nation’s largest mobile broadband network.
Helping to create the network was the $35 billion dollar merger in 2005 of Sprint, based out of Overland Park, Kansas, with Nextel. Two years later and Nextel clearly finds itself in the back seat. The Washington Post reports that its name will be stripped from the sponsorship of the NASCAR racing series, one of Nextel’s most high-profile branding projects before the merger. Next year, the Nextel Cup becomes the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
After the merger, the companies launched a massive rebranding campaign, “Sprint together with Nextel” to clarify the combined company’s mission. Apparently, though, it hasn’t dispelled confusion among customers.The two telecoms used different technology to build their networks, and their customer bases were different. Nextel served many businesses with its “push-to-talk” products while Sprint was better known for serving consumers.
Meanwhile, the market gets ever more competitive with new entries such Apple’s iPhone. The moral of the story? There’s a downside to mergers. A successful Virginia company is losing its corporate identity.
