If a container needs to get from Los Angeles to anywhere in Latin America or the Atlantic, chances are Brenda Santos Nelson makes sure it gets where it's going. As APL's Latin America/Transatlantic Logistics Superintendent, it's her job to track the progress of all the containers APL ships to and from these ports.

Brenda has spent most of the last 14 years working for shipping company APL out of its San Pedro, California office. She started her career in Customer Service, helping APL's customers with all the details of shipping their goods around the world. For the last year she's held her new job with its Latin America focus and she's found that she loves the challenge.

APL's business with Latin America has been steadily increasing over the last several years, so Brenda's work is very important. She has to keep the containers moving and make sure each one is accounted for.

Because she deals with Latin American and Atlantic ports, Brenda's job is a little different than many of her colleagues. You see, she usually doesn't arrange to put containers directly onto a ship. Instead, she relies on trains to move containers back and forth across the country. Containers going to or from Latin America or the Atlantic don't leave by ship from LA; instead, they are sent by rail to Houston, New York/New Jersey, Norfolk, or Miami and are loaded onto ships there. (Twenty or thirty years earlier, Brenda might have sent ships from Los Angeles through the Panama Canal to the Atlantic; but these days most of APL's ships were "post-Panamax," that is, too big to fit through the canal!)

Today, Brenda is dealing with a special container, the Boomerang Box. But how does she get it cross-country and then to Brazil with time running out? Download the case study to find out!