Barney Garcia ls Traffic Manager and Consultant For Many Lumber Mills and Wholesalers

B. R. Garcia of the traffic service which bears his narne, has for twenty-six years been identified with lumber circles on the West Coast. As traffic manager and consultant for many well-known and established mills and wholesalers in California and Oregon, he maintains an offrce and staff in San Francisco's Monadnock Building. In addition to the lumber firms, he acts as traffic manager for representatives of the box shook and related industries in the West. He is a former director of the San Francisco Lurnbermen's Club.

As we all know frorn experience, with each succeeding year the rules and regulatiops,governing rail and truck shipments and the manner of their publication have become more technical and complicated. Public carriers are confronted with the problems of the thousand and one commodities shipped and do not have the time or personnel to specialize in the transportation problems peculiar to one industry. It is. N{r. Garcia's belief that a need for specialization in lurnber traffic has developed, and it is this ever-growing need that the Il. R. Garcia Traffic Service is endeavoring to fill.

How the Organization Operates

When questioned as to how his organizatior.r operates, Barney state<l that he has attempted to revolutionize the industrial traffic manager set-up by integrating his office with that of his client. "Our office is actually his office as far as all details of transportation are concerned." Clients derive the benefit of a fully experienced traffic department at a nolninal fee compared to the cost of maintaining such a departrnent within their own organizatrons. Isolated mills in Northern California and Oregon have available through teletype and telephone exactly the same service as those clients in n-retropolitan areis.

Mr. Garcia, who gained his initial experience by working for the Southern Pacific Company and the Union Pacific Railroad for several years both in San Francisco and in the San Joaquin Valley, stated that complete traffic service includes quotation of rail and truck rates; routing, tracing, expediting, diverting shipments; filing claims, overcharge and loss and damage; audit of freight bills; handling transit problems; rate studies and applications for rate adjustments.

Trucking Has Changed California Lumber Picture

As a man who knows the history of the lumber rate structure and daily works with rates which he helped to create, Barney points out how trucking has changed the lumber picture in California. "We find today that our service is being utilized to a greater extent for truck shipments than it has in the past rvhen our activities were confined almost e-xclusively to rail transportation. Records show that in the last twelve years the total revenue accruing to truck operators in California has increased many times over."

He feels that all shippers who use truckers should be warned that in many casc's they are taking the word of the trucker as to the best possible legal rate and it has been his experience on recheck that these charges in the majority of cases are rnuch higher than should have been assessed. On the other hand, a number of truckers are quoting rates lower than can be legally substantiated in order to win highly competitive business. In the latter cases, long after the movement, the attention of truckers is called to these charges which are below PUC minimum scale and the trucker is ordered to collect amounts that are often large and for which shipper is liable months or years after settlement has been made with his customer.