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Chris Feibusch: Drew Marine Signal & Safety

When Chris Feibusch of Drew Marine Signal & Safety moved across from his largely leisure marine background in 2010, he found himself in a world that matched time-sensitive logistics with the demands of Class 1 explosives.

Flares may seem like a relatively innocuous piece of safety kit, but Mr Feibusch admitted his learning curve has been a steep one. “If there’s a shortfall in an order I can’t just go down onto the shop floor, sweet-talk the stores people for the components and put something together myself – the way I used to when supplying Lewmar equipment.”

By contrast, emergency flares require a completely methodical approach to logistics, as places like Singapore need both trucks and drivers to have specific, extra certification and some countries demand flares are stored in secure, bonded warehouses… All of it means dealing with licenses, road regulations, national authorities and so on. It’s even more of a stretch, he explained, “because as these pyrotechnics are date stamped they can’t sit around on the shelf waiting for a rainy day, they have to get out to all corners of the globe while still fresh”.

In-depth planning is a necessity: “For example, when one of the trucks reaches the Romanian border on the way to Greece, the driver has to have a police escort all the way across the country… We even know exactly what time and day the truck will depart from our production facilities over a year in advance on the monthly European run.”

Despite the lack of flexibility, there’s plenty of challenges and the occasional ‘wild card’. “You can’t mix hazard classes, so sometimes if a plane or ship gets a better offer our freight will just be bumped off. And we do get routes closing down; the line will say ‘we’re not taking Class 1 explosives anymore’.” However, with the likes of Survitec and Viking specifying the company’s products, a lot rests on having a worldwide service “so you just do your best to find another way through”.

It is a very different environment from his previous experience which, although it covered a proportion of the light commercial, workboat sector, “were more chinos and deck shoes” he told MJ. “I had to go out and buy a business suit for the first time.”

Despite this, it’s still the people that matter most; alongside his ambassador role for the Sailor’s Society and membership of the Institute of Export, Mr Feibusch travels a lot to support Drew’s distributors – this year he will see at least ten countries – as these people are key to getting the flares into sometimes difficult areas. Relationships need to be tight and quite often are long term, the business often “being handed down across generations”.

So, while the flares might be shining bright for a few, critical moments, Mr Feibusch is applying himself to stoking up an equally crucial, slow burn of trust.

By Stevie Knight

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  • Greece
  • Chris Feibusch