It used to be called “Short Sea Shipping,” but former Department of Transportation Secretary Joe LaHood officially tabbed it, “America’s Marine Highway Program.” No Matter how you look at it though, it’s America’s Holy Grail. In today’s lingo one might call it a game-changer.

Almost a dozen attempts have been made in recent years to cash in on the Short Sea Shipping dream, but every try went south. Because the shallow depths of our coastal highways restricted the sizes of their vessels, and being hampered by time-consuming conventional methods of loading and offloading their small, conventionally-structured container ships, each ship owner found it to be impossible to make a profit. Each venture was short lived. Their dreams became nightmares.

But here’s how Short Sea Shipping will turn a profit.

As Lacey said a few years ago, a container terminal is “the gold mine of today,” and former Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta reminded us that only 60 of the 361 ports in the USA have the ability to handle containers. We need at least 200 more container-handling ports, he advised. Many took note of the Secretary’s advice but no one knew how to cash in on it.

Our patented container terminal now makes it possible to grab the gold ring. The Holy Grail is ours.

Step one, then, is to begin establishing these new ports on small tracts of coastal acreage. Small tracts!? The adjoining ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach require some 10,000 acres and multiple terminals to accommodate about twelve million TEU annually, and the terminals in the NY/NJ complex require more than 6,000 acres – so who could find enough coastal acreage to install a container-handling terminal nowadays?

We could. And we will. In fact, we’re doing it. Secretary Mineta was speaking about existing ports, wasn’t he? So the acreage is already there. And by condensing operations into about one-tenth the size of the land now being wasted on conventionally-structured and operated terminals, we can introduce efficiencies, reliability and PROFITABILITY to terminal operators, freight forwarders and truckers – and reduced costs to American consumers.

Step two will be to set up similar “in-one-day/out-the-next-day” terminals in struggling coastal regions, and Short Sea Shipping along America’s Marine Highways will soon be seen as a chain of “gold mines” up and down the U.S. coasts.

Step three will be to begin construction of our patented container ship – the ship that John Fossey said would “revolutionize the world’s economy.”

Think of it. Hundreds of these U.S.-built ships with thousands of U.S. crewmen, servicing hundreds of U.S. ports. Existing factories would be rejuvenated. New ones would spring up. Millions of newly-employed Americans would have paychecks – and they’d be buying U.S.-made goods.