The Shield 4th Quarter 2014

United States Cold Storage

USCS Opens Salt Lake Location

The Shield 4th Quarter 2014

United States Cold Storage will greet a new year with a new warehouse

location—the company’s second site in the metro Salt Lake area. Located in Syracuse, UT, just north of Salt Lake City, this Phase One facility opened in the fall with 4.9 million cubic feet of refrigerated storage and another 1 million cubic feet of dry storage.

“Our new, state-of-the-art CO2 facility easily accommodates freezer, refrigerated and dry food grade storage temperatures—with capacity for future extreme, low-temp storage.” notes Syracuse General Manager Riad Sweilem.

Not surprisingly, he says Syracuse already handles a diverse mix of poultry, bakery and dairy items.

For the record, the facility features more than 20 dock doors and offers cross-dock transportation services. Since start-up, it has shipped loads to markets throughout the West Coast, Northwest and Southwest.

Riad adds, “Our Union Pacific rail spur and close proximity to the Salt Lake City intermodal yard should draw the attention of many current and future USCS customers across the country and abroad.”

That said, Riad takes time to thank the many US Cold employees whose help ensured a “very smooth transition” during start-up at Syracuse.

“First and foremost, I want to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the USCS Clearfield and Syracuse teams as well as the Road Warriors from our Fresno, Tulare, Turlock and Bakersfield, CA, facilities,” says Riad.“The Road Warriors have done a tremendous job here and we are indebted to them and their respective management teams for helping to ease the Syracuse opening.”

Syracuse is located within one day of Den-ver, CO; Reno, NV, and Boise, ID. It is lo-cated near Interstate highways I-15 and I-84 and just 25 miles north of I-80, the major East-West lane connecting the West Coast. u

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President’s Message

Page 5

Employee NewsJim Slamon Concludes 34-Year Finance Career

Page 4

What’s New at USCS (cont.) Growth Springs Eternal: USCS Turlock Expands

Twice as Nice: Dallas Completes Phase II Expansion

Page 6

Transportation & LogisticsTechnology Step Propels USCS Logistics

Page 7

Warehouse OperationsQ&A with Luis Guardiola, Vice President Area Manager – Laredo, TX

Page 8

Employee News (cont.)USCS Remembers Jack Merryweather

Page 3

What’s New at USCSHair & Share: No-Shave November Raises Funds

Fire Officials Thank USCS Fresno

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The Shield 4th Quarter 2014

President’s Message

Looking Back. Looking Ahead.

David Harlan, President & CEO

2

As we wrap up calendar 2014 and I look back, I must say that it’s been

a difficult year. We were extremely busy expanding—starting up three new facilities and working on four warehouse additions. Unfortunately, most of the projects have been delayed for a variety of reasons.

In several instances, we had significant dif-ficulties in the permitting process. That’s extremely unexpected when we’re building additions because we had master site plans approved in advance.

We’ve also faced weather delays. It started with an extremely difficult winter season earlier in 2014. Then in Covington, TN, for example, it has been extremely wet and rains placed significant delays on that project.

When you have such major expansions, you carefully schedule time and resources to ensure smooth start-ups. Some projects also were scheduled and coordinated to open with a customer’s “slower” season. When you have delays and you get into a customer’s busy shipping season, it becomes that much more difficult and

stressful to start up a new program. Because we also budget for these buildings to be open, it impacts our operating results. Although the issues can be explained, it still adds additional stress to our organization as everyone works even harder to try to stay on budget. I truly recognize this and thank everyone for these extra efforts this year.

Throughout this year, I’ve witnessed first-hand the management and staff at US Cold Storage pulling together with Herculean efforts through many of these difficult and challenging situations. And, in spite of these challenges, I am reassured by how the energy never dies in our team and to that end we are genuinely positive and confi-dent for a brighter 2015.

I traveled from London for our year-end board meeting and I am pleased to report that the owners and board are extremely supportive of US Cold Storage. They have a great understanding of the challenges we faced in 2014 and I know our board and management team are encouraged by the optimism reflected in our 2015 budget. I’m

certain that the entire US Cold team will work to achieve these results and that 2015 will be much different.

We are completing a blast freezing addi-tion in Lumberton, NC, and are breaking ground for new warehouses in Atlanta and Sacramento, CA. Although we’re building two new warehouses, it promises to be a much more manageable situation than the seven projects we had in 2014. I know

Throughout this year, I’ve witnessed first-hand the management and staff at US Cold Storage pulling together with Herculean efforts through many of these difficult and challenging situations. And, in spite of these challenges, I am reassured by how the energy never dies in our team and to that end we are genuinely positive and confident for a brighter 2015.

everyone looks forward to filling the new spaces that have been opened and quickly developing experienced, seasoned ware-house crews. I feel certain that 2015 will be a much calmer and more rewarding year.

I recently returned from a trip to Laredo, TX, where we had a retirement dinner for Luis Guardiola. It was an opportunity to thank Luis and his family for a 42-year career. Luis has been a great contributor to US Cold’s success story—not only in Laredo but throughout the country. I’m pleased to say that although he is retiring, Luis remains with us in a limited role.

We also had a retirement dinner for Jim Slamon and marked his 34 years with US Cold Storage. When I look back over Jim’s career, I realize that all our employees can thank Jim for his amazing contributions on the pension and benefit committee. Jim was the leading voice in designing our retirement plans. He also was a steadying influence as we modified our healthcare plans over the years.

Jim and Luis will be greatly missed and we are hoping that both will stay in close con-tact with us.

In closing, I want to thank our wonderful employees for their support and I want to thank our customers, who make all of this possible. I also wish everyone a joyful holiday season with health for a prosperous new year. u

The Shield 4th Quarter 2014 3

What’s New at USCS

Hair & Share: No-Shave November Raises Funds

Major league baseball fans used to chant “Fear the beard!” to recognize

certain players. Yet last November, USCS Voorhees, N.J., team members enthusiasti-cally embraced their beards and mustaches.

“Our office participated in the ‘No-Shave November’ fundraiser, which raises aware-ness of men’s health issues,” says Mickey Hoffmann, Director of Corporate Develop-ment. “We held a contest to see who could grow the best beard and the results were fantastic.”

Network Administrator Matt Brennan won the contest, which raised $2950.00 for the

Fire Officials Thank USCS Fresno

You don’t have to be located down-town, on Main Street, to be a good

corporate citizen. USCS Fresno (CA) proved that earlier this year when it hosted nearly 200 CAL FIRE/Fresno County Fire firefighters.

These firefighters respond to a wide range of area emergencies including wildland fires, residential and commer-cial building fires. USCS Fresno opened its doors for seven days to host as many as 190 firefighters, who each attended one of two daily classes for hazardous materials training.

“By going above and beyond what was expected from your company, the CAL

FIRE/Fresno County Fire workforce has gained a better understanding of cold storage technology, which will allow for increased safety—both for firefight-ers and employees,” noted Interim Fire Chief Mark Johnson.

He added, “We understand the opera-tional inconvenience this training has caused your workforce. We were very grateful for the unexpected breakfast and snacks that were provided at all the classes. The employees at United States Cold Storage are—without a doubt—top notch. They were very helpful, in-sightful and hospitable, which created an enjoyable training and educational experience.”

John Bodden III is USCS Fresno Gen-eral Manager.

“Our partnership with our local fire de-partment is vital to the safe operation of our facility,” he says. “The familiariza-tion with our engine room and our pro-cesses was beneficial for both the fire department and our on-site staff.”

He adds, “Safety is ‘First in Fresno’ and after just celebrating our 16th year with no lost-time accidents in October, our team is active in any safety related pro-grams and activities. Hosting these 190 heroes was a pleasure for our Fresno team and we look forward to doing it again in the future.” u

Prostate Cancer Foundation. He was one of 13 office participants and won the com-petition—by a hair—with a beard length of one inch or more. For his part, Matt says he was glad to compete.

“I want to raise men’s awareness about the early detection of cancer. So many of us believe that, ‘It cannot happen to me,” and we find out too late.”

With that, however, Matt says he soon shaved.

“I got tired of eating mustache,” he says. uMatt Brennan

The Shield 4th Quarter 20144

What’s New at USCS (cont.)

Growth Springs Eternal: USCS Turlock Expands

Rod Noll, VP Area Manager Western Region, checks progress at Turlock, CA.

Spring is a season of growth and new beginnings. That’s exactly what’s

happening at USCS Turlock, CA, which expects in March to complete a four million-cubic-foot addition. The project began back in July 2014.

“USCS Turlock’s new addition is cause for excitement!,” says USCS Turlock General Manager Chris Harrington. “The expanded warehouse has allowed us to attract other area manufacturers to into the USCS family for warehousing and distribution services. Additionally, it has provided opportunity to enhance existing local and regional storage and distribution relations, while giving us ability to forge new ones.”

This is USCS’ Turlock’s second expansion since its Phase 1 opening in 2009. The operation is ideally situated to serve California’s Central Valley’s food prod- ucers and manufacturers. Turlock is within a short drive of the San Francisco Bay area and the ports of Oakland and Stockton.

Twice as Nice: Dallas Completes Phase II Expansion

It’s nice to cross things off a list—and twice as nice when it’s a large expansion project.

USCS Dallas ended the year by completing a Phase II expansion at its Cockrell Hill Road site (nicknamed “Dallas South”).

USCS Dallas General Manager Brian Kroll spoke earlier, in conjunction with Dallas’ first anniversary.

“It’s hard to believe that in just over one year, we not only have opened this new facility but also have completed our first addition,” he said. “Some of our larger, existing customers have increased inventories as their businesses have grown. Meanwhile, some additional new national and local accounts were keys to our decision to build. As expected, our location off Interstate 30—just four miles west of downtown Dallas—also has been ideal for carriers coming in and out of the Dallas Metroplex area.”

USCS Dallas now spans 9.7 million cubic feet with a total of 37,000 pallet positions, 42 truck doors and drop trailer parking for 50 trailers. (USCS Dallas’ site can also accommodate a Phase III expansion when needed).

Brian notes that with USCS Dallas’ ex-panding customer base, the company’s Transportation Division will be able to provide even more service for pooling LTL customer orders. Interestingly, the Phase II expansion also brought new rail service (Union Pacific) to the site and USCS Dallas now can handle eight jumbo cars daily. u

USCS Turlock offers storage at temperatures from 5°F to +55°F with a complete line of services (including packaging, labeling, specialized picking and case assembly) for both finished and off-production products.

Perhaps most notably, USCS Turlock offers USCS Transport localized shuttle services, in addition to USCS Logistics transportation services and outbound freight consolidation. u

Dallas, Texas Phase II

The Shield 4th Quarter 2014 5

Employee News

L to R: Roxane Hoffmann, Maureen Sokolowski and Colleen Ansell celebrate with Jim Slamon during a special dinner evening.

Jim Slamon Concludes 34-Year Finance Career

Numbers have been an important part of Jim Slamon’s working life. And

now there’s a certain number, 34, that’s significant. When Jim, USCS’ corporate Vice President and Secretary, retires at the end of 2014, he concludes 34 years of ser-vice with the company.

He joined USCS in 1980 as an internal auditor at the company’s Philadelphia headquarters. USCS soon promoted him to a series of corporate titles: Assistant Treasurer (1983), Treasurer (1986) and Chief Financial Officer (1996). He held the CFO post until fall 2013, when he shifted over to Vice President and Secretary. During the past year, Jim managed due diligence for possible acquisitions and divestitures, he led the company’s audit and risk functions and directed contract review and negotiations.

A Wilkes-Barre, PA, native, Jim earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Bloomsburg University. He later earned his master’s in business administration at the University of Pittsburgh and became a certified public accountant. He joined the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue in 1974 and then, in 1978, he served as a staff accountant at a public accounting firm.

Jim says he was simply looking for a career change when he joined USCS in 1980. At the time, he certainly didn’t know U.S. Cold would remain as his employer for

volved in the acquisition of the many prop-erties over the years. This process allowed USCS to grow profitably,” Jim notes. “It also was rewarding to work with the corpo-rate business development, operations and engineering departments to accomplish to many projects.”

And now, after seemingly a lifetime inside the office, Jim is literally getting out—and into the great outdoors.

“I am active in outdoor activities and look forward to more hunting and fishing,” says Jim. “I also am involved in a number of charities and I look forward to continuing in those activities. In the near term (2015), I am building a house on the Susquehanna River in upstate Pennsylvania. Building a new house in a new area will be the first of my next set of challenges.”

Among those wishing Jim a fond farewell is USCS President & CEO Dave Harlan.

“I’ve had the privilege of working with Jim Slamon for his entire career at USCS. It’s easy to point out his professional accom-plishments but his real success is measured by the respect and admiration of all his col-leagues,” says Dave.

“When I think of Jim, the words that come to mind are: honest, hardworking, caring, unselfish, professional, integrity, all with a booming laugh – and a good, dependable friend. We’ll all miss Jim, we hope to stay close and we wish him every success and happiness in his retirement.”u

Jim Slamonmore than three decades.

“Working at a job and for a company is a joy when you can always be excited about going to work,” he says. “The Swire Group and USCS don’t put people in a box in defining what they can accomplish. One can go as far as their enthusiasm takes them. USCS maintains a respectful attitude towards all its employees, which accounts for long-tenured employees being the norm.”

Likewise, Jim credits his success to many colleagues—past and present.

“Former CFO John Omps gave me the opportunity and exposed me to many areas of the business. He gave me responsibility in wide range of matters,” Jim recalls. “Former CEOs Peter Roberts and Tim Bridgman always were supportive, as is Dave Harlan. Dave is good at communicating company strategy and direction and he provides advice on execution.

“Also key are the finance and accounting staffs, whose diligence and long serving tenure have been invaluable,” Jim adds. “Dave fosters a collaborative environment, which allows the finance department to have a strong working relationship with all the regional vice presidents.”

For that matter, Jim says he also has enjoyed his involvement in a larger range of USCS activities.

“Another source of satisfaction was to be in-

The Shield 4th Quarter 20146

Transportation & Logistics

Tom Hrivnak, Logistics Operations Manager

Technology Step Propels USCS Logistics

You could say that USCS Logistics is closing a loop by opening a gate.

Since its debut in 2009, USCS Logistics has provided third-party logistics strategies and support to manufacturer warehouse customers and others. Yet these solutions ultimately were more weighted to certain warehousing strategies, admits Tom Hrivnak, Logistics Operations Manager.

He says now—thanks to an investment in MercuryGate’s trans-portation management system technology and Mojo optimizer—USCS Logistics has effectively closed a loop, or a gap, in its cus-tomer and carrier solutions. As a result, USCS will introduce and roll out a more complete and robust logistics service during the first quarter of 2015.

Software supplier MercuryGate says its Mojo platform uses all daily freight data. Actual current rates, approved carriers, specified capacities, transit times and other available data are fed into Mojo to produce realistic and executable load plans. Global orders from multiple customers, locations or vendors can be combined into multi-pick/drop movements, continuous move shipments, back-hauls and even pooling scenarios.

The supplier says USCS can easily import current shipments to Mojo from the MercuryGate TMS, ERP, WMS or from a spreadsheet. Mojo automatically determines the most cost-effective route and load to consolidation. Mojo also allows USCS and its customers to optimize shipments—across all modes—according to specific business practices or objectives (even down to CO2 emissions reduction).

“Historically, we’ve been somewhat tied to the warehouse en-vironment while our customers have ongoing issues with man-power and data while they look for trucks and manage trucks and transportation,” says Tom. “MercuryGate is a supply chain tool not tied to any one facility. Now we can truly be integrated with our customers to manage shipments from multiple plants and co-packers, manage outbound shipments from distribution centers—all while we monitor data down to the SKU level. The technology is connected to carriers, always fed with data and helps our cus-tomers even develop key performance indicator (KPI) measures.”

How it Helps Customers: Tom says the MercuryGate Mojo plat-form will especially appeal to small and mid-size processor ship-pers who have been understaffed and/or overwhelmed by massive amounts of logistics data. An easy-to-use portal lets customers log in, enter orders and watch those orders as they load to various carriers. The system provides real-time data related to on-time pick-up, shipping and delivery. Customers can track costs, in-voices and better determine funds needed to pay carriers.

“We want to make life easier for our customers (processor-ship-pers),” says Tom. “With everything they do to develop product, market and sell to their customers, it’s hard to have the appropri-ate time or manpower to handle all the transportation responsi-bilities. This tool will be a real benefit.”

How it Helps Carriers: MercuryGate Mojo will make it easier for national carriers, in particular, to connect with USCS for electronic data interchange (EDI) communications.

continued next page

The Shield 4th Quarter 2014 7

Operations – Area Insights

Luis Guardiola Vice President, Area Manager-Laredo, TX

Q: What were a few of most important developments in the Laredo region during calendar 2014?

Luis: I’d say the most important develop-ment was when the City of Laredo built refrigerated docks at both international bridges. This gives perishable goods im-porters better opportunities to maintain the cold chain during the inspection processes by USDA, FDA and US Customs. At the Texas border, these types of facilities are only offered at the Laredo border crossing.

Q: What were a few of most important developments involving USCS’ Laredo operations?

Luis: In February 2014, we completed a new addition, which allowed us to expand our capacity and services to the fresh fruit and produce industries. Moreover, we also have expanded our hours of operation to meet produce industry needs.

Q: What have been a few achievements or successes for your group?

Luis: Our biggest achievement this year was a very successful start-up to our fresh produce program.

We are handling a variety of fruits (includ-ing strawberries, blackberries, blueberries) as well as avocados, lettuce, tomato, bell peppers, cucumbers and broccoli and other items. USCS offers separate dock areas where products are handled at the specific temperature requirements for each com-modity. We maintain and monitor dock temperatures within a range from 33°F to 55°F.

Q: Any other significant news of note that you’d like to share?

Luis: Once I retire at the end of the year, George Cruz, Vice President and Regional Manager-USCS Southern Region, will oversee the Laredo operation. Everyone can expect a very smooth transition. George oversees USCS’ other Texas facilities and he is very knowledgeable about our operation.

Q: Looking ahead to 2015, what are a few important issues or opportunities for this region?

Luis: Moving forward, I’m very excited about the opportunity to continue to expand

The Shield talks with Luis Guardiola, Vice President and Area Manager-Laredo, TX. USCS Laredo has two facilities, which collectively manage 10.7 million cubic feet of multi-temp space. The operations employ 100 team members.

Technology & Logistics (cont. from page 6)

Warehouse Operations

and grow our fresh program. USCS Laredo’s future plans are to continue to develop new business in this industry and eventually construct a fresh produce distribution center in Laredo.

We expect continuous growth in the frozen sector. We’re forecasting increased exports of other commodities from Mexico. u

“Previously, we handled lots of national lo-gistics projects and the EDI component of our offerings wasn’t quite as strong,” Tom says. “Many major carriers nationwide al-ready are connected to MercuryGate so this gives us more leverage and connection. No matter what, we want to make carriers’ lives easier.”

That said, life has been a little more complicated for the USCS Logistics and Transportation groups in Voorhees. USCS team members already have spent countless hours adapting and connecting MercuryGate Mojo to USCS’ own systems, records, rates, schedules, etc.

“I’m very excited for our logistics program in its entirety and am grateful to our execu-tives for supporting it,” says Tom. “And we already are seeing some dividends. We demonstrated MercuryGate for one custom-er and they liked it. It shows viability.”

Tom also thanks and acknowledges his team members working on the Mojo tech-nology transition. These team members include Vince Berkery, Logistics Team Leader; Mojo Project Manager Jamie Sherfesee, Logistics Systems Lead; Alyssa Heckman, Transportation Accounts Re-ceivable Specialist and Andrew Pavlicin, a USCS Transportation Analyst specializing in MercuryGate’s Mojo optimizer.

For his part, Tom is looking forward to the future.

“This technology lets us stand upright and think outside the box as we bring truly in-tegrated solutions to our customers,” he says. “Now we can extend conversations as USCS helps customers manage trans-portation and freight.” u

The Shield 4th Quarter 20148

Please let us hear from you.Send story suggestions to Lisa Mullins atlmullins@uscold.com. For pictures, we welcome prints,color slides or computer graphics in jpeg form (300 dpi).

UNITED STATES COLD STORAGE, INC.Four Echelon Plaza201 Laurel Rd., Suite 400Voorhees, NJ 08043Tel: 856.354.8181 Fax: 856.772.1876E-mail: info@uscold.comwww.uscoldstorage.com

PRSRT STDU.S. POSTAGE

P A I DHAYWARD, CAPERMIT #3335

Employee News continued

USCS Remembers Jack Merryweather

Former USCS Omaha executive John “Jack” Merryweather passed away on

June 10, 2014, in Omaha, at age 86.

A native of Valley, NE, Jack served in the Air Force from 1948 to 1952, before joining USCS Omaha as a customer service clerk. He subsequently worked his way up to Office Manager, Operations Manager and finally, Vice President, Manager. He retired in December 1994.

“Dad had a great career with U.S. Cold,” says Jack’s son, Mike Merryweather. “He worked well with all the top people in Omaha and Midwest in the food and packinghouse industries. Deals were finalized with a handshake and a man’s good word.”

Dan Goodhard is USCS Omaha General Manager.

“My father, coincidentally, grew up as a childhood friend of Mr. Merryweather near Elkhorn, Nebraska (now part of Omaha),” says Dan. “From what [my father] told me—as well as what all other US Cold Omaha employees have said—John was of extremely high moral fiber and his reputation was one of candidness, honesty, and integrity.”

“I found those same attributes in Mr. Merryweather,” Dan continues. “After he retired from US Cold Storage, every year a little before Christmas he would always religiously stop by the office to say hello to the office staff members and drop us off a box of Russell Stover candies for the holidays.”

Jack is survived by a sister; his son, Mike in Waterloo, NE; a daughter, Patrice and son-in-law Dale Peterson of Aurora, CO; two grandchildren and one great grandchild. u

L to R: Dan Goodhard, John Merryweather, and Tom Vaghy share in the groundbreaking festivities

for Omaha (2012)