Johns to receive 2011 Connie Award

   The Containerization & Intermodal Institute (CII) will present the
2011 Connie Award to Robert Kenneth (Ken) Johns, former president of Sea-Land Service, for his significant influence on containerization in worldwide trade and transportation.
   Johns served as Sea-Land’s president and chief operating officer from 1979-87. Under his leadership, Sea-Land prospered as one of the world’s largest, most innovative and successful transportation companies. 
   Following his retirement, Johns founded The Hampshire Management Group, of which he serves as chairman and chief executive officer. The company has been involved in numerous businesses that primarily serve the ocean shipping industry, including Network America Lines, a non-vessel-operating common carrier and freight forwarder specializing in trade with the former Soviet Union, but which offers service worldwide, most recently to China; Oiltest, which does petrochemical and marine fuel testing and inspection; and R. K. Johns & Associates, a maritime business consultant.
   In 2001, Mr. Johns was inducted into the International Maritime Hall of Fame. He received Auburn University’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest honor bestowed upon an alumnus by the university.
   Also at the Connie event, a Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Stanley Sher, a maritime attorney in Washington, who has participated in nearly every major legislative initiative and judicial proceeding affecting the regulatory and competition laws governing international shipping in the past 40 years.
   Sher is a founding partner of Sher & Blackwell, which merged with Cozen O’Connor in 2010. He represents ocean carriers as well as other companies before federal agencies, the courts, and Congress. Before founding Sher & Blackwell in 1991, he spent 30 years in private law practice in Washington.
   He spearheaded industry-wide negotiations on shipping law reform that led to the passage of the 1998 Ocean Shipping Reform Act. He previously represented a large coalition of ocean carriers before Congress during its review and passage of the 1984 Shipping Act, and was selected by the Federal Maritime Commission to serve on the federal advisory committee that reviewed the success of that law.
   Sher was inducted into the International Maritime Hall of Fame in 2009.
   The Connie Awards luncheon will be held Dec. 5 at The Newark Club in Newark, N.J.
   CII is dedicated to promoting the international intermodal industry in education outreach. Scholarship opportunities, tickets and sponsorships are available from Barbara Yeninas, executive director, at (732) 817-9131 or execdir@containerization.org.