For seventy-five years, Alba Wheels Up has been an industry leader in the complex business of helping importers and exporters manage their global supply chains. Beginning with the company’s headquarters in Valley Stream, Alba has expanded through organic growth and acquisition and today has offices in Jersey City, Houston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Alba’s relentless focus has centered on its people, knowledge, and technology. The quality of Alba’s staff ensures they succeed for customers. Alba boasts one of the highest ratios of licensed customs brokers in its industry. This means that regardless of the commodity, from the most straightforward to the most challenging, Alba smoothly helps customers navigate the regulatory maze of compliance and achieve a successful outcome: on-time delivery to the recipient.
The business of importing and exporting into the United States has grown more complex over the past several decades, and Alba’s involvement and participation in local and national public-private partnerships with government regulators means its customers are among the first to hear and make preparations for potential changes to their supply chains. This insider advantage sets Alba at the top of the industry.
Data-driven decisions are necessary for companies to remain profitable and design resilient supply chains that can withstand natural disasters, geopolitical uncertainty, sudden regulatory burdens, and congestion, regardless of cause. Alba’s mix of Business Intelligence (BI), analytics, reporting, and data interoperability come together in a powerful solution that informs sourcing, buying, and inventory placement decisions critical to today’s global brands.
Alba’s CEO, Damien Stile, speaks glowingly about the staff and his respect and reverence for their work.
“We wouldn’t be the company we are without our people and culture. Alba has a high percentage of employees who have been with us not just for years but for decades. We invest in them personally and professionally, offering industry-leading health and wellness benefits, financial planning, and opportunities to learn and advance. We also allow time and space for people to volunteer, whether philanthropically or with industry associations.”
Much of Alba’s growth over the past several years can be attributed to bringing on a capital partner in 2021. Southfield Capital energized Alba’s plan to grow the business into new verticals and markets. Most notable was the acquisition in 2022 of a forty-year-old firm in San Francisco specializing in the semiconductor industry and, at the beginning of this year, John A. Steer Co., a more than one-hundred-year-old logistics company specializing in trade-sensitive industries with five locations along the Eastern Seaboard, all in markets where Alba did not already have a presence.
“Steer has provided Alba the ability to expand both in staff and locations,” Stile continued. “We believe in growing specialty verticals, core to our mission of being a leader in the transportation and clearance of trade-sensitive goods.”
Two such areas Alba is seeing exponential growth are e-commerce and forced labor enforcement by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
A change in the law in 2015, coupled with changes in consumer buying during the pandemic, means that goods are shipped directly to people’s homes today, bypassing traditional multi-layered channels of distribution centers and brick-and-mortar stores. Alba is leading the way for e-commerce retailers and marketplaces as an early participant in one of the first pilots offered by CBP to help companies quickly clear these shipments moving directly between seller and buyer.
In late 2021, Congress passed a law prohibiting the import of goods containing forced labor from a region in China. CBP has stepped up its enforcement of goods, automatically detaining shipments that could potentially contain things grown, harvested, or manufactured there. Working with a technology partner, Alba is using data and intelligence gathering to ascertain the risk that a supply chain contains forced labor and working with CBP to allow these goods entry.
What is next for Alba Wheels Up? 2024 is shaping to be a global trade recovery year, and imports are trending upward. Coupled with continued strong e-commerce growth, infrastructure investments in the semiconductor industry, and a continued focus by the Administration on equitable trade with global partners, Alba continues looking to the future of growing the company organically and with strategic acquisitions where the culture and commodities make the most sense.
1 E. Lincoln Ave.
Valley Stream, NY 11580
Tel: (718) 276-3000
www.albawheelsup.com
