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April 2008
Community Spotlight - Norman G. Jensen Customs Brokerage
For more than 70 years, Norman G. Jensen, Inc. (NGJ) has provided US and Canadian customs brokerage, freight forwarding, warehousing, distribution and consulting services to thousands of North American importers and exporters.
Norman G. Jensen, Inc. (NGJ) was founded in 1937 in the border town of Portal, North Dakota. Norman Jensen began providing Canadian businesses with the service and expertise needed for shipping goods to the United States. A few years later, Gordon Jensen joined the company, and together the brothers put Norman G. Jensen, Inc. on the customs broker map -- with offices along the Western U.S. and Canadian border.
Our regional NGJ office was opened in 1944 in Ranier, MN, and was located in the old bank building, where they operated until they moved into their current location in 1965. The Ranier Office has a full time staff of ten, and is currently managed by Norman Seegert who has been with the brokerage since 1971.
The company's responsibility is to broker commodities coming into the United States from Canada clients. These commodities can come from anywhere in the world, but as long as it comes into the U.S. through Canada customs brokers like NGJ are required to help with security and regulatory issues. Some of the regulatory offices that the local NGJ deals with on a daily basis besides U.S. Customs are the Environmental Protection Agency, Food & Drug Administration and the Department of Transportation.
"Since September 11th, 2001 the inbound scrutiny on all shipments has increased ten fold," stated Mr. Seegert. And this has become an even busier job seeing that just over the last 10 years inbound shipments to the U.S. at the Ranier port alone have nearly doubled.
NGJ has to work around the schedule of Canadian National the company that owns the rail going in and out of Ranier, which maintains a 24 hours-a-day and 365 days-a-year schedule. Ranier is the number two inbound railway port for Canadian National. The main commodities being transported include timber, fertilizers, and chemicals.
Norman Seegert also heads up the NGJ Compliance Team for the entire northern U.S. Border. In addition to not only maintaining the brokerage needs of just Ranier, MN. They also handle the brokerage needs for Warroad, MN; Pembina, ND; and will this year be taking over the responsibilities for Sweetgrass, Montana; and Blaine, Washington.
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