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A day in a soldier’s life
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With 10 employees, three trucks and a mere 7,200 square feet of warehouse space, Gerry and Eileen Lind started their own food distribution company in south Louisiana in 1964.
Today, the corporation still operates out of its original building in Morgan City, though they have knocked down a few walls to increase the overall size of the facility. With over 50,000 square feet of room and more than 100 employees and 20 trucks, G&J Land & Marine Food Distributors has grown immensely over the past 46 years.
The family ascribes this gradual upsurge to the company’s intense focus on customer service, the quality of their food and janitorial products and their crew.
On a daily basis, a blur of employees, forklifts and food products whirl around the G&J warehouse floor in a well-orchestrated dance. Crews execute their assigned tasks with vigour and precision. The choreographers of this organized and spirited performance are the founders’ son, Mike Lind, and grandson, Erik Lind.
Mike joined the family business in 1974 and became president of the company in the early 1990s. In 2007, Erik signed on as vice president to help his father continue the work of their predecessors.
“The reputation that my grandparents started, my dad has perfected and I’m going to continue,” Erik said.
Customer satisfaction is of the utmost importance according to the vice president. G&J strictly caters to the commercial shipping and offshore oil and gas industries with the belief that by exclusively servicing this field, the company is able to respond to their insistent clients better than their competitors.
“There are lots of different types of companies that compete with us, that do what we do, but I don’t think there is one that is just like us,” Erik said. “The oilfield industry is very demanding and we respond quickly to their demands. We’re 24/7. We try not to say, ‘No.'”
Along with their goals of customer service and loyalty, G&J directs a lot of their efforts to ensuring the quality of the products that they carry.
“We strive to consistently exceed all our customers’ expectations concerning product safety, quality and service,” Erik said on the G&J Web site.
All of the wholesale distribution company’s products exceed the grading standards set by the government, according to Erik. State and federal USDA inspectors frequently visit the warehouse to insure that the company is maintaining its high level of quality and all products are inspected on the item level. The business is also OSHA compliant and they participate in several other safety programs, he said.
“We treat our people like family,” he added. “Employees and the core people make it all happen. It’s all a team effort.”
The vice president still remembers working with some of the veteran staff members as a child.
“I was just a little kid and my dad told me to drive some of these trucks and forklifts, and that was before I got my driver’s license,” recalled Erik. “I grew up as a little boy working with some of the people that are still here.”
Raymond Price, director of safety and logistics, also remembers Erik working around the shop as young boy.
“I was one of those people here when he was driving around with his daddy when he was little,” said Price. “I was here when he was growing up.”
Several other employees that were around for Erik’s transition into adulthood can still be found bustling around the G&J warehouse. Joe Sanders has worked on and off with the company since its inception, while Chris Celestine, Roosevelt Grant, Archie White, Peter Raab and John Prius have been part of the team since the 1980s. Shelton Broussard, Ronnie Baker, Jarrod Leonard and Peggy Manuel joined the force around the time the founder’s son, Mike, took on the role as president in the early 1990s.
With loyal, reliable employees and over 45 years of experience, Erik says G&J can handle any customer order, no matter the size, time or delivery location.
“If a client calls us at 3 in the morning, and they want 4 or 5 gallons of milk sent to Venice within five hours and they say it has to happen … we’re going to make it happen,” he said.
Erik and his grandmother, the late Eileen Lind, are pictured in the G&J Land & Marine Food Distributors’ company truck. Today, Erik is vice president of the company. * Photo courtesy of G&J LAND & MARINE
