# The history of the association

THE BIRTH OF THE ASSOCIATION
Spedimar was founded by a group of 24 forwarding companies sited in Livorno on August 28th 1952.
Livorno was living the worst days of its history at the time: the Second World War had caused great destructions. During the war Livorno was one of the most damaged Italian town from the allies’ attacks mainly because of its important harbour, its shipyard and its oil refinery. Therefore the town lived a very difficult period in the early ‘50s.
A lot of buildings had been destroyed and even a big part of the harbour was unusable; so the recovery of the town was hard and very slow. Despite the critical situation people realized that the recovery of their town was in there own hands, and they understood that their port, their only resource, was the drive behind the economy of the town.
That idea was clear for Carlo Carlesi who can be considered one of the founders of Spedimar.
Carlo Carlesi had been working as a freight forwarder for his family firm since 1926, he immediately realized that the activity of his frigth forwarding firm had been seriously hit by the concequences of the war: distruction, economical crisis, fears and doubts about the future trade of the port.
Carlo Carlesi knew that in so hard times a firm couldn’t survive counting only on its own strength.
In 1949 he had created an Association of Freight Forwarder and Steamships Agents but the association have failed because of disagreement of the the two components.
It was necessary to create something to defend the interests of the freight forwarders in a word something which could allow the whole category to face the problems of the town and its port.
A good number of supporters of Carlo Carlesi’s ideas grew among the forwarders in Livorno and in August 1954 twentyfour of them decided to create an Association which had to represent their specific needs, their way to be and to operate on the port and above all it had to represent their ideals.
Those forwarders were the founders of the Association of Maritime Freight Forwarders’ Firms: it was the origin of SPEDIMAR.
Spedimar was founded with theintention of been an association “of freight forwarders for freight forwarders” as it results fromthe first article of the first statute of the association.
The first article reported that a company could be a member of Spedimar only if it exercised exclusively the “art” of forwardings, that specific condition had been inserted in order not to let the steamships agents join the association.
The item number one of the first statute included obveusly the aims of the association:

• Active collaboration with the town authorities and the professional categories to rebuilt the freight traffic trough the port of Livorno
• Defence of the interests of the category in case of trade disputes.
• Diffusion and safeguard of mutual aid among the freight forwarders.
• Arbitral role incase of professional disputes among the members of the association.

Spedimar was founded on that base 50 years ago and since then those ones have been the principles of the policy of the association.

THE MAIN CHANGES IN THE LATEST 50 YEARS
One of the most important changes in the history of Spedimar has been the increasing of the number of its members, there were 24 in 1952 and now, after 50 years of activity, they are 107.
Another important element of evolution of Spedimar is the territorial diffusion of its members, in the early years the companies associated to Spedimar were just from Livorno but at the present a lot of companies are from other towns in Toscana and even from towns in other regions (Spezia, Modena).
A new staute was approved in 1998; its main purpose was to offer the members of associatin a permanent updating about the economic process, the development in the shipping trade and about the new frontier in transport (the multimodal transport).
In the new statute the association has changed its name “Association of Maritime Freight Forwarders’ Firms “ into “Association of Maritime Freight Forwarders’Companies”.
The term Firms has been changed into companies to point out how the members of the association wonted to became modern logistic operators in the global market which requires professional qualifid up-to-date operators.