Background
Hans Jeppesen was born on September 7, 1891 near Copenhagen, Denmark, the son of Jacob C. and Nicoline Jeppesen Isbrandtsen.
Hans Jeppesen was born on September 7, 1891 near Copenhagen, Denmark, the son of Jacob C. and Nicoline Jeppesen Isbrandtsen.
In 1914, following an early career at sea, Isbrandtsen came to the United States to manage the New York office of the American Trans-Atlantic Company, an organization established by Danish shipowners to secure the unhindered movement of Danish ships through British and German blockades of European waters during World War I.
Following the war, he tried unsuccessfully to build a European-style steamship terminal - one equipped with quayside cranes to eliminate the need to handle cargoes with ship's gear - on the north shore of Staten Island. In 1929 Isbrandtsen and the Danish shipowner Arnold Maersk formed the Isbrandtsen-Moller Company. Known along Shipping Row as a lone wolf, Isbrandtsen wanted no part in the conventional rules of the shipping industry; rather, he preferred to operate on his own terms, which included an almost fanatical belief in the principle of freedom of the seas.
His career was marked by a long conflict with the Federal Maritime Commission over the concept of steamship conference agreements. The consequence of Isbrandtsen's continuing battle against the shipping regulations was a congressional inquiry, headed by Representative Emmanuel Celler, designed to do away with the abuses of the conference system. Isbrandtsen was a principal witness, and the inquiry resulted in meaningful measures to improve the system, including one that permitted the conferences to establish their own policing organization to ensure compliance with conference rules.
After World War II Isbrandtsen founded Isbrandtsen Lines with war-built tonnage acquired from the United States government. His ships sailed under the American flag. Fearless in pursuit of what he thought was right, Isbrandtsen occasionally tangled with governments. In 1947, with the full knowledge of both the Dutch and the American governments, he sent the cargo ship Martin Behrman to deliver cargo to the Netherlands East Indies and to take on other goods. The Dutch seized the ship on the ground that exportation of the cargo she had loaded at Cheribon, Indonesia, constituted a violation of the ban on exports imposed by Dutch authorities at the time. The cargo was unloaded and the ship sailed empty, but Isbrandtsen sought redress and eventually reached a settlement with the Netherlands authorities that reimbursed him for the loss. In 1949, after three of his cargo ships were shelled by Nationalist Chinese gunboats while running the blockade outside Shanghai, Isbrandtsen called upon the Department of State for a statement of policy concerning the right of American vessels to enter the port of Shanghai. That situation resolved itself when mainland China fell to the Communists at the end of the year.
Isbrandtsen took an interest in every detail of his management, to the extent of maintaining his own stock farm on Long Island to provide his vessels with home-grown meat and produce.
He died on Wake Island.
Hans Jeppesen Isbrandtsen was one of ther founders of Isbrandtsen-Moller Company. He also founded Isbrandtsen Lines with war-built tonnage, that became the largest independent steamship company in the United States. Isbrandtsen's shipping empire had grown to fifteen owned ships and thirty to fifty chartered vessels, most of them 10, 000-ton general cargo ships.
Isbrandtsen was particularly opposed to the dual-rate concept, by which a cargo shipper who transported all his shipments in conference vessels was granted a lower freight rate than the occasional or noncontract shipper. He stated his opposition in newspaper advertisements and in testimony during the Federal Maritime Commission investigation into alleged abuses by the Shipping Act of 1916.
A conference shipper said of Isbrandtsen, "He's the smartest damn guy in the whole business. You can hardly get a lawyer to go against him because he's usually right. " It was a typical comment; during Isbrandtsen's long and often stormy presence on the American shipping scene, he won the grudging admiration of friend and foe alike.
On March 25, 1921, Isbrandtsen married Gertrude Mirus; they had three children. Following his death on Wake Island, his son Jakob assumed management of the business.
