Transera’s Marr named to list of Canadian Woman Entrepreneur of the Year

Rosemary Marr, president and CEO of 3PL services provider Transera Group of Companies has been honored with a 2001 Rotman Canadian Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the export category.

Her Calgary- based company handles all types of cargo and deals with all modes of transport but it has made its reputation managing project logistics in the mining and oil industries. The company is an industry leader in freight logistics to the former Soviet Union and is regularly responsible for coordinating global dimensional heavylift shipments via air, land and sea. More than 40% of Transera’s sales are generated abroad and that number is expected to double over the next five years through acquisitions and the establishment of additional offices around the world.

"With a strong work ethic and a passion for her business, Rosemary has created a dynamic, financially strong, global-market freight forwarding business with incredible revenue growth. Since its inception, revenues have grown from $1 million to this year’s projection of $42 million in sales," the awards presenters noted about Marr and her efforts.

The Awards are an annual initiative of the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto and are presented by Bank of Montreal. Other partner organizations in this year’s awards included the National Post, Women’s Television Network (WTN), Ford Motor Company of Canada, Export Development Corporation, Chatelaine Magazine. They are also supported by Ireland + Associates = Design, Deloitte & Touche, Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP, Industry Canada and Tiffany & Co.

After graduation from high school in 1975, Marr went to work as a bank teller. Several years later, she took a Girl Friday position with a customs brokerage firm. A temporary assignment within the firm gave her a first taste of the freight forwarding business and she found herself passionate and fulfilled by the work. The company’s policy that women, especially non-university educated women, were not promotion material gave her all the motivation she needed to move to a Vancouver- owned freight forwarding firm that wanted to expand into Alberta.

Starting the Alberta office as a one-woman show, Rosemary worked around the clock to build the business and was soon outpacing the Vancouver head office in sales while maintaining a much lower overhead. Rather than buying the company when the opportunity arose, Rosemary decided, in May 1985, to open her own firm. With a strong work ethic and a passion for her business, she has created a dynamic, financially strong, global-market company with incredible revenue growth. Since its inception, revenues have grown from $1 million to this year’s projection of $42 million in sales. The company now has fifty-two employees and offices in Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Houston, Cyprus, Ecuador and Kazakhstan.