Malcolm Purcell McLean (November 14, 1913 – May 25, 2001; later known simply as Malcom McLean) was an American businessman. He was a transport entrepreneur who invented the modern intermodal shipping container, which revolutionized transport and international trade in the second half of the twentieth century. Containerization led to a significant reduction in the cost of freight transportation by eliminating the need for repeated handling of individual pieces of cargo, and also improved reliability, reduced cargo theft, and cut inventory costs by shortening transit time. Containerization is credited as being one of the main drivers of globalization. Early life McLean was born in Maxton, North Carolina in 1913. His first name was originally spelled Malcolm, though he used Malcom later in life. In 1935, when he finished high school at Winston-Salem, his family did not have enough money to send him to college, but there was enough for Malcolm to buy a used truck. The same year, McLean, his sister, Clara McLean, and his brother, Jim McLean, founded McLean Trucking Co. Based in Red Springs, North Carolina, McLean Trucking started hauling empty tobacco barrels, with Malcolm as one of the drivers. Containerization The idea of transporting trucks on ships was put into practice before World War II. In 1926 regular connection of the luxury passenger train from London to Paris, Golden Arrow/Fleche d'Or, by Southern Railway and French Northern Railway began. For transporting passengers' baggage, four containers were used. These containers were loaded in London or Paris and carried to ports, Dover or Calais, on flat cars in the UK and “CIWL Pullman Golden Arrow Fourgon of CIWL” in France. In the early 1950s, McLean decided to use the containers commercially. By 1952, he was developing plans to carry his company's trucks on ships along the U.S. Atlantic coast, from North Carolina to New York. It soon became apparent that "trailerships", as they were called, would be inefficient because of the large waste in potential cargo space on board the vessel, known as broken stowage. The original concept was modified into loading just the containers, not the chassis, onto the ships, hence the designation container ship or "box" ship. At the time, U.S. regulations would not allow a trucking company to own a shipping line. McLean secured a bank loan for $22 million, and in January 1956 bought two World War II T-2 tankers, which he converted to carry containers