Many of you won’t know Karl. Karl Thulin, that is, pronounced Too-Leen. Karl is an anchor of IRN’s back office. From his desk in Concord, Karl is the man who interfaces with our charitable partners and handles their, and our, trucks and truckers.
Sometimes, like between Christmas and New Year’s, it’s a pretty easy job. Other times, like right now, it isn’t.
Here’s what Karl and IRN have been up to, the past couple of weeks:
Monday, May 15: Five projects, in Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Vermont. Seven trailers and shipping containers to be moved, using five different trucking companies working for three different charities. Two tractor-trailers going to a recipient in Indiana, one transferring mattresses from one IRN project site to another, and one empty trailer dropped at a project site in Vermont, to be loaded during the week. Plus three overseas shipping containers bound for Guyana (South America), Mongolia, and Armenia.
Tuesday, May 16: Three projects, one continuing in New Hampshire, two starting up, in Minnesota and New Jersey. Six shipments to three charities, using three different truckers. Three
more trailers heading for Mongolia, two more for Guyana, and one traveling from Minnesota to New York.
Wednesday, May 17: Four projects, four states, eight trailers loaded. One shipment from Vermont, staying in Vermont. Two more from Minnesota to New York. Two from New Jersey to Guyana. Three from New Hampshire to El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Somalia (East Africa).
Thursday and Friday, May 18 and 19. Two projects and two shipments each day, one more to Guyana, one more staying in Vermont, and two heading from New Jersey to Kentucky. A couple of quiet days.
Which Karl needed, to get ready for:
Monday, May 22. One project carried over, and three new projects fired up, in New York, New Jersey, and Vermont. Seven trailers loaded, two each for Guatemala, Jamaica, and Honduras, and one for El Salvador.
Tuesday, May 23. Four projects continued, in New York, New Jersey, and Vermont. New projects started in Delaware and Ohio. Karl handled twelve shipments using three different truckers working for four charities. One shipment traveled from Ohio to Indiana, another from Delaware to Kentucky, three from New York to Guatemala, and five from New Jersey to Honduras (3), El Salvador (2), Jamaica (1), and Nicaragua (1).
Wednesday, May 24. Ohio sent a second shipment to Indiana. Three big projects continued in New Jersey and New York, shipping three trailers to Guatemala, three to Honduras, and one to Nicaragua.
Thursday, May 25. The same three continued in New York and New Jersey, although from new buildings and load-out points. One trailer was shipped to Haiti, three to Guatemala, and four to two different destinations in Honduras.
Friday, May 26. Two projects, both in New Jersey; two charities; three shipments; two destinations in Haiti and Kentucky. One of our big charities shut down in advance of the holiday weekend, moving no trailers, so Karl got a breather.
Which he’ll need, because this week a whole new set of projects fired up. Eight of them, from Massachusetts to New Mexico and points in between. Another 25+ trailers, in a four-day week, and we’re short a project manager.
Karl is not an unsung hero. We sing his praises every day – in between asking him to do too much, right now this instant, with trucks that break down, drivers who get lost, dispatchers who lose track of trucks and drivers, cell phones that conk out, faulty GPS maps, and not enough coffee in the world.
IRN’s mission is simple: Keep usable furniture out of the landfill, by matching it with nonprofits serving underprivileged and disaster-stricken communities. Please use this form to get in touch if you’d like more information.
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