Even at age 85, Norfolkan keeps trucking along

Posted with permission from the Norfolk Daily News

DENNIS MEYER/DAILY NEWS

By SHERYL SCHMECKPEPER, Norfolk (Neb.) Daily News

Thursday, March 9, 2006

Clayton Andrews lives by this motto: “When your mind tries to tell your body how old it is, you ignore it and just keep going.”

So far, it’s served him well because the 85-year-old Norfolkan is running two corporations that have worldwide impact.

The first is as old as he is. The second is just a teenager.

* * *

When World War II was declared, Andrews enlisted and served 50 months in the Army Air Corps. Most of his military service was spent as a test officer in the Air Corps Proving Ground Command at Elgin Field in Florida.

He requested overseas duty in Germany but instead was sent to Panama, where he served as an operational troubleshooter.

By the time Japan surrendered, Andrews had earned the rank of major. He was asked to consider making the military a career but instead chose to return home to fulfill his desire to help spur growth in Andrews Transfer and Storage, the company his father, A.R. Andrews, had founded 26 years earlier in 1920.

Andrews took over management of the company in 1954 when it had nine trucks that operated in 12 states.

Today, he’s president of Andrews Van Lines, a company that hauls freight in all 50 states and in 21 countries. The company has agents in large cities throughout the United States and in numerous foreign countries.

In the years he spent successfully expanding the family company, Andrews garnered a number of awards from the trucking industry, including the Pioneer Movers Hall of Fame Award and the Carroll Genovese Award, which recognizes leadership and service to the moving and storage industry.

The community also recognized his efforts by naming him Norfolk’s Outstanding Citizen in 1999 and honoring him with a Norfolk Oscar in 2003.

The awards reflect his involvement in Norfolk’s civic life, including his 14 years as chairman of the Norfolk Airport Authority, and his service on the Norfolk Area Chamber of Commerce and the former Lutheran Community Hospital boards of directors.

His support of Lutheran High Northeast in Norfolk caused the school’s leaders to name its activity center for him and his late wife, Vivian.

Despite the accolades, Andrews downplays his role in Norfolk’s community life. He spent most of his time growing his international business.

Others, he said, have done more.

* * *

If that was the case once, it probably isn’t now.

At about the time many people his age are retiring, Andrews took on a new task.

In 1992, the lifelong member of Grace Lutheran Church in Norfolk encountered a new challenge.

He was asked to find a way to send food, clothing and other donated supplies to Latvia and other countries in Eastern Europe.

Many of the countries had been under the rule of the Soviet Union and had not recovered from devastation caused by World War II. The Rev. Ray Wilke, Grace Lutheran’s pastor, had visited the area and recognized the need for spiritual and humanitarian aid.

Wilke came home determined to make a difference. And he turned to Andrews to help him do so.

The Orphan Grain Train was born.

Today, Andrews is vice president of the organization that last year provided $10 million in humanitarian aid to people around the world. He expects the 2006 total to reach $12 million.

That total includes donated food, clothing, medical supplies and literature as well as the volunteer labor and money needed for shipping the containers of goods around the world.

In 2004 alone, 65 shipments were sent overseas and 51 shipments were sent to sites in America. A total of 80 shipments have been sent to the areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

The shipments originate from Norfolk or one of the other 18 satellite offices of the Grain Train located throughout the United States.

Andrews’ title of vice president is more impressive than the pay he receives. He’s just another volunteer.

In all, the organization has only five paid staff members – a bookkeeper, fundraiser, administrative secretary, secretary and warehouse manager. They’re all based in Norfolk.

Hundreds of volunteers in Norfolk and at the satellite offices sort and pack supplies and manage the enormous number of details involved in getting goods from the United States to countries halfway around the world.

The volunteer manpower is the reason why 96 cents out of every dollar donated to the Orphan Grain Train is spent for the specific purpose it was donated, Andrews said.

Shipments are sent to partner organizations – many of which are associated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod missionaries – that distribute the products.

* * *

Andrews hesitates to say he was “called” by God to do the work.

But there are times, he said, when he wonders if he didn’t spend 50 years learning the transportation business so he would be in the position to answer the call when Wilke came home from Latvia and asked, “How can we help these people?”

Yet he takes little credit for the organization’s success. He’s quick to praise the staff and volunteers, and he says the organization is “blessed.”

“If you think there isn’t a God, don’t be in this business. You’ll find out quickly that there is a God,” he said.

The work has become Andrews’ mission.

He still manages Andrews Van Lines and often stops there in the morning before going to the Orphan Grain Train.

“I’m acting more as a consultant to the Van Lines, as the personnel is doing such a good job, it does not take much of my attention,” he said.

On most days, you’ll find him overseeing Orphan Grain Train operations from his desk in the cramped front office of the organization’s headquarters on South Fifth Street.

The staff will move into the organization’s new international headquarters this summer. The 9,300-square-foot facility, located at Sixth Street and Phillip Avenue in Norfolk, will give the Orphan Grain Train room to grow.

And Andrews plans to be there.