Click here and find out what Justin Brown, Boyz II Men, and Condé Nast’s VP of Corporate Creative Services have in common. You may scratch your head and wonder what these three entities have to do with each other, but there’s more to this trifecta than meets the eye. They all know the importance of giving back, and most recently, they were a part of The 33rd Annual T.J. Martell Foundation Awards Gala honoring the humanitarian efforts of Larry Kellner, Michael Cohl and Dr. James Holland. Justin’s wife was kind enough to bring back some photos from what looked like a beautiful event.

Gary Van Dis, VP of corporate creative services at Condé Nast and Justin Brown, CEO of First Global Xpress (FGX)

Larry Kellner, J.T. Martell Foundation Honoree and chairman and CEO of Continental Airlines Inc., with Justin Brown, CEO of First Global Xpress (FGX)

A charity silent auction was held. Trips, experiences and other items were on the auction block with Continental Airlines (a company we partner with to ship internationally) stepping up as the official airline for each trip.

Boyz II Men were slated to perform and I was all over Twitter telling people how excited our CEO was to hear them live. I’m not the only one who wondered where the baritone member of the group was. Still, Boyz II Men is a classic R&B group and it’s good to see that they were on the bill for this philanthropic celebration.

Boyz II Men performing at the 33rd Annual T.J. Martell Foundation Awards Gala

The T.J. Martell Foundation raises money to fund Leukemia, Cancer and AIDS research at laboratories around the country. The contracting economy could mean less donations to our nation’s nonprofits. Visit theT.J. Martell Foundation site for more info or to make a donation.

New York City is no stranger to warm Autumns. We had some unusually humid weather over the last few weeks, but it was chilly again by Sunday. How’s a firm to know when to shut off the AC? Here at FGX, we suffered through half of the summer with a humongous air conditioning system that is built into the infrastructure of the building. The building’s AC system is composed of a long, tunnel-like air shaft running across the ceiling of the entire office and gigantic compressors on each floor. The shaftway has large vents which allow the air to escape. The whole bulky system is louder than the city streets and colder than the Rockefeller ice rink in December.

We’re a tightly knit team and we didn’t appreciate being drowned out by the rumbling din of an AC monster, nor could we get used to the idea of running this industrial sized mega-AC when all it did was turn our team into FGX icicles. AC is only fun when you can actually gauge the temperature for comfort, and hear yourself think.

Removing the entire industrial unit was not an option because it’s an integral part of the building we operate out of. We finally decided to purchase Energy Star certified units on our own and let the old AC unit retire into silence. Sweet, sweet silence. But it seems like it’s time to retire the Energy Star models as well.

It was pretty chilly when I left work last night. By the time I went to bed it was even more so. When I woke up this morning I realized it was time to turn on the heat. Fuel crisis or not, I simply cannot blog with frigid fingers. The cold snap is now in full-effect; evidenced by the amount of people I spied in their winter coats on the way to work this morning. To that end, we have officially shut off our air conditioning for the winter.

No matter when you choose to shut off the AC, we encourage you to use Energy Star certified products. I asked Teddy to pull our electric bills from last summer. He compared the bills online and found that First Global Xpress has saved a significant amount of money by using the new, energy efficient cooling system. Not only did we save a chunk of cash, but we’re able to control the temperature more precisely, run the dehumidifier separately from the AC function on cooler but humid days, and we can talk each other’s ears off because the new cooling system is as quiet as our fake mouse, Roger.

It feels great knowing we made the smart decision. We saved energy, money and managed to avoid the laryngitis that screaming over the rumbling AC was sure to cause. Now if I could only figure out where the heat comes from in here …

Daily News (10/13/08)—When statuesque music icon Grace Jones needed an exotic costume overnighted to London from Brooklyn for a concert a few months ago, her reps didn’t call FedEx or UPS. They rang up a tiny international courier in Chelsea called First Global Xpress.

For a small business startup, grabbing customers can be as hard as flying an airplane in an ice storm. But James Dowd, a 43-year-old ex-DHL exec who founded First Global Xpress, had a mission: to be cheaper and more reliable than his giant rivals.

The idea of launching an international courier service hit the Valley Stream, L.I., native back in the mid-1990s.

While at DHL, Dowd was touring a sorting and distribution facility in Brussels and found himself staring at a giant conveyer belt moving packages. His guide told him that on average about 80 out of 1,000 packages get lost. Dowd saw an opportunity.

“There’s got to be a better way,” he thought.

The shipping giants, FedEx, UPS and DHL, often move packages through various locations before sending them to their ultimate destinations. The more stops, the higher the chance a package might be delayed or vanish, he reasoned.

Flying packages direct from New York to their destination presented a viable alternative. He could contract with commercial airlines to ship packages overseas. By keeping costs low, he could charge less.

While Dowd had a concept and a strategy, he had no funding and only limited experience.

In 1995, he decided to go to work for Mark III, a privately held international courier based at Kennedy Airport. “I needed an education,” Dowd said.

By 2001 he was ready to go out on his own. He’d met John Acierno, CEO of Brooklyn-based Executive Transportation Group, one of the city’s largest car services. Acierno was willing to take a chance on Dowd.

NY Minute Messenger & Trucking, a company co-owned by Acierno, invested about $500,000 and set up First Global Xpress in a 260-square-foot office on Washington St. in Lower Manhattan.

Dowd hit a snag when his former employer sued, alleging he breached a noncompete agreement. The two sides settled.

Dowd plowed ahead, targeting entertainment companies that needed special care for transporting costumes and props. He signed on companies like HBO and, later, publishing houses and law firms. He built his customer base by promising lower prices, faster deliveries and more one-on-one attention.

“They do an excellent job of getting things delivered on time,” said Susan Scattergood, director of operations at Manhattan law firm Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson.

Shipping everything from legal documents to giant containers of squid, First Global Xpress expects to move 250,000 packages and take in $10 million in sales this year, up 10-fold from its first year.

Dowd made a key hire early on - a young NY Minute exec Justin Brown. A University of Maine grad who was new in town, Brown proved to be an aggressive salesman and quickly rose through the ranks.

Eventually Brown would become so important to the 25-person company that Dowd would agree to make a major change in management. About a year ago, the company’s founder realized he needed Brown’s fresh ideas to make his company stand out amid rivals ramping up service. So he gave up his CEO title to Brown, just 29 years old.

“We made a very big change [and] it was difficult for James to let this young kid in,” Brown said of himself.

Dowd, now chief operating officer, remains majority owner. Brown owns the rest. The two bought out Acierno several years ago.

The new challenge is to keep sales growing in a slumping economy. Lately, customers have been taking longer to pay.

To drum up new business, Brown developed a program aimed at companies increasingly focused on sparing the environment. By using First Global Xpress, which flies packages directly to their destination, businesses can cut carbon emissions by about 30% per package.

Still, taking on the big guys is tough.

“FedEx and UPS are extremely smart and extremely profit-driven companies that are taking their service to ever-increasing levels,” said Daniel Ortwerth, a transportation analyst at Edward Jones. To succeed, he said, a small company must be “reliable, reliable, reliable” and control costs.

Amid the challenging times, Dowd is thrilled with his decision to try to be his own boss.

“I was able to buy a house on the golf course in Rockville Centre this past year,” Dowd said. “If I had stayed at DHL or Mark III, I never would have been able to pull that off.”

This article was written by Phyllis Furman and first published by The Daily News on October 13, 2008. Click here to view the original article.

At FGX, we’re serious about reducing waste. Our bottled water cooler was replaced by a state-of-the-art filter, the black car service was replaced by a hybrid car service and we use paper only for necessities (think checks). An intern once described our company-wide sustainability commitment as “an effort to make our operation a lean, mean, green shipping machine.”

That comment gave us quite a few laughs. Where does the mean come in? We asked the intern in between chuckles. But lately, it seems that our intern knew us better than we knew ourselves. The rodent at the top if this post may have given some of you pause and you can be sure that it’s given a number of our employees more than just pause; it gave one associate what he described as “a near heart attack.”

Hyperbole aside, this hilarious looking, Halloween-inspired rodent (customer care dubbed him “Roger”) has been making the rounds at our New York office. He’s been encountered in the unisex restroom, the office refrigerator and even in the attache of our seemingly unflappable CEO.

Roger’s ubiquity gave rise to a discussion on how to decorate the FGX office for Halloween. We found some ideas on other blogs and we’ve all decided to have a greener Halloween this year. That means purchasing items with the least amount of extraneous packaging and reusing existing items in creative ways. If you you run a business and you’re looking for packaging waste reduction ideas you should take a look at this page from the Environmental Protection Agency site.

One First Global Xpress driver has already promised to donate his old clothing to be used in the creation of a creepy, scarecrow like creature. And of course, we all expect to see a lot more of Roger before the month is over. If you have ideas on how our office can have a greener Halloween, you’re invited to leave a tip in the comments section below, or visit the “Contact us” section to send me an email.” As I sit at my desk finishing this post, I’ve come across Roger. It seems someone placed him in my top drawer. I’ll have to leave you here dear readers, as it is clearly my turn to hide him next.

On behalf of the entire team here at FGX, I’d like to welcome you to the new ShipGreener.com. As corporate citizens, First Global Xpress is taking a innovative look at the shipping industry—from every angle.

Each facet of our blog’s redesign, from the fresh, clean layout, to the more precise navigational tools, has been crafted to make it easier for you to participate in the discussion about what it means to be a responsible shipper.

There are so many ways to join the discussion. You can suggest a topic to be covered on our blog, to your RSS reader, recommend us on StumbleUpon, bookmark us on Delicious, and even follow us on Twitter.

First Global Xpress does more than get your package safely delivered at competitive prices. We’re making great strides in the industry by building a business model that involves not just profit, but the people we serve and the planet we inhabit. When the planet is protected, the people will prosper and that’s the kind of profitability we can all stand behind.

Welcome to the future of shipping. Welcome, to First Global Xpress.