Trade Tech’s Senior Systems Analyst, Mike Cooney, reflects on a journey from electronic filings to the evolving role of AI—and how collaboration, agility, and the right tools are shaping the future of global logistics.
With over 30 years of experience at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, what first drew you to join Trade Tech and what excites you most about this new role?
I had originally worked with Trade Tech in my role at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, then the U.S. Customs Service, in the early 2000s. My job at Customs was called a Client Representative. I worked directly with customs brokers, ocean, air and truck carriers, exporters, importers, software vendors, and other US Government agencies in receiving and processing trade data electronically instead of on paper. Trade Tech was one of the companies that stepped up to provide services for ocean carriers and freight forwarders after 9/11. I’m sure people in the trade who were around in the early 2000s remember the Trade Act of 2002, and the new requirement that full house bill data either be provided directly to U.S. Customs in the Automated Manifest System (AMS) or be turned over to the ocean carrier for them to transmit the house bill. I was their assigned client rep from Customs. In that role I assisted the team at Trade Tech in interpreting the guidance documents from Customs for AMS, reviewing their test transactions, approving them as a manifest service provider, and then setting up their clients and troubleshooting any issues would arise. I sometime joke that the saying “I’m with the government, and I’m here to help you” was true for my job as a client rep. I was impressed with the founders Bryn Heimbeck and Kevin Clark, and the team they assembled that I worked with daily.
My career later drifted away from working with manifest data to focus more on the migration of US import data from brokers and importers from the legacy Automated Commercial System (ACS) to the Automated Commercial Environment. And expanding the US Government agencies that participated in ACE to receive, and process import data. I didn’t leave Trade Tech high and dry. I made sure to transfer them to one of my client rep colleagues who I knew would continue a great collaborative relationship.
I retired from CBP but still wanted to engage my international trade brain. Last fall, I reconnected with Bryn. He had posted on LinkedIn about one of his ideas for improving ocean cargo processing worldwide – note to readers Follow Bryn Heimbeck on LinkedIn. I messaged him just commenting on the idea he shared, then asking what countries Trade Tech had expanded to and how some of the folks I had worked with over 20 years ago were doing. He said they were looking to add US Import to their Trade Tech product, and could I become part of his team to make that a reality. We both knew the task would be a big challenge, and I appreciated the confidence he and Kevin Clark placed in me to help lead this effort. And I again found the same collaborative environment within Trade Tech that I observed 20 years prior from the U.S. Customs side…
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