Our History

Decades after the Canadian-American Reciprocity policy was replaced by a system of tariffs, and before trucks were used to haul freight, Horace W. Robinson had a problem. 

Robinson, a lumber merchant, was trying to move timber from Canada into the U.S. Ongoing attempts to revive the reciprocity treaty were failing. Trade activities were limited. Robinson wanted to move lumber over the border, and was in need of someone to facilitate this.

With no skilled help available, he taught himself to do his own paperwork. He worked with the Dominion Chartered Customs-House Brokers Association to aid his education and was soon completing the necessary paperwork to move his timber.

At the same time, trade started to pick up between Canada and the U.S. No longer was the dominant trade between Canada and Great Britain. Soon people heard of this man moving timber from Thunder Bay and sought out his help to move their goods over the border. The first iteration of what would become Cole International was born. 

After World War I, and alongside advances in technology, the trucking industry began picking up momentum. Roads were being built and the old system of hauling freight by rail was slowly diminishing in popularity.

Around the same time, the Canada-U.S. agreement in 1936 marked the beginning of an economic relationship that would lead to steadily declining tariffs and other trade barriers over time (further evolving into the present-day USMCA/CUSMA.)

Robinson’s son-in-law, John Herbert Cole McCubbin celebrated the agreement with the U.S. as a way of boosting trade and he sought to iterate on Robinson’s skill in helping people move their goods over the border. His bright mind saw the potential to help customers even more broadly by leveraging the growing truck and road system to move more goods over the border. 

By the late 1940s, the world was reeling from the effects of World War Two. The formation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1948 served as the foundation for a multilateral economic system born of the desire to create peace. GATT would continue to set the rules for much of world trade through the mid-90s.

Despite the hardship of enduring two World Wars and the Great Depression, during which U.S. tariffs rose to record levels and Canadian exports to the U.S. declined dramatically, Robinson, with the help of McCubbin, continued helping people and businesses move their goods over the border successfully. When Robinson passed in 1944, McCubbin took the helm of the growing lumber and customs broker business.

At the time, McCubbin and his few employees were receiving continuous requests from local merchants to help them move their goods. Driven by the desire to help others in the community, and picking up where Robinson’s vision left off, McCubbin sought to fulfill the need expressed by his customers by evolving the business into a full brokerage service. 

Just as McCubbin began working with his father-in-law 12 years earlier, in 1956 his son-in-law, Don J. Lucky, began working alongside him, learning the tools of the trade.  

At the same time, in the U.S., Eisenhower passed the Interstate Highway System into law. Trucks could now haul more freight, and with faster schedules. Although moving freight by trucks had been growing momentum for decades, this law was a significant leap for the freight industry’s evolution—and one McCubbin and Lucky were quick to take note of.

After years of operating as a sole proprietor and wanting to make their business official, in 1958 Cole McCubbin was incorporated as Cole McCubbin Ltd. Shortly after, the company established their first storefront in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

By the 1960s, the freight and customs landscape had shifted dramatically from Robinson’s days and the business changed to keep up with the growing industry. Air freight was becoming much more common, the shipping container (invented in the late 1930s) had been used successfully in the 1950s by the U.S. military and was becoming more prevalent for use hauling ocean cargo, and millions of pounds of cargo were being hauled across North America by trucks yearly.

As Cole McCubbin Ltd. grew, they kept apprised of these changes and shifts and sought to be proactive when it came to finding solutions to customers shipping needs. The world evolved rapidly around the company and upon McCubbin’s passing in 1961, his son-in-law, Don J. Lucky, took over its operations. The legacy established by Robinson continued.

As such, under Lucky, the company began shifting to keep up with the growing freight industry. To do so, they followed two key strategies: establishing branch offices in crucial locations along the border to facilitate the increased movement of these goods and acquiring companies that complemented the core service offerings of customs brokerage and freight forwarding. 

Both Robinson and McCubbin understood the value of a forward-thinking, customer-driven approach and Lucky was no different. Lucky worked tirelessly to ensure the seamless movement of customer shipments, always ready with a creative solution when obstacles arose. Observing both the growing speed of shipments and the need of our customers to store goods after clearing the border while arranging transportation to their final destination, under Lucky’s guidance, a Thunder Bay warehouse was opened.

With a growing team of passionate, knowledgeable professionals on board, Cole McCubbin Limited became one of the most successful, privately-owned customs brokerage companies that were forming in Canada – an achievement we are proud of to this day.

By the late 1960s, the large network of highways being built across North America made trucking the most reliable way to move freight. But air freight was also having a moment. Small-parcel carrier companies started forming in the early 1970s, bringing with them the severance of passenger service from freight service. The rise in these small-parcel carriers would see a steady increase in technological advancements throughout the next two decades.

At the same time, the rapid rise in air travel as well as growing usage of shipping containers meant it wasn’t long before Lucky observed customers needing to move goods even longer distances. The company soon evolved to add international air and ocean freight forwarding to its services.

Through it all, Lucky continued to stay connected to his community while keeping his finger on the pulse of changes occurring throughout the logistics industry as a whole, from customs to freight. He was on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Association of Customs Brokers, an executive at the Canadian International Freight Forwarders’ Association (CIFFA), and a long-standing member of the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce. 

Technological advancements in the freight space showed no signs of slowing down. Noticing the growing need of its customers to move freight by air, Cole McCubbin Limited acquired a company with an international air freight agency in 1985.

This allowed the official freight forwarding division of Cole McCubbin Limited to open doors. It was not long before the new division, Cole Freight Inc., expanded to include project forwarding, air and ocean charter and logistics planning.

Acquisitions continued. In 1987, Cole McCubbin Limited acquired Lawrence Customs Brokerage, who had been operating in Western Canada since their inception in 1959, as a way of bringing on skilled talent proficient in customs. In an industry that was driven by mentorship and relied on experience over formal education, this acquisition not only brought in highly-knowledgeable staff, it set the tone for achievement and excellence in its customs brokerage team that would remain to this day.

Cole McCubbin’s Alberta activities were integrated and rebranded under Lawrence Customs Brokers, giving Cole McCubbin Limited a solid foothold in customs brokerage in Western Canada. Now, Cole McCubbin Limited’s long-standing reputation would extend to all of Western Canada.

By the early 1990s, Cole McCubbin Limited and Lawrence Customs Brokers Ltd. had become a single unified customs broker. Cole International Inc. was born, and included coverage across Canada through offices located from Vancouver to St. John’s, and strategically along the Canada/U.S. border.

At the same time, the customs brokerage department expanded their services to include compliance verification and post-audit reviews. From help with tariff classification to conducting in-house audits, the company’s services became even more comprehensive.   

Between keeping his finger on the pulse of what was happening in trade and listening to customers explaining their needs, Lucky recognized the rise in trade with Pacific Rim countries and sought to satisfy the specialized transportation requirements of companies involved in this. Considering that by the end of the 1980s, 90% of countries had ports, and by 1991, six of the world’s 10 largest ports were located in Asia, Lucky knew this was a need to be met.

And so a subsidiary of the now growing Cole Group of Companies, Abco International Freight, was created to serve this community. Established in 1993, Abco International Freight focused almost exclusively on the Far East market until broadening its global sphere of operations in the early 2000s.

As we observed our customer needs expanding, we continued striving to meet them. The world was moving even faster, with the rise of e-commerce and much more intricate supply chains. Rapid technological advances across all areas meant we had to stay relevant, both on the global level, helping our customers ship goods around the world, and on the local level, setting our teams up with the latest in computer technology in order to respond swiftly and capably.

In 2003, the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) was born, created out of an amalgamation of the three separate agencies that had been overseeing Canadian customs, immigration and border services. Canada Customs and Revenue, Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency collapsed into one entity, known as the CBSA. As the driving force of the CBSA became enforcement and risk prevention—a change in direction from what it had previously been doing – so did Lucky recognize the need to shift tactics.

The implementation of the CBSA in 2003 was followed by a period of time during which duty rates rose. Simultaneously, we observed more and more companies struggling to properly assess and classify the products they were importing. This led us to focus on leveraging our increased technical capability, exceptional tariff interpretative skills and extensive knowledge to reduce importers’ costs. In response, our Trade Consulting department was born in 2002. Striving to continue offering a high standard of service, our staff training and certification standards rose to a level we currently maintain – above and beyond the industry standard. By 2022, 48% of our team would be Certified Canadian Customs Specialists.

Between the technological advancements and the birth of the CBSA, the early 2000s brought more growth opportunities and ways of serving our customer base more efficiently. The Cole Group of Companies did so by establishing Cancon Logistics Inc., a subsidiary specializing in warehousing, distribution and domestic transportation services.

Then in 2006, Cole International USA Inc.entered the company mix. This addition introduced U.S. customs brokerage services to accommodate clients seeking to ship goods into the U.S. and marked our expansion from a Canadian-centric company into an international company operating on both sides of the border. The first U.S. branches were opened shortly thereafter, in Sweetgrass, Pembina and Portal.

In 2011, the company amalgamated all component companies (with the exception of Abco Freight International) under a single identity, Cole International.

This amalgamation reflected the company’s internal unity to external audiences. It also allowed the company to truly become a full-spectrum logistics services company, with three distinct service departments: Customs Brokerage, Freight and Trade Consulting.

From there, we didn’t stop striving to serve our customers, where they need us the most. Our acquisitions and establishment of new branches continued in the U.S. with new offices in Buffalo and Champlain (NY), Blaine and Seattle (WA), and Port Huron and Detroit (MI) to further expand our presence along the U.S. Northern border. From there, we continued inland, setting up in Houston, TX and Columbia. SC.

Then, in 2016, we saw a need for our presence closer to Mexico to help our oil and gas customers who sought to move goods between Mexico and the U.S. To help these customers, we strategically established a branch in Houston, Texas, the gateway to Mexico.