Pasquale Bellarosa, Director Sales & Operations celebrates 10 years at Chapman Freeborn OBC

Pasquale Bellarosa, better known as ‘Lino’ recently celebrated 10 years working at Chapman Freeborn OBC.

Chapman Freeborn OBC has benefited from nearly 30 years of Lino’s cargo aviation experience as a broker, supervisor, and sales and business development manager. Operating with a collaborative approach, Lino has been an unofficial mentor to many OBC team members along the way and considers them as family.

Lino recounts his experiences across cargo, passenger, and on board courier categories easily and is generous with his knowledge so that newer team members will benefit and learn the business faster.  Torsten Meller, Chapman Freeborn OBC Operations Manager, Stefan Hirche, Chapman Freeborn OBC CRM Executive are just two who have developed their skills and moved into roles with more responsibility under his wing. The global Chapman Freeborn OBC team has grown to 35 and future plans see that number increasing.

When asked to relay some memorable stories about this past 10 years, Lino said, “There are too many to mention!” He sees the bigger picture from the daily automotive jobs to the broader multi-package and multi-courier jobs. Just last week, three different brokers had three different jobs to Johannesburg in South Africa. Every day is a new challenge for him, so he is always looking to what is next.

Passionate about his work, Lino is commuting weekly from Stuttgart to Cologne and worked from home during the height of Covid-19. During that time, he proactively reached out to freight forwarders and working across the Chapman Freeborn Group, moved critically needed PPE from China via Incheon to Frankfurt. Chapman Freeborn OBC has carried over 67 tons of time-critical shipments in the past year since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

Lino’s advice to newcomers is to embrace the variety of the work. Enjoy each day’s new and different challenges. He revels in the variety of the cultures, people, and contributions that each employee brings to the team. He lives by the German expression: Stillstand ist Rückschritt translated that means, “Stagnation is regression.”