GSC shutdown shocks Port of Oakland maritime community

The announcement that Port of Oakland harbor trucking company GSC is ceasing operations has sent shock waves among maritime stakeholders at the Port of Oakland.

On July 12^th GSC Chairman Scott Taylor sent out an email announcement:

“With deep sadness and heartfelt gratitude, I write to inform you that GSC has ceased all operations effective immediately. For the past 38 years, it has been our honor to serve the logistics community and to work alongside partners like you who helped build and sustain this business.”

Taylor’s & GSC’s legacy

Taylor & GSC have been a pillar and champion of the Port of Oakland maritime community for years.

In 2024, Scott Taylor received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Containerization & Intermodal Institute presented during the annual Connie Award ceremony.

Taylor helped lead the opposition to the Oakland A’s attempt to build a baseball park and condominiums at Howard Terminal on Port of Oakland property.

Taylor fought to protect maritime operations by speaking out at hearings and public meetings in which he repeatedly explained to various commissioners and elected officials why transportation lanes running in and out of the Port of Oakland can easily become disrupted when thousands of baseball fans and condominium residents flock in and out competing with truck and rail pick-ups and deliveries.

Taylor helped keep together a coalition of trucking companies, terminal operators, longshore labor, railroads, importers and exporters.

Taylor and his GSC partner Andy Garcia (who died in 2020) faced the full might and money of Oakland A’s owner and billionaire John Joseph Fisher whose minions had mobilized support from the Oakland City Council and the Alameda Board of Supervisors to support the ballpark and undermine maritime operations at the Port. The result would have begun the Port’s transformation into an upscale condo enclave with a ballpark proximity.

Throughout the long battle, which ended with the A’s abandoning Oakland, Taylor maintained a factual business-like demeanor and refused to back down.

In an interview with AJOT, Mike Jacob, President, Pacific Merchant Shipping Association (PMSA) said: “I feel awful … for Scott and for his whole family. They have been engaged in so much stuff on behalf of the industry and stepped up when other people have not on issues.”

It should be noted that during the Howard Terminal fight, it was Jacob, then legal counsel at the PMSA, who directed the legal counter-offensive along with GSC and others. Jacob became the rallying chief supported by then PMSA President John McLaurin.

Harbor trucking challenges

GSC’s demise drew a host of responses from many Port of Oakland stakeholders including San Joaquin Valley harbor trucking leader Peter Schneider, President TGS Logistics based in Fresno, California.

Schneider eulogized GSC’s demise in a LinkedIn post: “Today was a tough day in the international drayage community. Today we learned some great friends that run a great drayage and 3PL company who have been in business for close to 40 years are closing their doors.
If this isn’t a wakeup call that rates have been driven too low since the pandemic, I don’t know what will wake up the industry. In so many lanes across the country, rates have been driven back to pre-pandemic levels, with costs at 2025 levels. Try running a business in CA in 2025. An over-regulated state, with no sense for working with the business community, only against it. Diesel prices over $1.00 more than any other state. Crazy new laws and regulations to fight every year…it goes on and on.
It’s time to reflect. Time for change. Time to respect the backbone of international trade. Our industry for the past three years has fought so hard to pick up and deliver your products around the country. We’re doing so at pre-pandemic rate levels with costs that only increase every quarter. Please be respectful and take a look at your spend now versus the past few years. As a BCO (Beneficial Cargo Owner), NVO (Non-Vessel Operating Common Carrier), forwarder or broker, you can afford a few percentage points more per load for your trucker. It makes a world of difference and keeps an entire industry healthier.”

Matt Schrap CEO, Harbor Trucking Association, noted that: “The problem is about the continued race to the bottom on rates and how it is becoming harder and harder to keep the lights on when costs go up, and rates for container movement stay flat or decrease. It is not sustainable.”

Role of tariffs

Eugene Seroka, Executive Director, Port of Los Angeles said Trump administration tariffs have caused volume swings, higher costs and uncertainty at US ports in 2025 that make a bad situation worse for harbor trucking companies: “I've got a lot of friends at GSC, and it was a shame to read about that, but … there are a lot of folks that are impacted across a variety of segments in this supply chain and everything from consumers tightening belts and watching the family budget to companies who are no longer hiring, in some cases laying off. And now you're starting to see a few that are getting out of the business. This is quite disturbing …You know, this trucking business works on very, very thin margins and trying to get as many runs as they can every day. If you go six weeks like we did with depressed volumes, companies like GSC are going to get hurt.”

Despite GSC’s demise, PMSA’s Mike Jacob is hopeful about the future of the Port of Oakland: “There's some reasons to be a little bit more optimistic than where we were coming out of the Great Recession (2008). So, post Great Recession, when we lost the Outer Harbor concession with Ports America …. There is a lot of concern about Oakland's ability to be competitive in the import lanes. And when you have contraction of exports, then (you) are kind of left exposed, right? And the main driver for a lot of that concern was their overhang of their revenue bond debt, which at the time was over $1 billion … Today, their total revenue bond exposure is about 60% lower. So, they are in the $400 million or something like that, which seems a lot more manageable given the long-term terminal agreements that they have in place.”

Oakland turning basins

One project that should enhance Port of Oakland competitiveness was advanced last week, as the Oakland Board of Port Commissioners certified the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) and approved advancement of the Turning Basins Widening Project. The planned Turning Basins Widening Project involves widening both the Inner and Outer Harbor turning basins at the Oakland seaport to better allow bigger ships to turn around and accommodate the largest container ships.

PMSA and Jacob who have championed the Turning Basins project told AJOT: “We have all of the approvals we need from the U.S. Army Corps [USACE] and from Congress to be in the Water Resources Development Act… (Legislation that provides for the conservation and development of water and related resources) … And that process sets up all the authorizations for moving forward … And so, what we need to be doing is stuff exactly like what the Port did last week … when you are adopting the EIR and you are certifying it, that is a big step.”

However, the Trump administration has frozen funding for new U.S. Army Corps of Engineers construction projects so that “just because a project is certified does not mean you've got the appropriations yet. That still all has to happen … That might not be happening in the short term, but it's still out there.”

In the event federal funds are appropriated, the result will be a more competitive Port of Oakland: “Right now we have daylight restrictions on larger vessels. We have wind speed restrictions on larger vessels. We have … tug power restrictions on larger vessels. And all of those things are hopefully going to be addressed by larger turning basins in both the Inner and the Outer Harbor. Which means that you can have some certainty that you can compete for ships that are going to be on these strings coming into LA, Long Beach and Seattle/Tacoma with larger ships.”