In 1983, Peter Halpaus, 35, founded and started International Freight Forwarders, IFF, Inc., in Atlanta, GA with one employee. Today IFF has over 60 employees and offices in Atlanta, GA, Charlotte,NC, Miami, FL, and Vance, AL.Since 2000, Peter has been joined by his son, Christian Halpaus as President of IFF, and his daughter, Katrin as Global Sales Executive. This Family Team represents the spirit and transition into the future, growth, and success. Peter Halpaus’s professional experience and education is based on his roots in the port city of Bremen, Germany.Peter began his career as an apprentice for 3 years, the old-fashion way, in International Freight Forwarding. Thereafter, he joined the German military and continued his logistics education as Lieutenant of the Reserve.Following, PH explored the international maritime logistics by working on one of the last conventional Hapag Lloyd vessels and sailing around the world for more than 1 year. The next 5 years PH spent with Harry W. Hamacher Spedition in ‘West-Berlin,’ and advanced quickly as the youngest department manager in domestic warehousing and distribution and trucking.To solidify his experiences, he decided to enhance this with a degree in International Trade and Economics at the Deutsche Aussenhandels- und Verkehrsakademie in Bremen.
1977 he accepted the challenge to represent one of the leading German global logistics providers in Charlotte, NC and in Atlanta, Ga. Then, when a window opened, Peter’s entrepreneurial spirit took flight and IFF was started “from scratch” on 01-01-1983. Throughout his career, PH was dedicated to pursuing his inspirations. He is also a founding member of the World Cargo Alliance, www.wcafamily.com, which is today the largest global network of logistic service providers with over 4000 offices in 186 countries.
For many years he has served on the BoD and in the Executive Board of German American Chamber of Commerce.In 1996, PH represented the German Olympic Committee as their Envoy during the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Atlanta. In the meantime, PH has been granted dual citizenship of Germany and USA.
He continues to be actively involved as a BoD with the GSA (German School of Atlanta), the German Cultural Center (formerly Goethe Institut), and the GAC-F (German American Cultural Foundation). If you can’t find PETER at a German event, you might find Peter at The Goethe Center watching German Bundesliga, cheering for Werder Bremen, of course.