Anton de Marillac takes a bow after 37 years

A doyen of the shipping
industry is retiring after 37
years in the trade, as Anton
de Marillac, currently senior
vice-president of the Evergreen
Agency in SA, gets set to take
his final bow.
De Marillac is from
anything but seafaring stock.
His early years were spent as a
farmer’s son in the sub-tropical
agriculture town of Tzaneen,
in what is now Limpopo
province. Apart from a twoyear
stint with the BSAP in
what was then Rhodesia, he
was involved in the farming
life until the early 1970s.
But getting appropriate
treatment for a health problem
for his two children forced the
De Marillac family to move to
Johannesburg where he took
on a post as junior seafreight
salesman with Ellerman &
Bucknall.
That was when his anchor
firmly dropped in the shipping
industry.
The next 17 years saw him
moving on to take on ever
more senior sales positions
with Africa Sea Transport
Consultants, then agents for
AESL from Europe, and later
Nantai Shipping Enterprises.
In 1992 he became a founder
member of Green Africa
Shipping with the late Capt JJ
Chen, a well-known master of
shipping in the SA shipping
industry.
Early in his career,
De Marillac added to his
education the Institute of
Marketing Management
(IMM) qualifications in sales
and marketing management
and information technology’
(IT) courses in five basic
programmes.
When he joined Green
Africa he was appointed GM
sales and marketing for its
principal office, Evergreen
Line of Taiwan, in South
Africa, soon adding to his
post the appointment of
Johannesburg branch manager,
with a further appointment to
the Green Africa Board of
Trustees.
In 2009 came the change
of agency ownership with the
direct investment by Evergreen
Line and the establishment of
Evergreen Agency (SA), where
De Marillac was promoted to
senior vice-president.
Come retirement at the
end of this month (March),
he has no intention of sitting
with his feet up.
“My late son, Michael,
was a game ranger, and
was very influential in us
becoming involved in the
natural environment,” he told
FTW. “Wild life and nature
conservation became very
much part of our lives.”
He will shortly be studying
nature conservation further
as a prelude to establishing
a small, specialised safari
business.
“So retirement for me is
a return to the soil and its
natural fauna and flora, away
from the shipping line agency
business which chained me to
city life for almost the last four
decades,” he said.