Matti Urmas from Freja elected Port Hampuusi 2022
The Port of Turku annually elects a Port Hampuusi (old-fashioned Finnish term for dockworker) from among its partners. The title is awarded as a tribute to a person who has developed the operations and service structure of the industry and the Port of Turku actively and in the long term. The Port Hampuusi of 2022 is Matti Urmas, Managing Director of forwarding company Freja Transport & Logistics Oy.
Matti Urmas has been working in the forwarding industry since 1983 when he started work in a forwarding company operating under the name Merikiito. His career path proceeded to Wikeström & Krogius until in 2003 he purchased a forwarding company named Maa ja Meri together with Jörgen Hansen, the founder of the Freja group. The first thing to do was to move the company’s domicile to Turku, and its head office is still located in the Port of Turku.
During the past two decades, the Port of Turku has become Freja’s strong partner whose services Freja uses in diverse fashion. Co-operation with the port enterprise as well as other operators in the port is also otherwise intensive, including, for example, joint marketing at international transport industry fairs.
Managing Director Matti Urmas considers the possible new sea connection from Turku to Gdynia, Poland an interesting and welcome alternative. The Freja group has a local company in Poland, and one of Freja Finland’s transport departments is located in Gdynia, offering operative services from there. Poland itself is a large market area and an important transit country to Eastern Europe, so there is great potential.