An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

When DHL moved in­to its new mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar fa­cil­i­ty in San Juan this Ju­ly, it wasn’t just a change of ad­dress. It was a de­c­la­ra­tion.

The glob­al lo­gis­tics gi­ant is dou­bling down on T&T’s ex­pand­ing op­er­a­tions, ramp­ing up de­liv­ery speeds, and po­si­tion­ing the coun­try as a key play­er in its glob­al net­work.
Lead­ing that charge is Ed­win Mon­dezie, a re­tired NYPD of­fi­cer and for­mer US Air Force mem­ber, now DHL’s coun­try man­ag­er with a mis­sion.

“Peo­ple, qual­i­ty, and growth, that’s what dri­ves us,” Mon­dezie says with qui­et cer­tain­ty. “When you take care of your peo­ple, they’ll take care of your cus­tomers. That’s how you build a lega­cy, not just a busi­ness.”

He’s just over a year in­to the job, but the for­mer mil­i­tary and law en­force­ment of­fi­cer has wast­ed no time bring­ing dis­ci­pline, vi­sion and heart to DHL’s lo­cal op­er­a­tions. Un­der his lead­er­ship, the com­pa­ny has nav­i­gat­ed grow­ing tar­iffs, a for­eign ex­change-con­strained mar­ket, and surg­ing ship­ment vol­umes and is still ex­pand­ing.

With such rapid ex­pan­sion, DHL need­ed space and speed.

“We used to take eight hours to sort 1,000 pack­ages,” Mon­dezie out­lined. “Now, with our new con­vey­or sys­tems, that same vol­ume will be sort­ed in just one hour.”

He in­di­cat­ed that while the build­ing it­self pre-ex­ist­ed, it was just an emp­ty ware­house shell when DHL took it over in Jan­u­ary 2025. In just sev­en months, Mon­dezie and his team trans­formed the space in­to a “state-of-the-art lo­gis­tics node”, out­fit­ted to meet DHL’s glob­al ar­chi­tec­tur­al and op­er­a­tional stan­dards.

“This fa­cil­i­ty is built to mir­ror our in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards. What you see in Mi­a­mi or Leipzig or Pana­ma, you’re see­ing right here in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Mon­dezie said. “That should make all of us proud, be­cause it shows the con­fi­dence DHL has in this coun­try.”

But it’s not just about ef­fi­cien­cy, he said the move has gen­er­at­ed a re­al com­mu­ni­ty im­pact with the 70 plus peo­ple em­ployed, many from sur­round­ing ar­eas, and more ex­pect­ed as op­er­a­tions grow.

“Be­ing here in­jects mon­ey in­to the lo­cal econ­o­my from lunch ven­dors to taxi dri­vers. We’re not just in the com­mu­ni­ty. We’re part of it.”

Ca­reer comes full cir­cle

Mon­dezie’s route to DHL isn’t what you’d ex­pect. Af­ter re­tir­ing from the NYPD and the U.S. Air Force Re­serve, he moved to Trinidad over a decade ago, work­ing in the pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty sec­tor. But his roots in lo­gis­tics go fur­ther back to his ear­li­est Air Force days.

“Se­cu­ri­ty and lo­gis­tics ac­tu­al­ly go hand in hand,” he ex­plained. “At DHL, we’re still safe­guard­ing on­ly now, it’s peo­ple, process­es and pack­ages.”

His ap­point­ment as coun­try man­ag­er in 2024 brought every­thing full cir­cle.

“This role felt like a re­turn to pur­pose and a chance to lead with the kind of val­ues I be­lieve in,” he said.

The num­bers speak for them­selves. DHL’s dai­ly pack­age vol­ume has tripled since pre-COVID-19 times, from around 400 to over 1,200 ship­ments per day. Dur­ing the up­com­ing peak sea­son, which starts in Oc­to­ber and stretch­es through Car­ni­val, Mon­dezie ex­pects that to climb to 1,500 dai­ly ship­ments.

This growth is pow­ered by a pop­u­la­tion in­creas­ing­ly em­brac­ing e-com­merce, with plat­forms like Ama­zon, Shein, and Temu dri­ving im­port de­mand. But it’s not just con­sumers fu­el­ing this surge, Mon­dezie points to a sharp rise in small and medi­um en­ter­prise (SME) cus­tomers us­ing DHL’s net­work to ac­cess glob­al mar­kets.

“SMEs now make up a huge part of our cus­tomer base,” he notes. “They’re ag­ile, and they trust us to sim­pli­fy cus­toms, reg­u­la­tions, and in­ter­na­tion­al ship­ping. We’re not just mov­ing box­es. We’re en­abling busi­ness.”

US tar­iffs

The Au­gust 2025 in­tro­duc­tion of a 15 per cent tar­iff on cer­tain T&T ex­ports to the US has rat­tled many small ex­porters. For Mon­dezie and his team, it’s just an­oth­er chal­lenge to over­come with prepa­ra­tion, com­pli­ance, and cus­tomer ed­u­ca­tion.

“Our clients had ques­tions, and we had the an­swers,” he high­light­ed. “We have a team of trade and cus­toms spe­cial­ists who keep us on top of glob­al pol­i­cy changes so our cus­tomers don’t have to wor­ry.”

De­spite the change, DHL has not seen a de­cline in ship­ment vol­umes, on­ly an in­crease in queries. That is proof, Mon­dezie said, of the com­pa­ny’s cred­i­bil­i­ty and adapt­abil­i­ty.

On the for­eign ex­change is­sue, he re­spond­ed by say­ing “Yes, it’s a chal­lenge for every busi­ness in Trinidad. But our di­verse rev­enue streams and in­ter­na­tion­al cus­tomer base, some of whom pay in US dol­lars, help us stay flex­i­ble. We’re con­fi­dent the lo­cal fi­nan­cial sys­tem will find sta­bil­i­ty.”

DHL cur­rent­ly holds 48 to 55 per cent of the ex­press lo­gis­tics mar­ket in T&T, a share Mon­dezie be­lieves will grow as more cus­tomers de­mand speed, re­li­a­bil­i­ty and clar­i­ty.

“We’re not just a de­liv­ery ser­vice,” he said. “We’re a lo­gis­tics part­ner. That’s a big dif­fer­ence and cus­tomers are notic­ing.”

As the com­pa­ny heads in­to its busiest sea­son from Oc­to­ber through Feb­ru­ary, en­com­pass­ing both Christ­mas and Car­ni­val, Mon­dezie ex­pects a 10–15 per cent in­crease in ship­ment vol­umes. His team is al­ready scal­ing up staff and sys­tems to meet the de­mand.

Though DHL op­er­ates in 220 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries, Mon­dezie sees fur­ther Caribbean and South Amer­i­can ex­pan­sion ahead, par­tic­u­lar­ly in fast-grow­ing mar­kets like Guyana.

“Wher­ev­er growth hap­pens, DHL is pre­pared to go. That’s the pow­er of our net­work, we make the world small­er, more con­nect­ed.”

Here at home, the new San Juan fa­cil­i­ty was de­signed with fu­ture ex­pan­sion in mind, in­clud­ing ware­house space, bond­ed stor­age and ad­di­tion­al staffing, en­sur­ing DHL grows along­side the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

Even with ad­vanced sys­tems and glob­al reach, Mon­dezie em­pha­sis­es safe­ty as non-ne­go­tiable.

“When you move thou­sands of ship­ments dai­ly, safe­ty isn’t op­tion­al. It’s fun­da­men­tal for staff, for op­er­a­tions and for the cus­tomers who trust us.”

That mind­set shaped by years in uni­form is em­bed­ded in DHL’s cul­ture un­der his lead­er­ship. Every hire, every de­liv­ery, every de­ci­sion is guid­ed by re­spect, re­sults and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

De­spite his U.S. ac­cent, Mon­dezie proud­ly claims his Tri­ni roots. “My par­ents were born here. I’m a son of the soil. And I’m proud to be serv­ing this coun­try in a new way by help­ing it grow, con­nect, and com­pete glob­al­ly.”

As DHL ex­pands its role in the Caribbean’s lo­gis­tics rev­o­lu­tion, Mon­dezie’s pres­ence is not just felt in board­rooms or sort­ing bays but in the com­mu­ni­ty, on the ground, and across the tar­mac.

“Our job is sim­ple,” he stressed. “Get the pack­age there safe­ly, quick­ly, re­li­ably. But our pur­pose? That’s much big­ger. It’s build­ing trust. It’s build­ing Trinidad. That’s what we’re here to do.”