American Airlines Cargo division has announced the appointment of Tom Grubb as manager of cold chain strategy, leading the strategic oversight of American's time- and temperature-sensitive cargo services. A longtime veteran of American's Cargo division, Grubb served most recently on the cargo operations team as manager of customer service strategy. Grubb was pivotal in the development of American's existing cold chain service ExpediteTC.

"Tom brings 20 years of dedicated service to AA Cargo, implementing strategic sales initiatives as well as operational solutions for American's product and service portfolio,' said Dave Brooks, president of American Airlines Cargo. "In this newly created position, he will play an important role in our continued drive to provide world-class cold chain services for our customers, on a global scale.

In addition to Grubb's most recent role in cargo operations, he has served in other management roles at AA Cargo including global accounts, capacity and pricing management and in cargo information systems development.

"I look forward to tapping my 20 years of cargo experience to provide innovative leadership in the advance of cold chain services for American Airlines,' said Grubb. 'There is no better time to be working in this important segment of our industry."

This announcement comes alongside the introduction of American's new ExpediteTC Passive service, which supports ambient temperature control using state-of-the-art technology, worldwide training of personnel and high-visibility monitoring to support reliability of cold-packaged cargo during transit. American expects Grubb's depth of knowledge in the cold chain to bring additional benefit to its customers.

Grubb will be based at AA Cargo's Fort Worth, Texas headquarters.