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On 19th September, the residents of Baltimore, Md., (USA) were treated to an array of celebrations to honour the memory of one of the city’s most famous sons – the composer, musician and iconoclast of rock, Frank Zappa.

The occasion? The unveiling of a Frank Zappa bust, a generous gift to the people of Baltimore by Zappa fans in the small Baltic nation of Lithuania. The bronze bust is an exact replica of one that has stood in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, since 1995. The unveiling ceremony was attended by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake along with Zappa’s widow and three of his grown children.

Born in Baltimore and a resident of southern California for much of his life, Frank Zappa is a cult hero in Lithuania. Despite some of the stories you will hear, he was not the son of Lithuanian stowaways, nor did he so much as visit the country during his life. But his music had a profound effect on the people there – his relentless advocacy of freedom of speech struck a chord with a nation constrained by the limitations of Soviet society.

After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the former Soviet states gradually declared their independence and began to nurture fragile democracies. In Lithuania, a group of Zappa fans saw the erecting of this bust in a public place as a way of putting their new government’s spirit of reform to the test.

Last month, fifteen years after the original bust went up in Vilnius, the Baltimore replica was unveiled, the culmination of years of work by Saulius Paukstys – 46-year-old photographer and long-time president of Lithuania’s thriving Frank Zappa fan club.

It was Paukstys himself who went to the Baltimore Arts Commission to offer the bust as a gift. It was also Paukstys who came to Vladas Lasas, CEO of Skubios siuntos UAB, UPS’s Authorised Service Contractor in Lithuania, looking for the expertise required to ship the 160 kg/352lb bust safely to its new home on the other side of the world. He came to the right place. Our Lithuanian partners were quick to get closely involved and devise a solution, arranging shipping to Baltimore by UPS Ocean Freight.

Following a ceremony in Vilnius attended by the town mayor and other local dignitaries, Zappa was loaded into a UPS package car and set off on his long journey home.

An interesting anecdote. The unveiling ceremony held for the original bust in Lithuania back in 1995 included a stirring performance by the city’s military band, a fireworks display and plenty of toasts to Zappa’s sculptor Konstantinas Bogdanas, a man who was previously better known for his depictions of the likes of Lenin and other communist heroes. The irony would surely not have been lost on Zappa.

Every day and night, UPS criss-crosses the world with millions of shipments, many of which are simple but crucial to keeping our world moving. And out there, dotted amongst them, hidden from human eyes on cargo ships, planes, trains and trucks, are items with truly unusual stories to tell. That’s logistics, too.

The Baltimore unveiling event in pictures.

If you were to ask people, including – I would bet – most UPSers, where UPS’s most technologically advanced facility outside Kentucky is located, few would answer “Cologne.” Yet this 2,000 year-old German city, probably best known globally for the twin spires of its Gothic cathedral and its contribution to the world of perfume (as in “eau de Cologne”), is also home to UPS’s European air hub, a $135 million flagship facility that is absolutely vital to the smooth running of the company’s worldwide network.

Why Cologne? The Romans knew a good location when they saw one. Back in 80 AD, Cologne, or Colonia Agrippina, became capital of “Lower Germany,” a province of the Roman Empire that also included parts of Belgium and the Netherlands. Many of the same things that made the city a good choice back then make Cologne ideal for UPS in the 21st century: its geographical location at the centre of Western Europe; the relatively stable local weather conditions (that today minimise disruption to air and ground traffic); an available and capable workforce. Nowadays, of course it also happens to be in the centre of Europe’s most prosperous industrialised region with an estimated 30% of European GDP being produced within a 400 kilometre radius of the city. By virtue of their proximity to the hub, all businesses in this area have access to an advantageous express window onto the world.

The UPS hub at Cologne airport is a technological marvel, the company’s largest facility outside the US and in many ways a microcosm of UPS operations worldwide, representing the different spokes that make up its integrated network. Here, air and ground operations come together in perfect harmony. Each night, 36 flights along with some 300 vans and trucks arrive and depart, linking Europe with North America, Asia and other European destinations in a matter of hours.

One night last week I had the privilege of witnessing how all this takes place and I now understand what “state-of-the-art” really means. Looking down through four stories of steel-mesh flooring you can see kilometres of snaking conveyors, tilt-trays and chutes, the futuristic red glow of the latest multi-directional scanning devices… planes and trucks still have to be carefully loaded and unloaded here; technicians monitor every metre of the conveyor system from their NASA-style control room; air controllers keep a close eye on approaching UPS flights via radar. Plenty of people work here (with over 2,300 staff, UPS is the airport’s biggest employer), but what really takes your breath away are the machines and the sheer speed and precision with which they go about their business. 110,000 packages per hour – it’s all in a night’s work.

Like any civilisation keen on expansion, the Romans do have some dubious episodes in their history. They were top-notch engineers, though, and they knew how to pick a spot. For those of you unfamiliar with Cologne, it’s a city whose history speaks for itself, and for UPS it’s a vital link in an integrated network that allows us to offer customers optimal international service in a fast-moving global environment.

Germans are crazy about cars. They are, after all, the ones who invented the modern motor vehicle, and to this day Germany is known for designing and producing the best cars on the planet in terms of engineering and overall quality. It comes as little surprise then that the UPS automotive team at the Hanover hub in Germany would come up with the idea of taking a 17-year old P60 package car with 600,000 kilometres on the clock under UPS colours and turning it into the beast you see before you.

It now has a 6.3 litre V8 engine developing 425 hp and a top speed of some 190 kph/120mph, with additional modifications made to improve performance. Meanwhile, a competition was held in conjunction with the Mediadesign Academy in Dusseldorf to come up with the stunning graphics that adorn the bodywork. The finished article was unveiled at the Essen Motorshow and has subsequently appeared at racing circuits around Germany.

Now personally, I try to do my bit for the environment. I don’t drive a hybrid to work at the UPS Europe office in Brussels because I think my bike is much greener. But I’m also a motorsport enthusiast, and yes, the thought of 425 horses slurping away at 6.3 litres of high-octane petrol beneath the bonnet of a UPS package car does get my pulse racing.

How can this be? How do I sleep at night? Don’t I realise that V8s are the devil’s own work? The reason is simple. Not only is motorsport beautiful – man and machine at the very limits of their mutual prowess – but it is also responsible for many of the developments that make modern motoring so much more efficient than it was, say, 30 years ago. Formula 1 is the proving ground for technology that eventually makes its way into the most mundane vehicle showroom, where you will find small cars that run for kilometers on an egg cup-full of diesel. Formula 1 cars may burn fuel quicker than a small power station, but they cannot afford to waste a drop – efficiency is everything.

Which brings me back to our team of UPS mechanics and automotive experts. When they’re not putting ridiculous engines into old trucks (and let’s face it, this is not something they get to do every day), they’re using their passion and expertise to ensure that UPS package cars run cleanly, efficiently, safely and for a very long time. And as any environmentalist worth his salt will tell you, the carbon footprint of running a well-maintained, well-driven old car is tiny when compared to that of scrapping the car and buying a new one that has to be built from scratch.

So I’d like to congratulate these unsung UPS heroes. Keep inspiring us with automotive excellence, keep ensuring our fleet turns up to work each day and let’s see more of that crazy racing truck.