# Prospect Dossier: Keith Shavers, LCB, UMAX Shipping Inc. **Built for:** Ripple Technologies (AI HTS Classifier) **Call:** Monday 17 August 2026, 10:00 PDT, with Adrian Smith **Compiled:** 17 August 2026 from public sources and the full email thread **Live page:** https://rippletechnologies.dopaminedigital.io/pipeline/keith-shavers.html --- ## TL;DR UMAX Shipping is a high-volume US NVOCC and freight forwarder in City of Industry, California, with 71,810 bills of lading on file since June 2024 and 4,613 in the last thirty days. They do **not** file their own customs entries. Every entry goes to a third-party broker, and most shipments on the forwarding side clear through the customer's own nominated broker. They are building a customs brokerage called MAXKlear. Keith Shavers holds an individual customs broker licence (LCB), so the person is in place and only the company permit is missing. He told Ripple in writing that once the licence lands they will want a closer look. He also asked two things on this call that are **not** the HTS Classifier: end to end automation for the forwarding and NVOCC side, and milestone tracking that ties ocean carrier feeds and the CBP AMS feed into one real-time portal. **The single biggest risk on the call:** walking in with only the HTS pitch when he wrote out a three-part agenda, and repeating the cold email's claim that they file HTS classifications when he has already corrected it. --- ## The three questions he asked, verbatim From his email of 13 August 2026, 01:05 UTC. ### 1. Customs > "BTW, right now, all of our entries are through 3rd party brokers. We are not yet permitted/licensed to act as a Customs broker. Once we are, however, we would obviously want to take a closer look at your services. > - Most of our customer entries are 1-3 lines. > - Most of the shipments handled by our forwarder/nvocc are handled by our customer's own nominated brokers. > > For now, we want to know what your platform looks like, its features, as well as your pricing structure." ### 2. Forwarding / NVOCC > "We are also a well-established freight forwarder/nvocc (thousands of containers/month), so we want to know what automation solutions can provided to us as a forwarder/nvocc well. Your website mentioned end to end automation. We are curios to know what that looks like." ### 3. Visibility and tracking > "Lastly, we want to know what milestone/tracking/tracing tools you have (if any). We have a need to know the status of our shipments (customs clearance, arrival, departure, etc) for our multitude of shipments, the vast majority of which are ocean shipments. As you know, the ocean carriers provide electronic feeds, Customs provides AMS feed. We are interested in a platform that can economically tie all those feeds/milestones together and provide real-time visibility to ourselves, and possibly even our customers, through a portal, whether it be yours or ours." **How these map to Ripple's five agents:** | His question | Ripple product | In scope for this engagement | |---|---|---| | Customs classification | Customs Classification Agent (HTS Classifier) | Yes | | Forwarder / NVOCC automation | RFQ Response, Document Scanning, Data Entry agents | Real products, outside this campaign's scope | | Milestone / track and trace across carrier + AMS feeds | Not one of the five agents | No | He said "if any" on the third one. That is permission to answer straight. --- ## Company | | | |---|---| | Legal entity | UMAX Shipping Inc., California entity 3888163 | | Incorporated | 21 March 2016 | | HQ | 17870 Castleton Street, Suite 210, City of Industry, CA 91748 | | Network | 14 branches, 10 core carriers (own site) | | Subsidiaries | MAXKlear (customs clearance and regulatory compliance), MAXDray (drayage and domestic, Americas) | | Partner | Exclusive Americas partner of MaxWide Logistics | | Headcount | One aggregator says 50 to 100. Not confirmed against LinkedIn. Do not quote. | | Website | https://www.umax.world/ | | Company LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/umax-shipping-inc | ### Services sold - Ocean freight (NVOCC) - the core, and the vast majority of volume by Keith's own account - Air freight - SOC business with DDU and DDP door to door - Customs brokerage, sold via MAXKlear, delivered today through third parties - Domestic brokerage and warehousing via MAXDray ### How they make money Freight margin on ocean and air is the engine, volume is the lever. DDU and DDP means they already promise clearance end to end and buy it in. Drayage and warehousing add margin on the back of the same container. Customs is currently a cost they pay out, not a line they invoice. Nothing is priced publicly. --- ## People ### Keith Shavers, LCB - the person on the call - Signs "Keith Shavers, LCB". LCB is an individual Licensed Customs Broker credential issued by CBP, earned by exam. A company needs a licence holder before it can qualify for a corporate broker permit. - LinkedIn headline reads compliance, CHB and operations manager. No title published on the UMAX site. Confirm on the call. - Los Angeles area. Direct line 323-356-4383, same head office address. - Email keith@umax.world - LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-shavers-lcb-bb1ba45 - Behaviour: detailed, structured, numbered his asks, volunteered the awkward facts unprompted. He took the thread off the President, set the agenda and booked the time. ### Shunan Liu - President - Made the first reply asking for a profile of Ripple, then copied Keith and stepped back. - liu@umax.world, Tel 840-333-0438 / 840-333-0439, direct 840-226-2295. - A decision of any size goes back through him. End the call with something Keith can forward. **Note:** No trade compliance, classification or customs team is published anywhere. Keith appears to be the compliance function and is also carrying operations. --- ## The numbers ### Verified from primary sources - 71,810 bills of lading on file, 25 June 2024 to 14 August 2026 - 4,613 records in the last 30 days, 15,162 in the last 90 - Top US ports: Los Angeles 22,781, Long Beach 14,696, Newark 8,059 - Top origins: Qingdao 13,465, Pusan 11,336, Ningbo 8,890, Shanghai 8,472, Yantian 8,250, Vung Tau 4,882 - California entity 3888163, incorporated 21 March 2016 - 14 branches, 10 core carriers (own site) - Goods on record: electric fuel pump assemblies, LED lights, glyphosate 62 percent IPA salt, PVC fencing, automatic bottle unscramblers - Associated companies on the manifests: Maxwide Logistics Inc., Casia Global Logistics, T.H.I. Group (Shanghai) ### Stated or estimated, handle with care - "Thousands of containers per month" - Keith's own words, safe to quote back - Headcount 50 to 100 - one third-party aggregator only, unconfirmed - "Annual volume 90,000" on their own site with no unit stated, unusable until explained - Revenue: not estimable, do not anchor one - Entry count: not public and cannot be, because entries file under other brokers' codes ### The signal that matters 4,613 bills of lading in thirty days, and zero customs entries filed in house. Every one of those shipments needs classifying and clearing and every one of those fees goes to somebody else. "One to three lines" is easy to hear as "our classification work is trivial". At this shipment count it is the opposite. High count and low complexity is exactly where a per-entry human cost is hardest to justify. --- ## Pain signals and gaps 1. **They are building a brokerage and the licensed broker is already in the chair.** MAXKlear is named on their own site and in his subject line. Keith holds the individual licence, so the hard part is done. The classifier lets a new brokerage take volume from day one without hiring a classification desk first. 2. **Every entry fee on their own freight currently leaves the building.** All entries go to third parties. Most forwarding shipments clear through the customer's nominated broker, losing both the fee and the visibility. They already sell DDU and DDP, so they already promise clearance and buy it in at someone else's margin. 3. **High count, low complexity entries are the worst possible fit for manual work.** One to three lines across thousands of entries. Wide, shallow commodity book across chapters 38, 39, 84 and 85, so a human desk gets no compounding benefit from repetition. 4. **China origin dominates, so tariff exposure is live for their customers.** Four of the top six origin ports are Chinese, over 39,000 records combined. Korea and Vietnam alongside suggests a China plus one shift underway. Section 301 applies and 232 stacks on steel articles. 5. **Two thirds of his agenda is not the classifier.** He quoted Ripple's own end to end automation claim back. Deciding in advance what to say to questions two and three is what turns this into a second meeting. 6. **Real operating scale with no visible compliance team.** 14 branches, thousands of containers a month, two subsidiaries, and one licensed broker who is also running operations. --- ## Where the classifier adds value - **Day one capacity for MAXKlear.** A new brokerage cannot take volume until it has hired classifiers and cannot afford classifiers until it has volume. Machine first pass plus Keith reviewing and signing breaks that loop. - **Recapture the entry fee on freight they already move.** Converts a cost line into an invoice line on the same container, no new customer acquisition needed. - **A reason for customers to move off their nominated broker.** Same day classification with a documented rationale, on a China heavy book where 301 and 232 stack. A reason beyond price. - **Reasonable care from the very first entry.** CBP judges on the record of how each code was reached. Auditable trail from entry one rather than retrofitted after something goes wrong. - **The wider platform conversation he opened himself.** He asked to be sold more, not less. Mapping his three questions against what Ripple actually does is what books the second call. --- ## Discovery questions **Arc one: the brokerage they are building** 1. *(Open with this)* You mentioned you are not permitted or licensed as a customs broker yet, and MAXKlear is in your subject line. Where is that application right now, and what is the realistic date you expect to be filing your own entries? 2. *(The decider)* When that permit comes through, what is the plan for actually doing the classification work? Are you hiring a desk, or are you looking for a way to open without one? **Arc two: the volume and the work behind it** 3. Right now every entry goes out to a third-party broker. Roughly how many of those are you paying for in a month, and what does a one to three line entry cost you? 4. You said most shipments on the forwarding side clear through your customer's own nominated broker. If MAXKlear were live tomorrow, what would it take to win those entries across? 5. Your record shows everything from fuel pump assemblies and LED lights to glyphosate and PVC fencing, coming mostly out of China with Korea and Vietnam alongside. Which of those give your brokers the most trouble on classification and origin? **Arc three: the two questions he asked that are not HTS** 6. On the forwarder and NVOCC side, before we talk about what automation looks like, where is the manual time actually going today? Quoting, document handling, data entry into your system, or something else? 7. On milestone tracking, tying the carrier feeds and the AMS feed into one portal is a different product from classification. Tell me what you have tried already and what it fell short on, and I will be straight with you about what we do and do not cover there. --- ## Watch-outs - **Do not run this as a standard HTS pitch.** The cold email said UMAX files HTS classifications across a range of codes. Keith has corrected that in writing. Repeating it reads as not having read his email. - **Do not hear "1 to 3 lines" as small.** It makes the case stronger, not weaker, and the maths is easy to show live. - **Three numbers not to say out loud:** headcount (unconfirmed), revenue (no estimate exists), their entry volume (not public, and the bill of lading count is a freight measure not an entry measure). - **Two people, two different jobs.** Keith is the operator and licence holder. Shunan Liu is the President and a decision of any size goes back through him. - **They carry a standing fraud warning** about invoice and bank detail spoofing in their email footer. They have been targeted before. Relevant before any payment or contract discussion. --- ## Full correspondence trail, verbatim ### 1. 5 August 2026, 16:01 UTC - Adrian to liu@umax.world Subject: SHUNAN - question > Hey SHUNAN, > > I noticed UMAX SHIPPING INC files HTS classifications across a range of codes, so I figured it was worth reaching out. > > I'm Adrian, co-founder of Ripple. Our AI does the HTS classification first pass in minutes at 99.8 percent accuracy, so the same desk handles more clients. You bill the same, it just costs less to deliver. > > Pentagon Freight Services went from three weeks to fifteen minutes. > > Open to a quick 15 minutes? > > Adrian ### 2. 5 August 2026, 17:39 UTC - Shunan Liu replied (copying keith@umax.world) > Thanks for reaching out. > > Can you please provide a profile of Ripple? > > Thanks + Best Regards > SHUNAN LIU > Tel: 840-333-0438; 840-333-0439 > Direct: 840-226-2295 > 17870 Castleton Street Suite 210 City of Industry CA 91748 ### 3. 5 August 2026, 17:47 UTC - Adrian > Hi Shunan, > Of course. Here is our website: https://useripple.io > And here is my LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asmith-1/ > We built an AI that handles HTS classification from your commercial docs, so a 1,000 line invoice that takes the team days comes back in about 15 minutes. Happy to show you what it looks like on a couple of your own entries if you want to see it in action. > Adrian ### 4. 6 August 2026, 12:27 UTC - Adrian, follow up > Shunan, did you get a chance to look through the site? Happy to run a quick demo on a couple of your own entries if you want to see it live. ### 5. 11 August 2026, 08:26 UTC - Adrian, follow up > Shunan, think this got buried. Worth a look or should I leave it? ### 6. 13 August 2026, 01:05 UTC - Keith Shavers replied Subject: RE: SHUNAN - question / Rippleshift / UMAX Shipping / Maxklear, Inc. > Dear Adrian, > > Do you have any availability on Friday, 8/14? > > 10am -4pm pst works best. > > **Customs** > BTW, right now, all of our entries are through 3rd party brokers. We are not yet permitted/licensed to act as a Customs broker. Once we are, however, we would obviously want to take a closer look at your services. > - Most of our customer entries are 1-3 lines. > - Most of the shipments handled by our forwarder/nvocc are handled by our customer's own nominated brokers. > > For now, we want to know what your platform looks like, its features, as well as your pricing structure. > > **Forwarding/NVOCC** > We are also a well-established freight forwarder/nvocc (thousands of containers/month), so we want to know what automation solutions can provided to us as a forwarder/nvocc well. Your website mentioned end to end automation. We are curios to know what that looks like. > > Lastly, we want to know what milestone/tracking/tracing tools you have (if any). We have a need to know the status of our shipments (customs clearance, arrival, departure, etc) for our multitude of shipments, the vast majority of which are ocean shipments. As you know, the ocean carriers provide electronic feeds, Customs provides AMS feed. We are interested in a platform that can economically tie all those feeds/milestones together and provide real-time visibility to ourselves, and possibly even our customers, through a portal, whether it be yours or ours. > > B. Regards, > Keith > > Keith Shavers, LCB > 323-356-4383 > 17870 Castleton Street Suite 210 City of Industry CA 91748 > UMAX Shipping ### 7. 13 August 2026, 17:20 UTC - Adrian > Hey, Keith. Sorry, didn't have availability on the Friday, but had that time available on Monday. I've sent through the invite. Let me know if that works for you or if you want to move it. ### 8. 13 August 2026, 17:23 UTC - Keith > Hello Adrian, > > Monday 8/17 @ 10am works for me. > > B. Regards, > Keith ### 9. 13 August 2026, 17:23 UTC - Adrian > Awesome, see you then! --- ## Sources - UMAX website - https://www.umax.world/ - UMAX about - https://www.umax.world/about.html - UMAX services - https://www.umax.world/service.html - ImportInfo shipment record - https://www.importinfo.com/umax-shipping-inc - ImportGenius - https://www.importgenius.com/importers/umax-shipping-inc - Panjiva - https://panjiva.com/Umax-Shipping-Inc/193330809 - ImportKey - https://importkey.com/i/umax-shipping-inc - California registry record - https://b2bhint.com/en/company/us-ca/umax-shipping-inc--3888163 - UMAX LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/umax-shipping-inc - Keith Shavers LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-shavers-lcb-bb1ba45 - CBP customs broker licensing - https://www.cbp.gov/trade/programs-administration/customs-brokers - Headcount estimate source - https://talents.vaia.com/companies/umax-shipping/ - Full email thread pulled from Ripple's own Instantly workspace, campaign "Ripple HTS - F - Brokers Registry 2026-08" --- ## How to use this file with Claude Drop this file into a Claude session and try: - "Role-play Keith Shavers on this call. He is a licensed customs broker at a big NVOCC that does not file its own entries yet. Push back on me hard when I pitch HTS classification." - "Write me a one-page leave-behind that answers Keith's three questions in his own order." - "What is the strongest honest answer to his milestone and visibility question, given Ripple's five agents do not include a tracking product?" - "Draft the follow-up email after the call, assuming the permit is three months away." ### Research limitations, stated honestly - LinkedIn profile data could not be pulled at build time (the Apify account hit its monthly cap), so Keith's exact title at UMAX and the company's LinkedIn headcount band are unconfirmed. - MAXKlear's permit status could not be verified against CBP's permitted brokers listing, which is published quarterly and would not yet show a recent application. Keith's own statement is the source. - No revenue figure exists in any public source and none was estimated.