By Chuck Swett

Back in the good old days, the early sixties Jim Fendell had been here 10 plus years (arrived with parents in 1951), and I was just getting over the caravan like, Pan-American Airways milk-run through Central America, things were a lot different here. The nearest beach, Puntarenas, was four hours away, via Cambronero, with fog so thick you had to ride on the hood of the car and guide the driver. You could go to the movies for a few colones, fill up a VW for almost nothing, and a popuplar priced a liter of milk cost a little over one colón. The train ride to Puntarenas was one big long party. And you could walk down any street in San José at any hour without ever considering yourself to be in danger.

But the one thing you wouldn’t even consider doing , unless you really felt generous toward the customs officer population, was subscribe to National Geographic, The Saturday Evening Post or Life Magazine. Playboy would probably not even make it off the plane, much less through the postal system. The custom was to find out who was travelling and ask them to bring that car part or special shampoo or the latest Beatles album, when they came back.

As the country and the expatriate colony grew, communications media began to introduce new goodies and remind the foreigners of things they were accustomed to at home but couldn’t easily get on the local market.

Our innovative friend Jim began to recognize the need for an alternative means of establishing and regaining that “link to home” that was missing. A reliable way to get peoples’ important mail safely to its destination, and to allow them to enjoy a “taste of home” in their adopted country. That need finally took shape in Aerocasillas, twelve years ago.

Envisioned as becoming “The best personalized network for receiving and sending documents and mechandise between the rest of the world and our country,” This way both national and international markets were opened to our clients.

Pioneering the field of private international mail service in this country, Aerocasillas has built a growing user base of 25,000 satisfied customers, with over 3,000 active accounts. This is the result of over twelve years of constant dedication to fulfilling the needs of our clients and seeking ways to improve on the service we provide.