A founding partner of Mittelstaedt, Galaviz, & Mylin, Ted Mittelstaedt is a licensed Customs broker and still engaged in the business on a day-to-day basis.
Ted served in the Korean War and after his service, he got a job in 1953 with W.J. Byrnes, where future partner Armando Galaviz was working at the time.
His first job with the company was getting the manifests from the ships as they came on into the bay. He had to climb up on the Jacob’s Ladder onto the ship to get the paperwork from the wheelhouse.
He got his license on October 23, 1957, License number 3047, and started MG&M in 1962. Gary Mylin came on board a few weeks later, and Armando Galaviz came on board a few weeks after that.
When the company opened, it had a one room office on California Street that was so crowded you had to climb over the desks in order to sit down.
A couple of years later the firm moved to 214 Front St. with a little bit more room and were hiring people. As time went by, MG&M slowly took over more and more of the 5th floor until they took it all, and they had more space on the 4th floor that they used for records until the earthquake in 1989 which sadly demolished the building.