The revolutionary cement company Seament is the direct result of Alexander Bouri's ambition, compassion, and intuitive entrepreneurial skills. Without him and his company, the global cement industry would have never been revolutionized and numerous countries would still be in cement/industrialization crises. His story is an inspiring one, but what's even more inspiring is the fact that in most aspects, he's an average Joe.

The oldest of eleven children, Alex Bouri is of Lebanese and Greek descent. He received his degree in Business Administration from the American University of Beirut and was active in sports. In fact, he was on the school's volleyball team. It was after his time at AUB that he relocated to Nigeria, where he began his first entrepreneurial endeavor: selling insurance. It was only his first job, but he quickly acquired the business skills to get his cement trading off the ground. What started with just a relatively small loan quickly earned him his reputation as the "Cement King" in the early 1980's.

Subsequently, he met a woman of British descent and they married. Together, they have five children: Vanda, Mark, Leila, Maurice, and Charles Bouri. Despite his busy home life, Seament Holding obviously took off, going international and manufacturing and shipping its bulk products on a global scale.

To this day, Alexander Bouri is still chairman of Seament, keeping it going with the help of his sons Maurice, Mark, and Charlie. As aforementioned, the company and its innovative ideas – namely, the floating cement terminal, for which Alex was largely responsible – changed the cement industry as we know it all around the world. It continues to be the largest independent distributor of cement worldwide and is even a friend to the other cement giants in the industry.

So where is Alex now? Still active in the industry, but spending more time with his family and on his main hobby, agriculture. Growing his own food and learning about crops occupies much of his time. He's also an avid poet and chess player. Aside from that, he's on the board of directors of Envipco, a company that is currently pioneering a new approach to recovering and reusing beverage containers. Needless to say, helping the environment and generating environmental solutions is always at the top of his list of concerns.

He's also fairly philanthropic, donating his assistance to building universities in Lebanon, lending his hand to primary schools in Nigeria, and giving out scholarships for the benefit of education all around the world.

The moral of the story is that making an impact on the world requires little more than ambition and intuitive thinking. On the exterior, Alexander Bouri is a man who has made his mark on the world, but close-up, he's just like any one of us.

Seament is now a household name in the industry of bulk shipping and manufacturing, but every successful business has a backstory, and this company's backstory is a fascinating one.

Seament Holding got started from, quite literally, the ground up. Alex F Bouri, the oldest of eleven children, was the educator in his family. Even though his family is massive – he has 67 first cousins – he was the educator of all the Bouri men in his generation. Thus, from an early age, his ambitions were apparent.

Alexander Bouri was known as the "Cement King" in Nigeria in the 1980's. He initially moved there at an early age to begin a career in selling life insurance. However, with just a $50,000 loan, the trading began – he was trading cement and other bulk items privately. It was in 1961 that Seament Holding was actually born, and it was the first company to use the floating terminal. The company grew at a rapid pace. By 1968, it was necessary for Seament Holding to purchase its first vessel in order to keep up with supply and demand. Five years later, the company was already trading an average of 2 million tons of cement per year.

The company grew still, and a need for even larger ships came about. That's when Seabulk was born and Seament transitioned from being just a local Grecian cement company to nationwide provider. The regional oil boom that occurred in the 1970's and 80's made the demand for cement skyrocket, but when they started shipping internationally, some country's ports couldn't handle the influx of bulk deliveries. Some countries couldn't be considered part of the market because they didn't have the proper ports to accommodate incoming shipments of cement. As a solution, Alex Bouri conceptualized the floating terminal in 1978 – a sort of ship that acted as its own port and could ship to almost anywhere. It changed the cement industry forever.

When his sons, Charles Bouri, Mark Bouri, and Maurice Bouri, were old enough, they helped to uphold the business. After all, it was growing rather rapidly. Alex Bouri and his floating terminal idea were nearly single-handedly responsible for bringing certain nations out of their cement shortages and allowed them to begin industrializing at a more sustainable pace.

It was in 1995 that Seament began to offer port services and in 2002 that they actually began manufacturing cement rather than just trading it. Floating terminals are now used almost universally in the bulk manufacturing and shipping industry. With many thanks to Alex, Charles, Mark, and Maurice Bouri, Seament is held in wide regards in the cement industry and continues to provide solutions, delivery, and manufacturing in the bulk materials field today.