Mark Lathrop Amoss

Mark Lathrop Amoss, who founded and ran a New Orleans-based business importing steel products, died at home on Tuesday, October 12, 2021 of complications from Parkinson’s disease. He was 66. Beloved husband of Elizabeth “Liz” Robeau Amoss and father of Benjamin and Daniel. He was one of six sons of the late New Orleans shipping executive W.J. “Jimmy” Amoss Jr. and the late children’s book author and illustrator Berthe Amoss.

Mark thrived using his expertise in international commerce, his extraordinary ability to master multiple languages and his winning way with people to found Amoss Trading Services, a New Orleans-based company specializing in trade with the People’s Republic of China.

Mark and his brother, Bob, were the principals of Amoss Trading, which serviced the marine industry in the U.S. The Amoss brothers started the company in the mid-1980s when U.S. trade relations with mainland China, frozen for decades, were just beginning to thaw. Mark had worked in China and spoke Mandarin Chinese.

In order to gain a foothold in the Chinese market, Mark and Bob Amoss had to know their territory. They combed the industrial backroads of the People’s Republic, where China was just emerging as a manufacturing behemoth.

“We travelled the two-lane roads in state-made clunkers,” Bob Amoss recalled. “The floorboards were rusted through. We were caked in street dust. The roads were clogged with bicycles and a sea of people on the move. Construction everywhere.”

“We sat through endless factory negotiations, consuming gallons of green tea.   I would ask a simple question in English which resulted in much animated discussion back and forth and finally a response from Mark: ‘They said yes.’ 
“At the inevitable banquet dinner at the end of a factory visit all of the factory managers would come to celebrate our visit with a show of hospitality and an endless parade of spectacular dishes representing the area’s best offering.  Mark and the factory head presided and usually took turns toasting bottoms up until they could barely stand.”

This early legwork, with multiple follow-up visits by the Amoss brothers to factory floors, paid off. Amoss Trading became established as the purveyor of imported anchors and anchor chains to local New Orleans companies, servicing commercial operations and oil and gas rigs and eventually expanding into marine products used on commercial vessels and predominantly inland barges.

Mark was born in Bremen, Germany, where his New Orleans family had moved in the early 1950s as a result of Jimmy’s work for Lykes Brothers Steamship Co. His first language was German, spoken by his older brothers and their neighborhood friends, along with whatever English he absorbed from his parents. When the family moved to Belgium in the 1960s, Mark added Flemish and French to his repertoire. After the family’s return to New Orleans, Mark graduated from Isidore Newman School and then Duke University.

He was hired right after graduating from Duke as the second American ever to work at Jardine Matheson, one of Hong Kong’s original trading houses. Starchy Jardine’s was filled with British employees who thought of China as their colony and lived accordingly. Mark, who knew no class boundaries and loved meeting people, moved with ease through the Jardines tea parties and polo games, but he felt most at ease in the streets and markets of Hong Kong, where he quickly picked up fluency in Mandarin Chinese.

After 10 years with Jardine’s in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Shanghai, Mark returned to the U.S. 

Back in New Orleans, Mark’s brother John introduced him to Elizabeth Robeau, an English teacher. The two were married in July 1991 at the Esquipulas Basilica in Guatemala, by Liz’s cousin, Father Gregory, a Benedictine monk who became the abbot of the Basilica.

Starting a business in New Orleans made sense, Bob Amoss said, because “that’s where we lived. And it’s also pretty much in the center of Gulf Coast shipyards and at the mouth of the river, the head of the inland waterways, the areas we served. But primarily because we live here.”

Mark and Bob were partners for more than 30 years. Bob still runs the business. As Bob Amoss describes it, Mark was the optimist of the two: “He saw the half full glass and I the other.  It was a great match that worked well. His core of optimism, his spectacular memory and his people skills sustained us. It is this core that defined him and endeared him to most that knew him.  I will miss the half full glass.”

Throughout his years of suffering from Parkinson’s, Mark’s optimism and goodwill toward all people sustained him and endeared him to all who knew him.  

Mark is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, and his sons, Benjamin Marks (Katherine) and Daniel Clement; five brothers, Jim (Nancy), Bob (Lisa), Tom (Colleen) and John (Dunbar) of New Orleans and Billy (Kate) of Washington D.C.; his brother-in-law, Ellis A. Robeau Jr.; his nephews: Adam (Jaime), David (Missy), Philip, Christopher, Matthew (Madeline), James and Jeff Amoss and the late Jared Robeau; his nieces, Sophie, Ashley and Hayley Amoss and Gina Robeau Fahrig (William).  He is also survived by grandnephews, Robert, Andrew and Luke Amoss and Dillon and Connor Dufrene in addition to grandnieces, Claire, Savannah, Emma and Libby Amoss and an aunt and uncle, Malee and Jesse B. "Zett" Hearin.

A Memorial service will take place on Wednesday, October 20, 2021 at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, 2216 Metairie Rd. in Metairie at 10:00 a.m. Visitation will begin at 9 a.m. A private burial will take place in Garden of Memories Cemetery.

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