Industry Outlook

Industry Outlook: BREAKING NEWS!!

Wanna know what’s going on within the expedite industry, or with trucking overall? Then tune in to Industry Outlook, presented by Expediters Online and Load One. Join our host, Brandon Baxter, as he engages with folks-in-the-know who will bring their knowledge, ideas, and expertise to the forefront of the trucking industry in 2024 and beyond.

Host Brandon Baxter joins John Elliott of Load One, who has a special announcement, and a special guest with him. It's Breaking News that you won't to miss! What's next and new for the expedite industry?!

Tune in for more on today’s installment 👇👇 of Industry Outlook!

Transcript:

Brandon Baxter
Welcome to Industry Outlook presented by Expediters Online and Load One.
I'm your host, Brandon Baxter.
My guests today are the newly minted executive chairman of the board for Load One, John Elliott and also newly minted CEO for Load One, Jack Donnell.
Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

Jack Donnell
Morning

John Elliott
Morning Brandon

BB
All right, great pleasure to have you guys here and, and before we really get into, you know, the big news, John, let's begin with an overview of yourself and load one's backstory and then I'll let you formally introduce Jack to our audience.

JE
You know, Load One I founded it a little over 21 years ago, we've had a really nice run in the expedite industry and obviously consistent and steady growth as you've seen over the years and most people in the industry, moving us up to a top three player now.
You know, we've continued to look for ways to enhance and expand and grow the company that's always been my, my real focus and our vision is we wanna be the best in the industry and that, and bringing Jack on board is just one more step, you know, another, I'll say tool in our toolbox to help us achieve that end.

BB
Excellent, excellent.
And, and Jack, welcome aboard.
Congratulations on being named CEO of Load One.
Can you give our audience just a kind of a bit of a background on who you are, what your transportation experience brings to load one.

JD
Well, good morning to you, Brandon.
Nice to meet you.
My name is Jack Donnell and I have done this is day one at mode one.
So we're jumping right in to do this podcast.
So we're thrilled to do that.
I spent the last two years with FedEx Custom Critical.
I was in, in, you know, I was responsible for the commercial function of the of, you know, the of the organization.
I also manage our operational capacity, how we source, so our owner operator network, our fleet.
Prior to that, I'm a longtime UPS executive.
I was there almost 24 years, retired in 2012.
And with UPS I lived both in Asia and Europe, lived outside of the US for about as long as I was in the US.
So I had a variety of rotations there as well.
Long been in the industry, I've had a variety of roles throughout transportation.
Absolutely thrilled to be in the expedited space.
There's so much potential and opportunity here and that's what quite frankly is it, you know, brought me to the conversation with John that led to this is I'm, you know, absolutely thrilled with where Load One is, where it's going and wanted to be a part of it.

BB
Awesome.
And it's, it's a good time to jump in and, and really you know, make that kind of splash with Load one, obviously, you know, John and I we we go back for, for quite some time now.
So it's nice to see you and nice to have you aboard Jack again.
Welcome.
If I can, I'd, I'd like to ask you each to, to maybe discuss your, you know, what are your new roles?
What, what are these moves going to look like for Load One?

JE
You know, for me as we continued to grow and, and expand in that you know, being the CEO is really responsible to run the day to day operations of the company.
And I have done that since inception and as we grow and, and it continues to get busier and busier and that.
I found that for myself personally, I'm more of a concept guy builder, guy, vision guy, culture guy.
And getting tied down to those things were not the day to day kind of functions were not essentially the things that I wanted to do or they were, they were holding us back to an extent from executing on some of our growth initiatives and visions that we had for the company.
So I, I felt it was time for me to after all this time to turn the, the reins over of my baby.
you know, I was operations manager of a 75-truck company when I was like 24 years old.
So I've been 24 7 on since I'm, older than 24 now, obviously, I had the hair and that stuff.
But you know, I, I'd like to, yeah, also, you know, enjoy a little or be able to do some more things with my life and that with my daughter and everything.
So, you know, and this really lets me focus on the parts of the industry and business that I enjoy.
And I, I think that I'm good at

JD
My role really is just gonna be as CEO it's really to, to take the company where it's at and continue to grow and expand it both organically and through acquisition.
I mean, there, there's, there's a lot in the space that we can do to continually to, to expand and grow.
I think this market is an attractive market and there's so much potential.
Load One has a phenomenal foundation that John built and my goal is, you know, reporting that John as our executive chairman will be to take what he has built and continue to scale it as we take this company, you know, to the next 20 years and, you know, just absolutely thrilled with what's in front of us.
you know, it's, it's a tremendous opportunity to take what has been built.
I've had a lot of success in my past with taking organizations and scaling them and growing them and I plan on doing the exact same thing at Load One

JE
Timing is everything.
you know, I don't think there is a perfect time or not perfect timing in industry.
Obviously, you know, we've gone through a really hard freight recession that everyone has seen and felt.
you know, but Brandon, on a personal level, everybody has to go through hard times.

BB
Sure.

JE
You know, one thing, we've always ran the company very conservative that we were strong and able to weather storms.
Obviously we're, we're fine shape.
I mean, I mean, everyone could be better.
I mean, we, we were all happier two years ago in this industry, but you know, obviously we're built, we're built by design to able to take storms and that.
So we're handling the storm. But I think, you know, if you look at any downturn for us, it's always been, how do we find the opportunity in those downturns?
How do we make something good come out of something and we're gonna do that, this downturn just like we've done every other one.
We've, we've always grown coming out of them.
We positioned ourselves and positioned the company to be able to grow and to take advantage of that downturn.
And, and, you know, I, I, I hate saying that, you know, the industry is changing, that the herd is going, is getting thin a little, which has happened.
You know, a lot of people jumped in when things are great and then realized that that was not sustainable.
And so I think, I think, you know, we're, we're going to come out of this, but I think you're gonna see us come out even stronger than going into it.

BB
Do you feel like, do you feel like a move such as this right now?
I mean, you, you said like there's really not a rhyme or reason or a specific, you know, when is the right time, when is the wrong time?
But what type of effect if any do you feel this might have on the expedited industry itself?

JE
Industry as a whole?
I think it'll be a positive, I think load one of the brand is always represented very positive high road, do it, right kind of business.
We're gonna continue to do that.
So I think it's, it's very positive.
I mean, we have some other, we really have two or three other large competitors and that who are again, all, all of all the frenemies, as I always say, we all do business, we all compete, but we do it right.
They all do and that.
So I think that that having strong good companies on top that do it right.
Set the example and set the tone for the industry and that, and I think we're gonna continue to do that and honestly, we, I like to lead.
I, I'm not, I don't, I don't wanna be number two or three.
I would what I, I like to lead no matter what it is.

JD
And, and Brandon as we scale this company for, you know, in the future, as we take this thing forward, you know, obviously, we wanna continue to always operate with the highest integrity with the best ethics, but we also have to scale this company.

BB
Sure.

JD
because as we all know the recession we're in will turn and when it turns, we wanna be in the driver's seat as, as, as you know, the opportunity presents itself down the road.
So I think one thing also back to one of your previous questions, we're gonna be able to do John and I are gonna be able to look further down and maybe peek around corners as to where the industry might be going and start doing things differently to get ready for it.
Now that he has a CEO that can run the day to day that's run big companies.
and quite frankly, then let him really take a view of what that long term strategic, you know, outlook for load wanna look like.

JE
And we, and we've always been a little different.
I mean, you know, you look at,, I think across the industry you've seen most people have cut their staffs during the downturn.
We have not, in fact, you know, we invested and grew our sales team to one of the largest in the business industry now, you know, again, because those things were investments to me, you know, we had to protect our fleet.
I mean, obviously no one's moving as well as they were.
But, you know, we have to do everything we can investment-wise in sales and that to support the fleet, support our carrier base and that, you know, we're, we're so we, we try to, we've always tried to make longer-term moves than short term quarterly decisions.

BB
Yes, we are.
We're in the recession, you, the specifically trucking recession being ready for that opportunity to come back out of it.
I think this is a great move and, and again, you know, congratulations to, to both of you and, and I'm glad that we've had an opportunity to jump on here and, and, and talk this morning is before we wrap up.
I mean, guys, is there anything else that you'd like to talk about?
Anything else you'd like to add?
Maybe anything that,, that's coming down the pike for load one?

JE
You know, I, I think the only thing I would really add is I really wanna welcome Jack on board.
You know, we were incredibly diligent and who would take my seat and that because I really believe that companies are top down driven.
So the person to sit in that seat was pretty critical and Jack, I mean, on top of his business mind, is just a good person has the right culture aspect.
Not walking in some stuffy, you know, spreadsheet board to kind of thing, you know, but get his hands dirty, talk to people.
Just I really liked his approach.
I felt it was very much like mine and that represents good continuity and I think that's important in a transition in a company, especially at this size.
So again, I'm just really excited about the future and having Jack at the helm there.

JD
I'm just absolutely thrilled to be here again.
This is the very first, this is day one at Load One, I meet some of the other executives a little bit later after this interview.
So this is right out of the gate,
This is first, you know, action of business terrific.

BB
Terrific.
It's, it's great to have you aboard again.
Both of you guys.
Congratulations.
Thank you so much.
This has been industry outlook presented by Expediters Online and Load One.
I've been your host, Brandon Baxter. Until next time.

*****

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