CCJ Innovators profiles carriers and fleets that have found innovative ways to overcome trucking’s challenges. If you know a carrier that has displayed innovation, contact CCJ Chief Editor Jason Cannon at jasoncannon@randallreilly.com or 800-633-5953.
Revenues are up. Driver wages are up. Rates are up. It's not a bad time to be in trucking, but the groups driving the bottom line (and the trucks) often don't get to reap the benefits of a booming business, and only directly benefit when their paychecks go up.
Almost a decade ago, Long Haul Trucking (CCJ Top 250, No. 223) founder John Daniels was looking forward to retirement and there were no shortage of suitors for the 365-truck Albertville, Minnesota-based carrier. But rather than cash out and hand over the keys to the company that he spent 25 years building, he instead turned to the people who helped build it – his employees.
"The reason he did that really was because he just wanted to keep the things that he valued when it came to owner-operator pay, company driver pay, quality of equipment and things like that," said Chief Executive Jason Michels, who began with the carrier as a driver in 1999 before working in dispatch and then administration. "We still have some employees that have been here for well over 30 years and he wanted to make sure that their jobs were secure and that the Long Haul lifestyle, the brand, the image, the reputation ... that it all stayed intact."
"So, we've got company drivers with a very large six-figure balances in their ESOP account– guys who have been here since the inception," Jason Michels, Long Haul Trucking CEO
Daniels effectively sold the company to the employees – roughly 205 employees today – through an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). Unlike a 401(k), which the company also offers, the ESOP is provided at no cost to the employee. Company performance determines the annual value.
Michels said being a wholly employee-owned company has helped drive a low turnover rate (less than 25%) and the employees who have stuck it out year-after-year have been handsomely rewarded.
