The oldest, brokerage based, freight management company in the country. We are a "classic middleman", now called a third party logistics ("3PL") firm serving hundreds of industrial/commercial shipping firms (@ 300/mo-@500/yr) with hundreds of trucking companies (also @ 300/mo-700/yr). We arrange shipments by rail, air and water but 97% by truck.

We don't own a pound of freight nor a single truck. We believe that to do so would be a conflict of interest and focus with our clients, the shippers and truckers we serve.

We have to plan for and obtain the right truck for our shipper client every time. We have to plan for and obtain the right shipment for our carrier client every time. We must communicate with all parties 24/7 (shipper, receiver, trucking company, driver, rigger, authorities), price, collect and payout the freight bills, adjust for all problems in route and supply both clients with performance and financial reports. We meet with them often.

Freight transportation is the economy's circulatory system. The American trucking industry moves 93% of all surface freight and is the $481 Billion engine that drives the nation's $517 Billion annual freight machine. Though the largest trucking companies get all the media coverage (and probably too much of Washington's attention), the country's 100,000 plus trucking firms are American small business at its best.

Today's trucking industry has been shaped by the vigorous supply-demand freight market activity which followed from the 1980 federal deregulation legislation and reforms. As described in the "logistics" charts from "Traffic World", June 11, 2001, in the 21 years from 1980 to 2000 the U.S.Gross Domestic Product went from $2.80 Trillion to $9.96 Trillion; a growth of 255% while U. S. logistics costs (made up of total warehousing and freight costs) only increased from $451 Billion to $1.006 Billion; growth of only 123%. See Chart #1.

In 1980 Logistics was 16.1% of GDP; year 2000 it was 10.1%; macro productivity gains 1980's policy makers never dared dream of. See Chart #2.

Vigorous competition, natural market activity, supply/demand built in "control" and Yankee Trader ambition and ingenuity made it all happen once regulation got out of the way. Today's costs of storing and transporting goods is highly efficient and is one of the reasons the economy enjoyed the huge, prosperity swell of the last 21 years. (Footnote 1)

The trucking segment has become so fast and reliable that much less "safety stock" inventory needs to be maintained. So as business cycles occur they are less exaggerated and risky.

A truckload of freight which in 1980 might have taken two weeks or more to cross the country delivers in 5 real time days; 3 days with a 2 man team. 1980's 40' x 8' x8' trailer is now 53' x 8'6" x 9'; an increase of 58% cube! Today's tractor gets better miles per gallon; the driver is in constant, two way touch with management, minimizing delay and recovery from problems. This multiple performance gain of trucking and its impact on inventory minimization has also, no doubt, had great impact on the shape and duration of the long economic surge of the past 20 years. Trucking's contribution may have been more important than Mr.Greenspan's!

Releasing freight 3PLs from regulatory oblivion was a necessary catalyst in this performance. From almost 0% in 1980, freight 3PLs of various types, including the trucking firm's own in house brokering to other carriers, probably arrange 50% of today's long haul and intercity trucking. The resulting choices, expertise input and shipments-to-carrier matching is a major driver of savings and quality control for the shipper-customer. The resulting availability of real time freight information and quality and the speed and safety of payment keeps most truckers viable and in the black.

Prior to 1980 most trucks in the country were running about 40% to 50% empty miles; another productivity sapper. Today if a carrier's trucks are running less than 10% empty miles they're probably bankrupt and just haven't noticed yet. As the lady says, "Goodbye". That minimization of empty mileage is, of course, yet another huge productivity gain for the trucking sphere. It also has to be a huge highway safety gain (see below).

The vigorous participation of increasingly sophisticated 3PLs matching millions of "supply" units with millions of "demand" units, real time, per day has been a necessary ingredient to have achieved and to continue this market state.

According to the US Department of Transportation, in 1980 large truck (greater than 10,000# trucks, including load; "18 wheelers" are 80,000#) fatal crashes were 5,042. 20 years later they were 4,542; 500 (10%) less lives lost! See Chart #3.

What is even more impressive is that total vehicle miles (in millions) went from 108,491 to 199,281 20 years later; 90,790 millions of miles (83.7%) more. The gains in lives lost per 100 million miles went from 5.5 in 1980 to 2.7 20 years later; half the number. See Chart #4. And those trillions of miles were being traveled by trucks hauling 50% more freight in at least half the time lapse. All that additional freight moving all that more efficiently and the fatal accidents per mile were cut in half! Again, intensive 3PL matching and expediting activity, which went from zero to 50% of the arranging of truck shipments during that 20 years, obviously contributed to those brilliant safety gains. (Footnote 2.)

Of year 2,000's $481 Billion in truck freight bills, no trucker billed more than $4 Billion (other than UPS and Fed Ex, who are small package, air/truck carriers). The entire remaining 18 of the top 20 truckers only billed $40 Billion (less than 9% of the total); and no trucker handles even 1% of the country's freight! The 50th largest billed $291 million; the 100th largest billed $115 million. Obviously, the remaining 99,980 truckers billed less. (Footnote 3)

Obviously, there will never be a single, dominant "General Motors" of the trucking industry. There is very little economy of scale favoring the largest. What they gain in buying power for equipment, fuel and management sophistication they loose in cost of obtaining and training drivers. So the small trucker, for certain pieces of the massive truck freight market, using more focused service and commitment, can compete for and often (usually?) beat out the biggest.

In fact, in his "niche", the smaller carrier can usually run the wheels off the larger carrier in every category. Trucking is a service industry. Not a pound of freight moves without a driver, a shipment ordering person(s), loader(s), unloader(s), dispatcher(s) who schedules the driver's work and management control. The quality of trucking service is totally dependent on human quality of performance and ability to work with others. We humans usually keep getting blinded by the truck; we forget; trucks don't move freight, people do.

The largest 100 or so carriers, with their own name recognition, deal with brokers for a much smaller percentage of their freight than do smaller carriers. The largest carriers usually work with the largest shipper-customers moving their huge quantities of freight from origin to the same destination over and over again.

To a driver that type of freight can quickly become boring, "no brainer", same scenery, no "thanks", not much management needed; the drivers can become numbers. This is not a knock on the large carrier; it is simply the type of freight they often serve. Driving 1 one of the 20 loads of axle assemblies per day to an auto plant everyday; 1 of the 10 loads of paper towels to a grocery warehouse everyday…. As a result, the largest truckers have driver turnover of greater than 100% per year. At this rate very few drivers last 2 or 3 years, many quit in a few months and the average stay is 6 months(!) This in a service, people business.

The smaller carriers have more varied routes and customers. The drivers know the owner, he/she knows them, they are both working to survive, beat the competition, prosper, grow. Smaller trucking firms' turnover can be 20% to 40% per year. This means some drivers stay 10 or 20 years. Though a few might quit in a few months, the average stay, if turnover is 30%, is 3 years and 4 months. This is a difference not of 20% or 40% from the small compared to the large but of 230% in this crucial, people factor. Driver retention in a service, people business, at 230% is a massive edge for the little guy over the big.

Thus, the market is wide open, wildly varied and, in buying and selling, not unlike the controlled mayhem (and efficiency of transaction, honesty of supply/demand adjustment, etc.) of the Chicago Commodities Exchange or the New York Stock Exchange but with one pregnant difference. Types of freight are not highly similar or fungible as is GE stock or T-Bonds or corn lots or pork bellies. Their differences make a big difference.

The trucker must seek out the freight his firm and drivers know, including the geographic lanes and must stay as loaded in both directions (90% to 100% full) as possible, with his return loads targeted almost to specific points on the map or his costs will bankrupt him fast.

The shipper must seek out the carriers who know his freight and lanes, are available when he needs a truck and be priced competitively (low, especially lowest, if possible) so the shipper can compete against his own competitors in distant markets.

Trucks can't afford to sit. They are only making money when they are moving with freight aboard. So they need freight now, real time. Likewise, the shipper doesn't need to ship until his freight is ready, no matter how well suited a carrier in hand may be. But when he is ready in today's just in time economy the freight can't sit waiting for a specific carrier who is not in town yet.

So, if someone had the right trucker when the freight was ready to ship and the price was right that would be a very valuable contact for a shipper. For the carrier, if someone had the proper type and destination freight available when the carrier was ready to be loaded and go that would be a very valuable contact for him. That someone is Tucker Company Worldwide and the estimated 20,000 trucking brokers with whom we compete.

We have professional salespeople who find and develop relationships with industrial/commercial firms who have freight to ship to their customers. The freight could go across town or anywhere in the North American continent. The type of freight varies widely; chemicals in drums on pallets, packaged food or grocery items, machinery, pharmaceuticals, printed matter, corrugated boxes, empty bottles to a beverage plant, nonferrous metal ingots off a ship, rolls of paper…. It could be in truckload quantities or a skid. It could be going a short distance, Midwest, to Mexico, Canada or Memphis.

Our job is to price the freight bills as low as we can for the type of carrier and service level (mostly speed of delivery) the shipper requires. Then, if we are given the shipment, we have to have people, expert at lining up the right carrier to handle that shipment, keep all parties communicated with from beginning to end, and get the delivery completed with no problems. If problems occur (Murphy rules in freight, of course) handle them and keep everyone briefed.

If we do all the above we have a good chance of getting the customer's next shipment as well. Obviously, given enough freight, we aim to spoil that customer into giving us almost all her freight. We have developed that partnership with quite a few of our customers and some for 10 and 25 years and more, thank you. Most of our customers, since the market is so wide open, we are still working on, of course.

Being specialists, we should be able to accomplish a better (expert) transportation job at a lower price than the shipper-customer can do for himself, including the commission we must charge for the service. We do that by reaching out to the carriers, both large and small, we have built up relations with over the years. Our people are specialists, we have more volume than most shippers. We continually pour heavy money into developing computer and communication tools to help us price and control freight, much more so than the shipping firm does.

We try to supply a continuous source of the right truck for the right shipment at the right price, right time and the right total management control, every time.

We have long term, high volume, intensive relationships with our carriers who depend on our sales savvy and continuous quantity of "the right freight" for them. We have developed state of the art information systems of customer freight profiles well beyond any carrier we know, as well. And we pay the carrier's freight bills in full and on time every time for the last 40 years faster and more in full than do his average shippers. If a shipper defaults payment to us our carrier gets paid in full anyway, including shipper bankruptcies. We are therefore also a default, financial factor of the highest quality for our carrier-customer.

We try to supply a continuous source of the right freight at the right time and the right price, going to the right place, unloading on time, with full, timely payment and the right total management control, every time.

We are classic middlemen and wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Freight is an important field and a constant challenge. Who was it who said, "If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen"? Tucker's team shoulders a good bit of responsibility to each of our 2 industry partners. But we relish the heat of the freight market interface.

America and the World are adjusting to post 9/11/01. Trucks and shipping containers can deliver disasters similar to hijacked airplanes. The country, including the trucking industry, is working through this predicament.

Deceased woman and child murderer (terrorist?) McVeigh rented a truck and built a bomb largely of agricultural fertilizer. The trucking industry was no factor. It did not need to be for McVeigh. Nor would it need to be for any other would be mass destroyer.

Anyone who is deeply into the trucking world knows that the industry would not only not lend itself in the least to that usage; it would, in fact, present a massive threat to any destroyer. It is too tightly controlled (secure) and peopled with a crowd of red-blooded patriots, second only maybe to our service people and veterans, to lend itself. We may be assured those patriots are in an increased state of concern and watchfulness for destroyer-screwballs and activities. And the country could not have a better system than they and their trucking organizations. Committed destroyers simply wouldn't want to mess with it and, again, it's too easy to not have to.

Federal, State and Local authorities are charged with ensuring the trucking industry does not inadvertently abet a destroyer. The authorities have let it be known they will issue security changes. We, as well I am sure, most others savvy about the trucking industry are aware of how well suited the people and organizations in the trucking industry are to providing the very maximum security which the Country could obtain by relying on and further educating and empowering the people and organizations of the trucking industry to do so.

The point is that almost any outside the industry regulation or authority applied to the industry would very likely not enhance the security. It would, without a doubt, however, complicate and materially slow down the industry. The truly magnificent efficiency, and thus the built in security that is part and parcel of the efficiency, of the trucking machine, is more than a little at stake. Freight arriving from overseas on piers is an exception to this and the international freight world and U.S. authorities are working at that problem.

The domestic trucking industry, however, being a service industry so people-intensive, is ideally structured in an already secure state. Privity of information about the type of freight, freight owner, billee, origin, destination, freight pricing, etc. is already built into the systems and the bones of the participants. Truckers who don't protect their and their customers' information don't last and prosper.

Today's communications tools keep everyone in almost immediate and continual contact; satellite tracking and communications is almost standard on tractors and some trailers. Geo-positioning and computerized maps down to street and address detail is standard. In the old days a driver could get "lost" for hours at a time, sometimes days if he really worked at it. Today he can't get lost no matter how skilled or determined.

In today's productivity freight world of just in time inventory, appointment pickup and delivery, stay loaded +95% of your miles and your time, there is little slack time. Freight doesn't sit and moving freight is hard to steal, corrupt or identify by the nondriver. The shipment should be as safe as it could ever be if the driver and her support group of shipper, dispatcher-tracker, carrier management, broker and receiver are doing their jobs. And even if only some of them are.

The market participants of today did not survive the deregulated trucking environment if they were not dead serious about knowing with whom they were dealing, controlling possession of expensive trucking equipment, freight and information and caring dearly about staying square with risks, outside influences, the law and the many other authorities involved.

The people of the trucking industry, not only including but enhanced by the very necessary broker specialists, are the best defense against trucks being turned against the public safety and welfare. There are millions of pairs of patriotic eyes and savvy communicators that only have to be briefed on what to note and report and to whom. No system will ever be able to do it better. Material change of that system can only compromise it's security.

The broker who arranges shipments already, intimately knows the people he is doing business with, both shipper-receiver side and carrier side. He is usually in touch with the carrier's driver and solves problems, real time, at origin, destination and in route. This additional insider enhances control, safety and security.

Again, the trucking community will respond vigorously to security improvements but only if applied by the insiders themselves. Materially changing or even slightly slowing down this great, American trucking machine should be avoided at almost any cost. Who wants to let the destroyers get another piece of the civilized world for nothing?

1. "12th Annual 'State of Logistics Report' Managing Logistics In A Perfect Storm", Roslyn Wilson, ProLogis, rosalyn@transopolis.com, 703-404-4362 and Robert V. Delaney, Cass Information Systems, cass@cassinfo.com, 314-506-5820 (Charts 1 and 2 by Tucker Co.)
   
   
2. "Large Truck Crash Facts 1999", U.S.DOT, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, April 2001. (Charts 3 and 4 by Tucker Co.)
   
   
3. "Transport Topics' 100 - Annual Company Rankings - 2000", ATA's "Transport Topics", October 1, 2001.