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Good morning again everyone, Dave Nemo with you as we move on down the line, and it is
good to welcome Tim Aschoff to the program, President of Shaffer and COO of Crete. And
well, first off, happy New Year, and then happy anniversary, Tim.
Well thank you very much, happy New Year to you as well Dave. It is a great year for us
here at Crete, celebrating our 50th anniversary.
1966 means a lot to me personally, maybe I shouldn’t say this but that is the year
I graduated high school. Crete Carrier goes back to 1966, hard to believe 50 years have
passed. The actual anniversary date doesn’t come until summer though eh?
Yeah we were incorporated back in June of 1966, and so that is the official birthdate
but we will be celebrating all year long. It is a great-great milestone and something
that we want to recognize and really share with our team and our people, throughout the
country, to do that, we need to go beyond just one day to do that.
Well absolutely, that is why we are talking about it now, here in January. So lets go
back to June of 1966, well I guess even a bit further than that because you do not start
on the day. There is a lot of work to put a company together, maybe you can walk us
through some of that early history?
Sure, as you might imagine, with any company over the years, it starts out small and it
starts out with a person, and we had a person who started our company by the name of Ken
Norton who at that time wanted to refine authority to haul dog food from a plant in Crete, Nebraska.
Was able to get that authority back in those days, and was able to obtain six trailers,
so he started with six trailers and the authority to haul dog food. Was able to find a couple
owner operators and opened an office above a creamery in a small town in Crete, and that
is how we got started.
Wow, from humble beginnings. You know, that model is the one thing that is consistent
throughout US history. You see the need, you have the desire and you figure out a way to
fill that need.
Absolutely, that is the American way here in free enterprise, but not everyone is successful
in doing that. Sometimes, I believe there are statistics that show four out of five
new small businesses don’t make it. Beyond seeing that need, you have to have the right,
a lot of right things, but it all comes down to the right people. And certainly from the
beginning days we had the right person to get us started and hire a couple of the right
people, and obviously at that time hire the right owner operators. If the person is sitting
in the office and getting the loads and getting them from alpo at that time. Getting the trailers,
getting them on the trailers, didn’t have the right owner operators moving reliably
that we would have failed from the beginning. That really has been the cornerstone of our
growth from those six trailers to 13,000 trailers today is having the right people. That is
the people out on the road for us and the people that are not out on the road, but are
in our office or out in the shop and certainly our dispatchers and finding the right customers
were so important as well.
We have not seen change come almost on a monthly basis in this industry like it is now, but
going back through the decades Tim, you know there has been some significant changes through
the years. Most of them, you know, not bunched up together like they are now. There have
been some big things though, 1966, Vietnam is going on, a lot of folks are leaving the
country and coming back. When I started in trucking radio back in 1972 it was hard to
find somebody that had not been in the military or had a family member going back to Korea
or WWII. The component of trucking was really military based at that time. But then you
had other big changes as well, the Arab Oil Embargo back in the mid 1970s, That really
had an impact on trucking overall. A lot of flaming hoops you could say you had to go
through in those days. What are some of things through the decades in those earlier decades
Tim, some of the hurdles the company has gone through and how the company has adapted to
some of those changes in the industry.
Well you know we do look back often when we talk about the good ole days. We have a tendency
to remember things that changed or didn’t go right, but there are a lot of things that
do go right and obviously that is good for us and many other companies that have survived.
You know, there are some changes that aren’t a lot different than from today. If you look
at some of the industry challenges and what they were back then, and start with to your
point having good and the right drivers and where do we get those from. We kind of circled
full circle where we have a lot of good former military drivers coming back into the industry
and we try to help with that as a company. Equipment is also a big thing, we joke with
some of our longer term drivers and joke about the ‘ good ole days’ and ask if they want
to go back to having no power steering and sleepers three feet wide. So we have had some
really good changes and those equipment changes, sometimes I know we ask is it for the better
or not? But you have to continue to evolve that way. The regulatory changes, those changes
might affect differently. Back then we were regulated differently, you had to have an
authority, to get a back haul you might have to find the right partner authority to do
that. Now we see more regulations on the safety side and have to work through that. One thing
we have always tried to do as a company is try not to make too big of change or not make
too big of a deal about the change. We are always going to have change. But if we don’t
have a constant steady outlook, then we work through that and try to work through how we
can use the change to our benefit. I think like I said before a big part of it is our
people and our leadership we have had. We have to accept change because it is going
to be out there, and we have to try and do our best to get through it.
I am kind of a big fan of additives Tim, one of them I can kind of remember from my high
school years was I had seen something called adapt or die. It was about military and how
the military had to adapt in those days, with gorilla warfare coming out of Korea and WWII.
A totally different aspect coming out of the civil war and going into WWI you had to adapt
or die. So I think you make a real good point there, the three letter bumper sticker is
a little harsh, but you know that is the reality. You say, kind of down a different avenue but
four out of five companies don’t make it. Is the lack of the ability to stay ahead of
the curve and adapt to changes landscapes that is something you really have to go with.
Not necessarily go with the flow but stay ahead of the flow. You guys have stayed ahead
by doing some interesting things. We say Crete, Crete Carrier Corp. That does include Shaffer
and Hunt, Tim, I am sure you guys have talked a lot about this with the anniversary coming
up, but how has this helped the success of Crete to actually get to a 50th anniversary.
Well it has helped us in different ways at different times. We acquired, back in the
1970’s we acquired Shaffer Trucking back in 1974 but that company has been around since
1937, so that company has a lot of longevity. And we had at the same time we acquired another
refer called sunflower carriers. Some of that at that time was not out of a need to grow,
but the regulatory environment in having authority is how do we get back to backhauls. We were
hauling a lot of things out of the Midwest and Shaffer was a strong East coast carrier
hauling from the east to the Midwest and needed to be able to go out and get back hauls because
you had to have authority to haul. We helped provide some synergy to them at that time,
And, over the years as you mentioned we had to adapt as it became deregulated. We had
those different companies and we said how can we work with those different companies
and brands as a whole to make us stronger. that has evolved to today as there are some
great economies you can scale when you operate some things together and give yourself more
purchase power for equipment and other things. But probably most importantly we began to
focus more on our customer base. That customer base was primarily being consumer packaged
goods, food stuff, other retail items. So many of those customers need both dry and
refrigerated trailers and so having both Shaffer temp controlled and Crete’s dry van, we
can provide some great services to customers that need those multiple offerings and help
them be more of a one stop shop. It certainly provided some flexibility to our drivers as
for instance. we may have more refer than drive in an area so we could kind of mix and
match to keep our drivers moving. It has really been helpful to both us internally and to
have those multiple offering to our customers and in the 90s we had the purchase of Hunt
Transportation in order to offer that open deck specialized portfolio offering. Become
that well rounded carrier to those certain customers that have all those needs. We look
Crete being 50, our oldest company is actually Hunt Transportation, in next year in September
they will be celebrating their 90th anniversary.
Wow, wow. That is incredible. Really is. We have talked more about the externals about
the company but lets try to kind of go behind the curtain here a little bit. If you can
picture, I am asking our listeners to picture a laptop or a laptop tablet, and you have
folders in those folders and files. If the folders were called company culture, and you
double clicked on that. You would see some principles. Some files called principles.
Lets talk through some of those principles and some internal aspects of the company;
Yeah we do live by what we call our seven principles. Before I start get into that,
it really goes back to what is the heart of our success has been. Our culture, our culture
was first created by our company owners, and we were mentioned we were founded in 1966.
Five years later the person that who founded the company from a legal aspect was Duane
Acklie. He was a ICC attorney at the time. He did the legal creation for the company
for Mr. Norton, five years later, Mr. Norton wanted to sell and move back to the West Coast
and Mr. Acklie bought the company and took over. what has really helped us is for the
past 45 years following, Mr. Acklie and his family have owned the company and we have
our current CEO Tonn Osterguard part of that family. What they have focused on is that
we as a company have that right culture. That company culture that we are a family and we
show that respect to one another. So we really annunciate those in principles in our culture.
Our first one is safety first and foremost. pretty self explanatory. The second one is
we say what we mean and we mean what we say. We have found that is really valuable if we
are very open and honest with each other and if we open and honest with our drivers and
customers. That is a true sign of a true good culture that can understand those. Our third
principle is we are ethical, we always want to do the right thing even when people are
not watching. Which throughout the years, in different industries, potentially in trucking,
that was a very important thing to us. Sometimes that wasn’t necessarily the practices throughout
time of many. We say we follow the road less traveled, so that means we stress long term
performance over short term gain. Again I go back to being family owned and privately
held here. One of the cornerstones of our success, as the family owns the company and
became successful, all the money went back into company and we became debt free very
early on in 1974 till now we have been debt free. that has helped us make decisions and
make change for the long term. Certainly it helped us get to 50 years, to get through
those ups and downs and not worry about having, are we able to pay for our equipment and payroll.
We do say we strive to be the best trucking company in the country, not necessarily the
biggest but the best. That is a little different, sometimes we hope being the best can help
us grow, and make great opportunities for our employees and obviously serve our customers.
Our sixth principle is we exercise mutual respect. If you can see there is a common
theme. At the end of the day, moving into our company motto, there are no short cuts,
it is how we treat each other, how we act, how we operate as a company in a way we can
all leave and feel good about what we did. Then the most important one for maybe this
year and for different times is we have fun. Trucking is not a walk in the park it is a
challenging business. But it is also a business that is very rewarding. We have to remember
to step back and have fun with what we do and try to have that fun each day and celebrate
those milestones like we are doing this year.
You know, we talked about how it is not an one day celebration in June but it is a year
long celebration for the 50th. What are some of the things you guys have cooking?
Well certainly the most important part about the celebration is our people. So we are doing
some things every month to recognize our people and to recognize the anniversary and each
of our locations are doing monthly little celebrations throughout the year. We are going
to have the big celebration here in Lincoln in June. But we are going to go out and have
celebration events throughout all of our locations throughout the year. Provide moments and some
historical things to our employees of who we made it to 50 years. We want to point back
and thank the people that are here, because if it weren’t for them we would not be celebrating
50 years with all of our people. It takes not only our people, but it takes having good
customers so we are going to do some things with our customers to show them our gratitude
and appreciate all they have done for us. I mentioned we started as a company hauling
dog food out of Nebraska. We are so proud alpo dog food plant is 15 miles away from
where we are sitting, so they have been a customer for 50 years. We have a lot of other
many great customers that we have had for many years. Celebrating that combo of what
trucking companies have to do everyday to be able to serve the right companies and to
do a quality job of getting that done.
If anything can some up, the success, the stability or just the attitude of a company,
to be able to say, we have the same customer the two started off with 50 years ago. That
speaks volumes and then some Tim, It really does.
You know it really does, like you know things change. Things not only change with us in
our industry but changes with that customer. For us to have that relationship and have
that level of trust in each other for both of us to grow for 50 years is really an accomplishment.
I definitely hope the customers that have been with us along the way are proud of that.
We are certainly grateful for the people we have. We don’t have any original 50 year
long employees with us still, but we have a number with at least 40 years with us. So
if it wasn’t for those people that have been with us basically since that start, we
would not be where we are today.
Well Tim thank you so much for sharing some insight with us. When you and I talk we generally
stay away from talking about Crete, Shaffer and Hunt and the industry at a large. But
we really wanted to zero in on you guys here this morning on the kickoff of the 50th anniversary
year of Crete Carrier Corporation. Many happy returns Tim, we are looking forward to it
in February.
Oh thank you very much, I do appreciate the recognition of the company and the really
again just want to thank all the people that have helped out at Crete. We have a lot of
people that over the years have came and gone for various reasons. Wee just want to let
everyone know we are proud of everyone that has been a part of the organization and send
out a real heart felt thank you to all of you for helping us.
Tim Aschoff, Crete Carrier Corporation everyone.