From the Driver's Seat: Integrated Services

Welcome to From the Driver Seat, the Averitt podcast for all Averitt drivers to keep up with news and information across our network. Make sure to subscribe on your preferred podcasting app to make sure you're notified as soon as every episode drops. And now hosting from the driver's seat, director of driver services, David Royals. I got Steve McDonald. How are doing, Steve? Doing great, David. Thank you. Doing good. You know, you and I worked together for a long time over the years, haven't we? Yes, sir. We have. You moved away and went into a different business unit after after a while. Right? How long have been on this new business unit? Right at ten years. Right at ten years. So what's this business unit that you're over now? The Integrated Team. Integrated Team. Yes, sir. And what do they do? So within Integrated, that's really the umbrella of the business unit. We've got five business units within Integrated. The first one being North America Truckload, which is our brokerage arm. Then Intermodal, which manages all the rail movement on the rail. Expedited, anything for guaranteed service ground or air. International, which is going to be ocean or air. And then enterprise TMS, which is a software solution that we sell to shippers. And, you know, I think the thing that probably affects the drivers more than anything else right now is just probably the North American truckload. Right? Yes, sir. And what do y'all do with that? What you know, North American truckload is you know, it sounds like, okay. Well, we don't go all over North America, but what does that mean? Well, and I think as I joined the Integrated team, of course, I brought my my career was in truckload, so I worked closely with the drivers. So we wanted to make sure that we created a funnel so that every truckload opportunity was feeding to one central unit just to make it simple for the customers. So we created a funnel within the North America Truckload team. So any truckload offering that sells anything that they could come up with, they'll actually present it to that funnel. And then we'll work to win the business, and then when we win it, we're gonna push it out to assets. So it's gonna go to Truckload first. If Truckload can't cover it, we're gonna push it to Dedicated. We'll look at some of the service centers, but it's always asset first with everything that's that comes in. So it's a huge advantage to the folks out in the field that are driving trucks. Right? It gives them more opportunities to drive more miles. Yes, sir. And we look at that for each one of the business units within Integrated. Even if it's something coming in on ocean, the dray work, we're gonna look to assets first. So we're going to look to tender that before we actually go out and work with any partners. So it's really a way that we're growing Averitt Express. It's really what it comes down to. We're growing Averitt in a different in a different way that we didn't have this business unit in the past, not really. Yes, sir. They would integrate it with all of Averitt. And do y'all work with ADF? We do. We do. We work very closely. In fact, we touch every one of the business units within the company. And I think that's what makes it so great with us is because we want to simplify it. So anytime something comes in from a customer, our TMS is built so that we can tender business to each one of the business units and be seamless. Wow. You know, that's something I think I go back to twenty five years ago when you and I were in Truckload together. We just, you know, we had customers call her. We had to call the customers and try to get freight. Right? We didn't have anybody out there doing what you all are doing for us as far as Truckload and help them grow Truckload. Right? Well, and I tell you, the job that our Truckload drivers have done for us has actually paved the way for the growth of our brokerage arm. Really? There's no question. I mean, we hear it every day. Anytime we're booking shipments, I mean, all of our customers, they want Averitt drivers. I mean, that's that's just a given. So that's the reason we try to vet our partners as close to Averitt standards as So when we're working with a partner, we're looking at everything to make sure, you know, we wanna make sure that we're representing the company well when we're a partner's delivering something, but it's always gonna be asset first if we can do that. Well, that's awesome because, you know, that's what it's all about. It's all about growing Averitt. How do we make Averitt more profitable? How do we get more robust? And what you're doing really in that business unit that you've got with Integrated, that's really what that's all about is how to grow Averitt Express. Right? Yes, sir. You know, we talk about international a little bit, I guess, is the international group. It's grown a lot over the past years too, hadn't it? Oh, yes. Rich Egan joined has joined our team. He's been a great addition to the team as far as getting the word out within the field, but we've got a lot of lot of options for ocean and air that we're continuing to present to customers. Of course, the Asia Memphis Express kinda put us on the map as far as console boxes coming in. But we're looking at some additional consoles to start producing just so that way we can actually open up some other networks. Talk about the Asia to Memphis thing a little bit. I don't know if people really understand what that What what that is, that allows us to bring LCL product from from from the Asia network coming into it goes into Memphis or Dallas. And it actually is comparable transit to what air shipments are. So we've got it coming in on a Matson box, which is an expedited product. So we're looking at a seventeen to twenty one day door to door. That's very aggressive time frame That is. In the international network. Really aggressive. Yeah. So we're looking at growing that more besides just Memphis and Dallas? We are. We're looking at opening up some other networks within the international team. Yeah. I know you mentioned Drayage a while ago and of course, you know, things have slowed down a little bit last year, but seeing, you know, maybe things are starting to pick up a little bit and things that picks up. Drayage actually picks up. That's that's a good that's a good thing for drivers. Drayage is a good is a good account, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, anytime if Dray opportunities get presented, of course, we're always going to look at asset first and to see. But if not, then we've got a great partnership. We're working with about seven thousand partners today. Wow. And we keep those vetted with high standards just to make sure that they're following our requirements. But we can always work with those if an asset's not available. What do you think the future holds for Integrated? What do you think what do you think is going to happen downstream with Integrated? Any plans or we're just going to continue to grow internally? No. I think the sky's the limit Integrated, honestly, because it's considered a non asset or business unit. But we don't own assets, but with all of our partnerships and with the close touch that we have and the brand that we have, sky's the limit, honestly. Let's talk about intermodal for a minute. Know, know you talked about intermodal. What is it what is intermodal means? Everybody may not know that either. Yeah. And the intermodal, we've got a lot of growth there for this year that is planned and we've got a great leader leading that team. Allison Phillips is heading that up. But really, every piece of Averitt equipment will go on the rail. So we do TOFC and COFC. But all of Averitt's trailers are compatible on the rail. And we don't own containers, but we don't need to at this point because all of our partners have containers so we can utilize those containers to have a full offering whether it be COFC or TOFC. But you got to know that anytime we're booking a shipment on on the railroad, we'll actually reach out to our drivers, the Truckload team, the dedicated team. We'll try to get those them to actually do the front end or the back end delivery on the shipment. So it's not just more opportunity for drivers to touch freight, more for drivers to make money. There's and that that's the key, I think, as Averitt Express is very diverse on what we do and it's more opportunities for drivers to make money and have opportunities to do what they wanna do. Right? Yes, sir. You've done a great job with with the business unit. Really, really appreciate what you've done, Steve. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you being on. Anything you want to tell the drivers? I just want to thank them for all their hard work. They've actually paved the way to make this job easy for us because of the reputation they've built and helped build the company. It makes our job easy. So we're very grateful for what they do for us every day. Well, we also appreciate you helping everybody grow. That's what that's what it's all about and everybody building a team together. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all for listening in. And, you know, this is an opportunity for you to learn more about business units at Averitt Express. And that's gonna help you as you go forward and you're out talking to other drivers. And you say, hey. We do that. We do Drayage. We do all the other all those things that we do. So many opportunities for drivers. Anything a driver wants to do, there's an opportunity at Averitt Express. So that's what it's all about. We appreciate that. Remember that when you're talking to drivers. Grow the People Like You program. Take advantage of it. We'll see you out on the road. Thank you so much.