PrivateFleets.com

Now that Thanksgiving is past, and you’re all paying attention to your e-mail again, I finally have a chance to share some news from the CCJ Fall Symposium held in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Nov. 12-14. We had about 200 fleets attend, including several private fleets such as Wilsonart International, which manufactures and transports laminates such as countertops.

According to a recent survey by the National Private Truck Council, 85 percent of private fleets with for-hire authority plan to grow their fleet over the next 5 years. Perhaps the NPTC took this survey before the economy slowed down. Regardless, if you still plan on growing your fleet, the first speaker at the Symposium, Steven Little, had something to say for you. Little led several high-growth companies during the 1980s and 1990s, including manufacturing. Today he is an author, frequent lecturer and senior consultant for Inc. magazine. Seven of the most important traits of companies that manage growth well over the long run generally exhibit some common traits.

• A strong sense of purpose: “Money doesn’t work long-term.”
• Outstanding market intelligence: “Recognize change is happening, and proactively do something about it.”
• Effective growth planning: “The plan itself won’t lead to growth; it’s the process of planning.”
• Customer-driven processes
• Savvy use of technology: “If you aren’t an expert in the tools of our time, you better become an expert.”
• Hiring the best and the brightest: “If you are a CEO, this is your job.”
• Seeing the future: “Business growth leaders spend over half their time on the issues of tomorrow.” Some of the issues of tomorrow include populations shifts into cities, the aging of the population and the opportunities in being “green” and Latino friendly.

The next speaker was Bob Costello, the vice president and chief economist of the American Trucking Association. Recovery is unlikely before the second quarter of 2008 due to a prolonged slump in housing and a slight bump in trucking capacity. The housing market likely will not rebound until 2009. And according to Federal Reserve data, manufacturing growth has declined significantly from a peak in mid-2006. This has impacted private fleets significantly, particulary in the construction materials business. A fleet manager for a large windows manufacturer, for example, recently told me that his fleet is soliciting a significant amount of freight for its headhauls just to keep his equipment and drivers busy.

Through October, the number of employees working for trucking companies had fallen by almost 15,000, he says. But LTL carriers and large truckload carriers cut even more than that. Small carriers actually increased their employment levels during the first half of 2007, but with recovery slow in coming, this is a troubling trend for small carriers.

“In the long run, this industry will do very well,” Costello says. “The biggest challenge will be how to handle all the freight coming our way.” In 2007, truckload loads had risen 1 percent through August, while the truckload fleet had declined 1.1 percent on a net basis. Costello expects that 1 percent rise in loads to soften by the end of 2007, but the overall trend is positive. “The fundamentals are still there to support tighter capacity.”

Ray Kuntz, the Chairman of the American Trucking Associations, also spoke at the Symposium. Onerous carbon taxes and cumbersome cap-in-trade regimes in order to reduce greenhouse gases would hurt the trucking industry and would not necessarily achieve a meaningful reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2), he said. Kuntz is also the CEO of Helena, Mont.-based Watkins & Shepherd.

“While our industry has a tremendous track record in cleaning up the nation’s air through advanced engine technologies and cleaner fuels, we have experienced a major setback in that we have also witnessed fuel economy losses as a result,” he says.

Last June, Kuntz appointed a sustainability task force to consider alternatives to drastic measures that have been proposed at the federal level and in individual states. The general thrust of ATA’s effort is to promote fuel efficiency among both large trucks and cars through a variety of measures, Kuntz says. They include an enforced national speed limit of 65 mph which would save 11.5 billion gallons of fuel–2.8 billion for trucks and 8.7 billion for cars–over a 10-year period. That translates into a reduction of CO2 emissions by 116.2 million tons over a 10-year period. Other savings include reducing discretionary idling and adopting the recommendations of EPA’s SmartWay Transport Partnership.

Altogether, ATA’s recommendations would save 86.1 billion gallons of fuel over 10 years, representing 904.7 million tons of CO2 that otherwise would be emitted, Kuntz says.

CCJ and Randall-Reilly Publishing, my full-time employer, holds two fleet management symposiums each year. The first is in May, held in Tuscaloosa, Ala. The second is in November in Scottsdale, Ariz. If you would like to attend one of CCJ’s Symposiums in 2008, let me know and I will do my best to get you on the invitation list. The only cost for you to attend is your travel to the location. The rest of your costs–hotel, meals and golf–for two days are included.