The New Year is right around the corner and we are excited about the growth and success we will achieve in the upcoming year. Let’s take a moment to rewind and celebrate the success stories of some departments at Paper Transport this past year.
Intermodal Logistics
Through the ups and downs of 2022, the Intermodal Logistic Team’s greatest accomplishment is its financial turnaround. We’ve built a team that can hyper-focus on individual high-cost items and still executes substantial volume daily. Changing our team structure has reduced container cost per load by over 40% in January. We have leveraged our carrier partners creating dedicated loops for them to operate in and reduced our drayage cost by approximately 7% this year. Despite historically high fuel costs these moves, and many others, have turned what was at best a break-even line of business into one that is on pace to well exceed our 2022 budget.
Learn more about Intermodal Logistics and what lead to the growth and success of the team here.
Kristina Deprey- Intermodal Logistics Director
Operations
Paper Transport would be nothing without our professional truck drivers! Our operations team is the link between our drivers and customers. Our Operations team is also committed to meeting the needs of drivers and valuing the importance of family. Ryan Jasper, Driver manager shares how the operations teams worked with Raciel, a professional driver during a difficult time for his family.
Raciel informed his Driver Manager, Ryan Jasper, that his mother was terminally ill and wanted to be able to see her in person. Raciel operated dedicated at our Jacksonville, FL office and his mother lived in Caledonia, WI. Once looking at options and collaborating with the team, Planner, Theresa Falk asked if it would be possible to run the driver on a 14/3 schedule. This would allow our driver to take the 34-hour resets in Caledonia.
Learn more about how the operation team was able to make this possible for Raciel and his family here.
Ryan Jasper- Driver manager
Inside Sales
At Paper Transport, culture is everything, and in sales, culture is a difficult and fragile balance.
Our greatest achievement within Inside Sales is creating an environment where the team feels heard, supported, and confident to be themselves, while also maintaining a strong sense of accountability. The team shares a great level of camaraderie while also being competitive. They push themselves and each other to find new ways to stand out, and most importantly, they leverage the personality of one another to grow their sales approach while being genuine to themselves. It takes much more work to trust your people and listen to their feedback than it does to review a report and push the numbers, but the return on that investment has been invaluable to me and our organization. We all continue to grow by 1% each day, and in just a year and a half, this entire department has come so far. I can’t imagine where it will be another 18 months from now.
Learn about the three pillars of approaching sales account execs- Vulnerability, Growth, and Trust here.
Zach Kruse- Wholesale Operations Manager
Intermodal Drayage
One of our biggest success story of the past year has been the development of our Intermodal driver team in Pennsylvania. A year ago, we started in this market and have grown to 5 drivers with plans to add more. This is one of the strongest groups of drivers I have had the pleasure to work with. They work as a team and often call with suggestions to solve the issues they are facing. Each one of them shows a sense of ownership for their equipment and work while always doing the right thing.
Learn more about the main cause of the growth in Intermodal Drayage, The Heart of our company: Professional: truck drivers here.
Chris Casper- Operations Manager
Brokerage
Our biggest success this year was growing a team of amazing and talented associates. We started with 2 associates before August 2020 and have now grown our Brokerage team to over 30 associates. Most of what we are doing in Brokerage is new to Paper Transport in terms of process and execution. We have a team of entrepreneurial-minded associates full of initiative and hustle. This is what is and will continue to make us successful in the future.
What exactly led to the growth of Brokerage? Learn more about the skills needed to be part of the brokerage team here.
Nick Skeen- Brokerage Services Director
Accelerate
The Training and Development team supports new CDL-A graduates through Paper Transport’s Accelerate Finishing Program, with recruitment and comprehensive safety and skills training.
Our biggest success stories came through curriculum restructuring. We met our goal of increasing “behind the wheel” time by 50% in the student’s first week of training, better equipping new drivers with both the skillset and confidence to start hauling freight during their second and third weeks of training. We’ve also been able to successfully expand our driver training team. This has allowed more options to create training plans conducive to our student’s needs.
Learn more about the conception of the Accelerate program and the leadership that made it possible to provide great training to professional truck drivers here.
Zach Vandyke – Accelerate Business Development Manager
We are extremely proud team’s success! Our grit and eagerness do not stop there! We are committed to our people and safety which allows us to continue to innovate and grow. Explore other aspects of Paper Transport here.