Ep. #54: Jim Berlin, CEO & Founder of Logistics Plus

Andrew welcomes Jim Berlin, CEO and founder of Logistics Plus, a company he founded in 1996 and has built into a global logistics powerhouse in more than 50 countries, with $600M in revenue, customers like GE and WeWork, and a HQ within Erie, Pennsylvania’s Union Station. But success didn’t come without taking risks — and learning from failures. “I dive in with both feet without checking the depth of the water.” 

In this episode, Jim and Andrew cover:

• The journey of how Jim built his company from a small operation supporting GE's transportation into a global logistics powerhouse.
• His biggest lessons, best leadership advice, and hiring mentality at Logistics Plus, which has more than 1,200 employees.
• The biggest failure of his career — launching a cargo shipping business on the Great Lakes that nearly sank his entire company.
• Stories of how simple gestures, out-of-the-box thinking, and creative problem-solving have sustained his career and the growth of Logistics Plus.

Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.

*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more.

A special thanks to our additional sponsors:

• Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more.
• Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today!
• Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey FreightPod listeners.
Before we get started today,let's do a quick shout out to
our sponsor, rapido SolutionsGroup.
Rapido connects logistics andsupply chain organizations in
North America with the best nearshore talent to scale
efficiently and deliver superiorcustomer service.
Rapido works with businessesfrom all sides of the logistics
industry.
This includes brokers, carriersand logistics software

(00:21):
companies.
This includes brokers, carriersand logistics software
companies.
Rapido builds out teams withroles across customer and
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technology services.
The team at Rapido knowslogistics and people.
It's what sets them apart.
Rapido is driven by an insideknowledge of how to recruit,
hire and train within theindustry and a passion to build

(00:43):
better solutions for success.
The team is led by CEO DannyFrisco and COO Roberto Lacazza,
two guys I've worked with frommy earliest days in the industry
at Coyote.
I have a long history with themand I trust them.
I've even been a customer oftheirs at Molo and let me tell
you they made our businessbetter.
In the current market, whereeveryone's trying to do more

(01:03):
with less and save money,solutions like Rapido are a
great place to start To learnmore.
Check them out at gorapidocom.
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Thanks for being a sponsor.
And before we get this show onthe road, we have one more
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(01:26):
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Let's give him a second to showyou what he's all about.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
What's up?
Freightpod listeners?
Long time no talk.
It's your good old friend, paulEstrada, here to tell you about
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(01:58):
custodian, a 30 year veteranwith the LA County Sheriff's
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Join me each week as my six anda half year old son, adrian,
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Speaker 1 (02:42):
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back to another
episode of the Freight Pod.
I'm your host, Andrew Silver,and I'm joined today by Mr Jim
Berlin, CEO of Logistics Plus.
I think I've made a mistake inthe past of not asking guests to
just immediately give a quick30-second elevator understanding

(03:03):
of what your business is, and Ithink if I do that it will help
set some context for the restof the conversation, because I
have a feeling you and I aregoing to go in a million
different directions.
So let's just start there.
Walk me through just quickly.
What is Logistics Plus?
Some size, scope, whateveryou're comfortable sharing.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Privately held, started 29 years ago.
I founded it because I gotfired from too many companies,
started my own company socouldn't get fired anymore.
Ge was our first customer.
At the time they were thebiggest, most profitable
enterprise in the history ofplanet Earth.
So it was a good first customerto have lucky.
And now we're still privatelyheld.

(03:46):
We're in 40 countries, 50countries, a half a billion
dollar company very unusual.
And I like to say we're asolutions company, um at g.
We started for one specifictask of domestic inbound
transportation and now we do allkinds of things all around the
world for a lot of differentkind of customers.
All organic, no plan, uh no, nostrategy, just kind of just

(04:12):
come in every day and figure outwhat to do next and and give me
a little bit more on thesolutions, so you're not just a
freight brokerage, right?

Speaker 1 (04:21):
I mean, I don't even think you're very similar at all
to a freight brokerage, if Iunderstand, and I don't really
understand.
So this is part of why I'mstarting like this.
So give me a little bit more onthe solutions like what are
some?
What are half a billion dollarsin revenue?
Where is that coming from?
What kind of transactions areyou participating in?

Speaker 3 (04:39):
okay.
I just thought it's funny thatthat, um, we do freight
brokerage.
I started out with TruckingGuys, so we kind of started.
Our beginning was inbounddomestic transportation for GE
transportation systems.
So that's a factory in Eriethat made 800, 900 locomotives a

(04:59):
year biggest locomotivemanufacturer in the world and I
was a trucking guy, I was an LTLtrucking guy.
So they asked me to start thisas a project to help them save
money.
So I came in with two peoplefrom my trucking company and all
we're going to do is inbounddomestic transportation.

(05:19):
If you think about it, theoutbound goes out on rail, so
it's not much to that, but theinbound is 100,000 parts from
all over the world of big heavystuff, and so we started doing
that.
We're named a corporate bestpractice the first year by Jack
Walsh, so that kind of helped us.

(05:40):
But even from the very beginningI just looked this up, actually
I came up with the nameLogistics Plus because I didn't
see ourselves as brokers.
I saw ourselves as managing asupply chain.
This is way before logistics.
The supply chain was a commonterm, like it is now, and in
fact I just looked up on AI.
This is what I said how manycompanies in the US had

(06:04):
logistics in their name in 1995?
And I swear to God this is true.
It came back saying hard totell because there weren't many
digital records back then.
But in 1996, a company in Eriecalled Logistics Plus started
and it wasn't because of me,because I had a buddy do it too
and he's not connected to us andgot the same answer.

(06:24):
And it wasn't because of me,because I had a buddy do it too
and he's not connected to us andgot the same answer.
So from the beginning my conceptwas like yeah, you know,
there's a, logistics makes theworld go round.
Brokerage is part of that, butthere's a lot more to that.
So we started with the inbounddomestic transportation and did
really, really well.
But being at GE you know, thebiggest company in the world you
see all kinds of opportunities,the biggest company in the
world, you see all kinds ofopportunities.
So I would go to the big shopand say you know I can help you

(06:46):
with this too, I can help withthat too.
And as we gained their trust,they said okay, okay, okay.
And so we ended up kind ofdoing all kinds of things.
When they went global, they tookme with them.
When they needed warehouses,they took me with them.
So from one big, big customerwe started getting into all
kinds of the supply chain.

(07:06):
Now it's called the supplychain.
It wasn't called that back then.
Back then it's a joke thatJoe's Trucking would change the
name to Joe's Logistics becausethey could charge more.
But, honestly, our DNA islogistics.
Our DNA was the solutionsprovider for GE Transportation
and while people all around theGE world thought we were GE
employees, we never were.

(07:27):
And my line to them was we'renot GE but we're taken from GE's
rib.
So we were started by them andwe became a big success.
And then, three years in,through people we met or through
their guys getting recruitedall over the world, we started
to grow.
But to answer your question, nowwe do.
We got 10 million square feetof warehousing in the US.

(07:48):
We do.
We actually.
It's crazy.
We actually do softwaredevelopment for people.
We do set-up laptops and iPadsfor different big, big customers
.
I can't name names, but youthink they'd be doing the
software and the set-up.
We do a lot of that for them.
So it just it.
Really.

(08:08):
It began my crazy nature when Istarted with this GE thing.
I'd just been fired again.
I got fired for going to batfor GE shipment.
So it kind of wasn't verydirect, but it was somewhat
direct and I told the trafficmanager in the area.
I said look, he knew me.
I said, look, if I say shit,I'm going to go fix it.

(08:28):
That's just my nature.
And if I go too far, dosomething stupid, yank me back,
slap me.
You know I won't take offense,but I'm not going to wait for
you and your chain of command tosay okay, jim, that's a good
idea.
If I see it, I think it's theright thing I'm going to do it.
If I screw up, you know, punchme in the, in the nuts, you know
so, um, take me back to 1996.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
You, you said, people thought you were a ge employee,
but you weren't.
Can you explain that like what?
What were you actually doingwithin the ge walls if you
weren't an employee and youhadn't yet started your
Logistics Plus company?
What was actually your role?

Speaker 3 (09:06):
Well, the role is a Tiger Team project.
So at the time one of JackWelch's big initiatives across
the G world was to take peoplefrom different parts of
different departments and tolook at a problem, a specific
problem with fresh eyes notsetting arrays didn't know much
about it, but they're smartpeople.
Problem with fresh eyes notsitting in a race didn't know

(09:26):
much about it, but they're smartpeople.
So this project was how do webetter manage our inbound
domestic transportation to savemoney and to save shutdowns and
things like that?
So that was our project.
It was finance people and CEOsinvolved.
There's a lot of big mainpeople there and I came in and
just my nature, I kind of, justkind of took, I guess I took

(09:48):
charge but started doing thingsand I knew what I was talking
about.
You know there's one earlyexample Gee had field offices,
repair shops all over thecountry and, if you can imagine
this, locomotive repairs.
So these repair shops are wayout of the way places Haver,
montana and way across Georgia,not in the big cities, a lot of

(10:09):
them and at one point they wantto impress their customers,
which are the three, four majorUS railroads, by being able to
provide any part next day, youknow, to get locomotives going
again.
It's a great idea.
So I'm in this meeting withhalf a dozen top top-T people

(10:29):
and the head of marketing at thetime says I'm going to tell
them every shop, every part,next day delivery.
I said well, wait a minute,tell them almost every shop,
almost every part.
He said I'm telling you everyday next day.
I said well, you know, he toldme he says you need to be more

(10:50):
positive.
I said I'm positive.
I'm positive Some of thoseplaces that even FedEx and UPS
don't go to every day.
So unless you want to hire aLearjet and pay for that, it's
like almost every day.
But the fact that I kind oftold this big big shot I'm
nobody, you know, like you needto be more positive.
I said I am positive, you'rewrong, that's not going to
happen.
It kind of caught people'sattention and we were very, you

(11:14):
know, I'm ballsy, of nothingelse, I kind of have a crazy
mentality, 60s mentality.
So early on we come in andthere's three of us to change
G's shipping habits likeinternal shipping habits.
Well, g doesn't want us thereby any stretch of the
imagination.
So what we do is we go tothere's 12 docks at the main

(11:36):
facility in New York,pennsylvania, and we go buy a
dozen donuts so 12 dozen donuts.
We go around to every dock.
We we say, hey, here's somedonuts for you.
You think of donuts, you thinkof cops.
We're the traffic cops.
You see something stupid?
You let us know and we're goingto fix it.

(11:57):
Now, a lot of times these guyswould see something that would
get their boss in trouble orsome buyer in trouble, like
doing something stupid.
We didn't use it for anyvindictiveness, we just said
don't worry about it, we'regoing to fix this problem.
And by kind of being ballsy wegot those guys to kind of join
in.
And for the Altieri Motors theywant to get the boss in trouble
.
But we would just fix theproblem and go to the guy and

(12:20):
said you know, you flew thesethings in for 800 bucks.
You could have trucked them infor 40 bucks and they would have
been here at the same time.
So you know, leave the drivingto us.
You tell us when it needs toget there and we're not going to
embarrass you, but we're goingto get it there and we're going
to save you money, becausethrowing money away is not to
anybody's benefit.
And the CEO at the time, a guynamed John Rice.

(12:42):
You know he was in some ofthose meetings and he liked that
concept.
He told me one time yeah, I wasa buyer back in the day, an
expediter, and we used to getstuff in on Friday because we
knew we'd need it for Mondaymorning.
We'd make sure it'd be thereFriday though.
So we'd have some stress, whichI get.
You don't want to cut it tooclose, but there's ways to get
it there Monday morning a lot,lot cheaper than by getting

(13:05):
there on Friday.
And the best example of thatwas we had a case where there
was a vendor in Pittsburgh,pennsylvania, and geez, inbound
was mostly what they called theGolden Triangle Buffalo,
pittsburgh and Cleveland, so 90miles either way.
So everything kind of come inpretty quickly if needed.
And I noticed that every Fridaythere would be an expedited
truck them so 90 miles eitherway.

(13:26):
So everything kind of come inpretty quickly if needed.
And I noticed that every Fridaythere would be a expedited
truck of a pallet so 500 bucksto bring a pallet of some card
in from Pittsburgh.
And to your earlier your firstquestion if you're a freight
broker, you call that carriagetruck for 500 bucks and you get
them to say, hey, we do it for400 bucks.
And you say, okay, and you savea hundred bucks.
And you're a freight broker.
You call that carriage truckfor $500, and you get them to
say, hey, we'll do it for $400.
And you say, okay, and you save$100, and you're a big hero.

(13:49):
But to me, the logistics side ofthis, the supply chain side,
was more than that.
So rather than call up thetrucking company and say how
much can you reduce your price,we call up the vendor.
Now, I wouldn't want to do that, but just called the van.
Hey, let me ask you something.
I notice every Friday you'rehiring an expedited truck,
roberts Express from this area.

(14:10):
Why are you doing that?
He says well, let me find out.
So he pulls out the purchaseorder Ship on Friday for Friday
delivery.
I said, okay, you're followinginstructions.
Let me ask you something Canyou ship on Thursday for Friday
delivery?
I can ship it any day of theweek.
We got them on our shelf.
I said, okay, easy, call PJax,and for $28 on Thursday you ship

(14:31):
it, and I'll be there Fridayfor $28.
So we didn't just reduce the$500 to $400.
We changed the whole way ofdoing that.
But to do that you have to kindof dive in and get dirty and go
past the box they've given youto be in to find out what's the
real story here.
And we did that with all thevendors.
We did that with the guys onthe shop floor.
We had a case where they neededa drum of green BNSF paint to

(14:57):
come in for painting thelocomotive.
Well, a 550-pound drum,55-gallon drum, it's heavy, it's
hazardous, blah, blah, blahcomes from Kentucky to Erie.
So I go to the guy on the shopfloor I said like okay, do you
need this tonight?
Yeah, it's only aone-guy-on-ship tonight.
So how much paint does he need?
He says, ah, five gallons isthe point Deal, because now we

(15:20):
can fly a five-gallon pail,pretty cheap truck, the rest of
the you know 550 gallons thenext morning.
And it's there just so.
It's just kind of digging in andfinding out the, because
everyone's got a pad factor anda bullshit, you know, protection
to cover their ass.
You have to kind of get thetrust to cut through that and
just find a better way.
So our slogan was you know,we're the routing center, leave

(15:45):
the driving to us.
That's all Hurtz, rick MarshallHurtz, but let us go.
You're a great guy.
I love Jack Welch's empowermentand boundarylessness and the
guy in the tow motor can orderwhat he needs to get his work
done.
I love that.
But do it smart.
And the smart thing was call us.
If you need it by 7 am.
It'll be here, I promise you,at 7 am and we gained their

(16:07):
trust and did some bold thingslike that, so that's kind of how
we got started.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
I mean, I love that nature of because I definitely,
as a freight broker, I fullyunderstand the idea of you kind
of are put in a box and it's notlike a bad thing but your
shippers don't come to youasking you necessarily often at
least to be outside the box.
It's more often like I haveorders for a vendor from chicago

(16:35):
to dallas, give me a price andit's a pretty small, easy box to
play within um.
But I completely understand howif you break yourself outside
of that and think bigger, youcan create better solutions.
And I imagine 25 years ago or29 years ago that was even
easier to do because there wasway less technology, way less

(16:56):
data management.
That kind of showed you wherethose problems existed.
I'm curious like when did youknow?
This is a business I can buildinto something, like you know it
seems like is that, see?

Speaker 3 (17:11):
is that the answer?

Speaker 1 (17:12):
it's like you're still just kind of one day at a
time finding absolutely,absolutely.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
It's crazy, it's uh.
I joke and this is a little bithyperbolic, but I say we're a
half a billion dollar companywith no business plan, no
strategy, no HR manual, nobudgets.
We just kind of come every dayand say, okay, let's figure out
what we do today and get totomorrow.
So I talk at schools.
I say don't try this at homebecause it shouldn't work.

(17:39):
But we're debt-free, we'reprofitable.
Every year for 29 years We'vegrown every year, but a couple
in 29 years.
I mean it really is.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
It's more than a lock now how do you, how do you run
a business like that, like?

Speaker 3 (17:51):
help me understand.
I'm serious like how do youcreate an organization

Speaker 1 (17:55):
like it's funny because we got connected through
danny eunice, eunice, I don'tknow.
I never know how to say hislast name one of one of the
smartest people I've ever workedwith um and and he doesn't seem
like someone who would thrivein this type of environment so
much.
I mean, he definitely seemslike an outside the box thinker,
but some people just needstructure.
And I'm just curious, like isthere any structure in your

(18:17):
business?
Or it's kind of like a pretty,you know, free-spirited
enterprise?

Speaker 3 (18:24):
I think when I'm not looking, sometimes they put some
structure in, you know, behindmy back.
So yeah, there's more thanthere was.
It was three of us.
But I mean, my little joke wasthat I took the two guys or got
a gal from my TNT Red StarTrucking Company that left and
came with me and then we hiredtwo other local guys, so the
whole company.

(18:44):
When we started out and we'reworking 12-hour days, we're in
my Dodge Caravan driving fromJamestown, new York, to
Pennsylvania and that was thewhole company.
So we talked about work on theway in.
We'd work all day together.
We'd talk about work on the wayhome and my joke was, if we
went off the road in the snowand died, the company's gone.
So there was no need for anyorganizational structure back

(19:06):
then.
Now it's interesting, it's stillvery free-flowing.
You're right that if people,when we hire people, I don't
look at resumes much.
I'm not a believer in that.
It's mostly word of mouth andit's mostly looking for the look
in the eye, the fire in thebelly, the mental attitude, more

(19:29):
than someone that needs to be.
Here's my business plan.
Here's my structure.
I'm going to pat you on theback.
It's not much of that.
It's kind of I said we throwyou in the deep end of the shark
tank and see how you do.
But if you tell people out upfront which I've always done I
say look first off, not a sexybusiness, but it's been here

(19:50):
since the days of the CampbellCare Advance.
Everything in these officesmoved.
Nothing sprouts up.
There's a whole world of peoplethat make this shit happen and
it's been going on forever.
Until some bright young kid getsan app that takes a pallet from
Chicago to Cleveland, we'llstill have a business.
That's the good news.
It's going to be here for awhile.
The bad news is that it neverends and that if you want to

(20:14):
have a life where you go home,you don't have to think about it
.
Your phone rings at 5 to 5 onFriday.
You pick it up Monday.
I said I get that.
I get that lifestyle.
I do understand, but this isreally not the right industry
and definitely not the rightcompany for you to come to.
So you go on the front and sayI'm warning you, you're never

(20:36):
going to be bored.
You might go crazy, but you'renot going to be bored here.
It's going to be pretty wildand woolly and the people that
say, ok, I want that, that'swhat you hire, and Wild and
Wooly.
And the people that say, okay,I want that, that's what you
hire, and if you hire the rightpeople, you know the line.
You hire your own mistakes.
If you hire the right peopleand you've warned them, we have
a very small people of valuelevel.
Most people stick around andthe other side of that is that

(20:59):
if you're not looking at resumes, you don't really care about
the pedigree.
You know the background thatpeople come with.
So literally I think you'lllove this.
We have people running 50 to$100 million parts of our
business.
It came to us from McDonald's,from Starbucks, from the brewery
downstairs, our train stationwaitress, I mean, because they

(21:23):
have what it takes which is notwhat you learn at the big
forward.
I don't think they kind of putyou in a box and there's a
formula to follow and thatdoesn't work.
Oh well, I tried, but it didn'twork, whereas we try to kind of
be a little more creative.
So we have people with nobackground in logistics, no

(21:47):
college education, that aretruly leaders of dozens of
people running really big partsof our company.
I love that because to me I gota cultured heart and cnm gives
me pride that you know theseguys became way more than they
were, something going to be.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
I love that yeah, that's what I look for, you know
yeah, talk a little bit moreabout.
What I'd like to understand islike the culture itself and what
those people are truly like,that you're looking for Like
what does that look like?
What does it look like forsomeone to have the fire in
their belly or the look in theireye?
What are the othercharacteristics of someone that

(22:18):
you think makes for a greatpotential you know employee in
your business?

Speaker 3 (22:24):
I'm not sure how definable that is.
I wouldn't claim to know, Idon't know.
It's just an interaction, it'sa feel that you get when you
talk to people and you know, tome sports is a good learning
ground.
But I guess my funny answer tothat is that if I was a waiter,

(22:45):
I think you were a waiter, john.
If I'm a waiter at a place andthe guy orders a hamburger or
steak rare, and it comes outwell done, I can't say, hey, man
, go back in the kitchen.
Joe cooked that steak for you,kick his ass, I'll go back and
kick his ass for you.
You can't do that.
You got to keep this customerhappy somehow.
You got to go tell Joe, whatthe fuck, joe?

(23:07):
And we don't overcook the guy'ssteak.
You got to.
And as the brokerage part ofthis business, that's a lot of
what we are.
We're kind of middlemen.
So we got to keep the customerhappy, got to keep the chef
motivated and not spitting inthe guy's steak he cooks next
time for him.
You have to be able to navigatethat.
And so I do think that foodservice like some of these gals
have worked at Starbucks orMcDonald's have a great

(23:31):
experience learning how to dealwith people, which, to me, the
bottom line of all this is it'sall about people.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah Well, talk a little bit, then, about how do
you even evaluate opportunitiesin front of you, like customer
opportunities.
It seems like it'd be so hard,because your business is not
just looking for someone whoships freight, like it's not
just calling Coca-Cola andsaying, hey, I want to help haul
your loads from Atlanta toOrlando.

(24:01):
It feels like you're trying tosolve different types of
problems, and I'm just curioushow do you even evaluate where
those problems exist?
How do you find those problems?
How do you convince someone togive you the time of day to have
a conversation about thosetypes of problems?

Speaker 3 (24:18):
Well, I mean usually it's word of mouth.
I mean, for the first 20 yearswe've had a salesman, not a
single salesman, honest to God.
We have a couple now, but it'snot the main way we find
business.
It's more word of mouth solvinga problem, having the customer
say, wow, you guys are terrific,and telling people about it.

(24:38):
So one example is we're doingsome stuff with some schools
Danny is involved in that and sowe wow these people.
I mean we do whatever it takes.
And then he goes to the peoplefrom this one school and says,
hey, do you know any otherpeople who use our help?
And he says, sure, we do.
And it led to a second one.
And then I'll source kind ofone thing leading to another,

(25:01):
which I think is always there.
But these things tend to findyou if you see them.
I think it's the old ThomasEdison quote most people don't
recognize opportunity becauseit's dressed in work clothes
that doesn't look like anythingspecial.
We've had cases.
There's one instance.

(25:21):
This is during COVID, whereDoorDash and Uber Eats took off
and there's a customer of oursthat does the.
You can't call it programming,but they set up the iPad.
So if you're a driver for UberEats or DoorDash.
You can't watch porn or playsolitaire.

(25:42):
It's a tool and so there'scertain's certain settings.
I guess that I couldn't do it,but you put it in these iPads
and so they were crushed.
Because of the growth in thatindustry during COVID, they were
instantly crushed somehow I'mnot even sure how they found us
and we were doing some of theoverflow for them.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
We were doing the overflow what does that mean
doing in terms of what?

Speaker 3 (26:07):
They couldn't keep up with the demand of programs or
whatever, but setting up iPadsfor Uber and DoorDash drivers.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
Right or the store, and it was a big, big growth.
When COVID came out, peoplewere going out so they were
ordering food in big growth.
When COVID came out, peoplewere going out to the ordering
food in.
So they came to see us likebecause we were doing better
than they were doing.
They had experts at it.
They were as good I won't saybetter we're doing.
They're surprised that we'redoing so well.
And this is all these crazystories they got.

(26:39):
They're all frigging true.
That's the craziest part aboutthem.
So they came up to me me andsaid who are these guys that are
doing such a good job?
And the good job was becauseour people were working
literally through the night.
I got videos of some of ourguys who were up all night in
the warehouse programming thesethings and putting on some dance
music and doing some crazydance moves to break the

(27:00):
monotony and stay awake.
That's the LP culture.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
But they came up and this is how stupid.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
Break the monotony and stay awake.
You know that's the LP culture.
But they came up and this ishow stupid.
They came up and they wereamazed at how well we were doing
this and they were getting moreand more crushed.
So they said you know whatwe're going to send you?
Instead of 1,000 a day, I'mmaking these up 10,000 a day.

(27:23):
Great, you know.
Woo-hoo right, but the problemis at 10,000 a day.
Great, woo-hoo right, but theproblem is the 1,000 a day we
were doing was four or fivepeople in this little tiny you
can't even call it a warehouse.
It's an 8,000-square-footbuilding across the street from
our headquarters that we grabbedspur of the moment to do this
first work in.
So they said well, we're goingto start shipping these things
to you like tomorrow.
I said, well, we're going tostart shipping these things to

(27:45):
you like tomorrow.
Okay, this isn't going to work.
So we need a warehouse bigenough to handle this and we
need it nearby our headquarters,because what we do is we take
some of the freight broker guysand when things are slow they
can.
You know some of the hard proguys.
It's kind of doing like 20steps, you know.
So you can send guys who areslow from any department across

(28:07):
the street when there's a rushthey can help out.
That's typical kind of thingswe do.
Well, we're downtown inPennsylvania.
There's not many warehousesdowntown and I'm not good in
real estate anyway.
But there's a guy I know who'sa developer downtown and I
called him and I said Pete, Isaid any warehouses near us that
you know about or you have?

(28:28):
And he goes no, not really.
He says but you know what?
I looked at the Erie Times NewsBuilding, which is the Erie
newspaper.
Like a year ago I was going tobuy it, but I'm so busy with
other things I never bought it.
But it's a good building.
It's got a big warehouse wherethey used to do the newsprint
delivery, so it's pretty big,big dock doors.
So it's a good building.

(28:48):
So I said, okay, who do I talkto?
So it's like 9 o'clock in themorning.
I call the guys in charge ofthe building.
I said can I see your buildings?
He says sure, when do you wantto set up?
I said today.
So he said okay, 10.30.
So okay, so 10.30 we go.
And I'm a javook, I mean Ibring a couple of my guys.
We're just walking around like,okay, this looks good, it looks

(29:09):
like a warehouse.
And I said, okay, how much is it?
And again, I'll use a thing.
He says 1.2 million bucks.
I said that sounds likereasonable.
I said we'll do it.
He reasonable, I said we'll doit.
He said well, I'm just the guyhere, I'm the building manager,
I'm not like you.
Got to talk to the real estateguy.
He's in Syracuse, which is fivehours away.

(29:32):
So I called this guy in Syracuseand I tell him we saw this
building, we need this thing,I'd like to buy it today.
He said whoa, that's not howthis works.
He says this is owned byGannett, which is in Minneapolis
.
They have a boarded, you know arealtor board.
You know they got to go throughall this.

(29:53):
I said no, no, I need it today.
I need trucks coming tomorrow.
I said, look, if I have todrive five hours with a jet for
1.2 million bucks, I'll do that.
But hopefully, you know, maybedo that.
Let's find a way to in thismodern day and age, let's do
this right.
So again I get my CFO, who'stough, and I tell her I said
let's get this done today,because they're going to come
tomorrow.
Now we could actually getaccess to the building without,

(30:13):
they wouldn't let us use it.
But still, I tell her get itdone today.
So I text her at 3 o'clock Isays done.
Yet she goes nope, 3.30, done,yet Nope.
4 o'clock done, yet Nope.
4.30, done, yet Nope.
So she calls up my COO, yuri,and says what the fuck?
He says what difference does itmake if we actually do this

(30:33):
today or tomorrow?
He says it's a better story ifwe do it today, and we did.
We closed it that fucking nightand the trucks came the next
day and six years later they'restill a customer.
But that's crazy shit.
I mean, you don't want to putthat in a business book, but it
worked, led to other thingsbecause they do stuff for Amazon

(30:57):
, they do stuff for Microsoftand they saw how good and
responsive and kind of crazycommitted we are.
And they realize, okay, theseguys are a little bit nuts, but
like, we need that, need thatpassion for excellence.
That's our.
That's kind of lucky, butthat's not made up, that's our
passion for crazy that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
Yeah, that's we do I mean, there's something, there's
10 stories like that.
Yeah, there's something there'ssomething so endearing about it
, though, and it's it, and whatI'm thinking about is just the
idea that there's no idea that'stoo crazy for you, is there.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Some.
There's one, Actually, there'stwo in 29 years, which isn't bad
.
One was no harm, no foul, andone almost killed us.
But even then, there's more tothe lessons of a defeat than
just the pain.
There's things you gain fromgetting your ass kicked.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Talk to me about a time you got your ass kicked and
learned from it.

Speaker 3 (31:57):
Well, the one it's a long story the one near-death
experience we had was about 10or 15 years ago, like 2009,.
So 15 years ago and I had beeninvolved in Erie is a port city
on the Great Lakes, so I hadbeen peripherally involved in
Great Lakes shipping as a kindof my crazy idea was it wasn't

(32:20):
my idea but I liked it was theback to the future that the
French fur trappers that came inall the way to Minnesota, came
through the lakes and that'sreally a neglected resource that
we don't use anymore.
At the time, the port citiesthe LA, new York were crushed.
Bridges were falling down.
If you remember that.

(32:41):
It was an infrastructure mess.
Bridges are falling down, ifyou remember that.
I mean there's aninfrastructure mess and we have
the biggest water in the worldthat's not being used, but all
these port cities like Buffaloand Detroit, cleveland and
Milwaukee that are not beingutilized to come back to life
with this.
So I love the idea and, in mytypical fashion, I dive in with

(33:01):
both feet without checking thedepth of the water.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah, what'd you buy?

Speaker 3 (33:05):
Bought two ships, two giant ships, which was a
mistake.
Plus, we bought them in 2008,which was the peak before the
crash in 2009.
So the end of the story is webought the one, we got rid of.
The one we bought for $8million and we sold it for
$500,000.
And we celebrated that's a badone, but the rest of the story?

(33:34):
So one we got rid of right away.
We realized it was a mistake.
The other one we were stuckwith.
But we had a contract with thegovernment of Newfoundland and
Labrador.
That wasn't planned.
The plan was Great Lakesshipping Europe all the way to
Duluth.
It wasn't going to happen andstill not.
It still hasn't happened yet.
It might happen someday In ourtypical.

(33:58):
Okay, that didn't work.
What do we do now?
We actually found a customer inCanada, the government of
Newfoundland and Labrador, andwe used this big frigging ship
to run supply runs up the coastto nowhere land in Canada.
It paid $13,800 a day, fuel wasfree because it was a Canadian

(34:21):
government contract and it costlike $8,000 a day, 9,000 bucks a
year, to run the shift.
So it was good.
I mean, especially for Plan B.
It was making money.
But the guys I hired were, Ithink, was con artists and were
taking the money and kind ofrunning out the back door with
it and long story short, which Ican't get into, but we ended up

(34:45):
surviving.
We ended up better.
I'm not a big fan of whatdoesn't kill you makes you
stronger, because it can hurtlike fucking hell what doesn't
kill you.
But in this case it made usstronger because we had to watch
for a year.
For a year I was what I calldead man walking.
I couldn't crumble because if Icrumbled, everything crumbled.
So I had to act strong andassure myself.

(35:07):
Everyone knew I wasn't.
Everyone knew inside I was adead man walking, but I kept up
a strong face.
Everyone rallied around.
I went back to like our top 10people.
I said look, I never thoughtthis day would ever come, but I
need a pay cut from you.
And every single one of themsaid how much.
Whatever you need, we're all inthis together.

(35:29):
I had other people here that Iasked.
Top 10 people say if you needme, I'm in.
I mean this was in 29 years.
This touched my heart more thananything we've done.
So everyone was kind of in.
We had to spend a year watchingour pennies and we had to.
At the end of each week we hadto say who can we pay?

(35:49):
We have to call every vendorand say, look, I can't pay this
bill in full.
We always have, we're alwaysgood, paying on time.
But I will pay you 30% of it.
But I swear to you in my life,my kids, we will find a way I've
never spent any in my life.
My kids, we will find a wayI've never stiffed anywhere in
my life We'll pay you back.
So we had our operations peoplecalling up their vendors saying
, look, we can't pay you.

(36:10):
I'm sorry, we can't pay you.
Please trust us, nobody cut usoff.
It was a real testament to kindof the work we'd done all these
years.
There's a loyalty there that isnot usual in business.
And we sold the shit.
And then the biggest decisionI've ever made in my business
life was do I pursue these guysthat I think rip us off, or do I

(36:31):
turn the page and let it go?
And hardest hope, as it was todo, I said, fuck them, life will
take care of them.
We're going to turn and lookforward and we just kind of
marched ahead and let a goodlife be your best revenge.
Back then we were a $30 millioncompany, now we're a $600

(36:51):
million company, so debt-free.
No more con artists, you knowmoney in the bank.
I mean like all those days arelong gone, but it was a
near-death experience.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah, so I want to talk a little bit more about
that.
So it's 2000,.
Just so I get the context right, it's 2009.
Your business at the time is 13years old.
Crazy Jim has had some crazyideas that have largely worked,
and your team is pretty boughtinto what you're doing.
And then you get this kind offascinating idea to you know

(37:20):
leverage the Great Lakes tocreate a shipping business
through the waters and it failsLike falls on its face.
Fails in failing there.
It put your entire business atstake.
Everything was on the line andyou had to go to your top people
ask for pay cuts.

(37:41):
They all showed up and said,yep, we're here with you.
What was that like for youemotionally, that period,
feeling like you had put yourwhole business at stake, like
failure was staring you in theface, like you had vendors.
You were having a call askingfor extended terms.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat emotional experience?

Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yeah, tough.
I came down to Long Islandwhere I grew up, my brother and
I spent a weekend at the beachwith some old friends and they
all said man, what happened toyou?
I mean, I thought I was puttingon a brave face but everyone
could see how hard it wascrushing, not knowing if we're
going to make it, having to beg,you know people kind of hat in
hand.
And it's funny because you know, and you had to do it on both

(38:24):
sides.
You had to do it on the LP sidebecause that was the bank that
they kind of siphoned off so wecouldn't pay our LP vendors.
It had nothing to do with theship, it was just LP stuff.
But on the ship side too, wehad to deal with the union, with
the seafarers, with theCanadian government.
So I had to go begging thepeople and say, please give us a
chance.
And I learned a few things fromthat.

(38:46):
One was that you have to dothese things in person.
I think had I just emailed orcalled the Seafarers Union in
Canada or the Canadiangovernment in Labrador, I'm not
sure I think they could see inmy voice and in my eyes and in

(39:07):
my heart that I was going tomove heaven and earth.
To make this work we pay backeverybody.
We didn't stiff anybody on adime.
In fact I was watching the newsthe other night and they had a
thing about the Notre DameCathedral in Paris and one of
the calls they had to make wasthe Seafarers Union was going to

(39:28):
shut down.
If you don't pay your crew on aship they have the right to
seize the vessel.
And if they seize the vesseland don't operate it, then you
lose your contract andeverything.
The dominoes all fall.
And I had to take a call fromthis guy from Newfoundland
Labrador in the vestibule at thecathedral and it was like you

(39:50):
know.
I said, look, man, you don'tknow me.
I said but I've got a letter onthe wall from my grandfather.
My grandfather was a you know.
I said but I've got a letter onthe wall from my grandfather.
My grandfather's parents wereimmigrants from Russia, Poland,
ukraine, lithuania, somewhere inEastern Europe, jewish ragman
that in the 20s went bankrupt.
And I have on my wall in myoffice I have a letter from a

(40:16):
place called Hunter's Bank inNew York to my grandfather
saying that you were forgivenyour debt of 37,000 bucks in
1920.
Today you paid back the last ofa forgiven debt, last payment,
and in my life I've never seenanybody who paid off a debt that
was no longer owed.

(40:36):
This should honor you and yourfamily for generations to come.
And I didn't even know mygrandfather, but that always
kind of stayed with me and Itold this guy.
I said, look, that's in myblood.
I said I will find a way todon't stop operating the show.
I will find a way to pay youguys, you know.
And he went along with it.
I mean like, and I'm not surewhat you know, when it works you

(40:56):
don't know what you did right.
Necessarily it doesn't work.
You know what you did wrong,but I think it was just.
I mean, people saw that Iwasn't a bullshitter.
I was sincere, that you know.
Everyone stuck with me on that.
And the best story is thatthese guys that we had hired to
run this thing, they were posers.

(41:18):
I call them posers.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
The shipping part of the business.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
Yeah, the shipping part yeah, and the LP culture.
We got the train station inErie for headquarters.
Big giant, 100,000 square foottrain station.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah, wait, I saw that you bought Union Station.
You bought Erie's Union Station.
Why did you do that?

Speaker 3 (41:37):
Because my friends have a good idea, but we paid
$100 to furnish it.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
So there's a company going out of business.
What do you mean?
You paid $100 to furnish it.
$100.
$100.
100.00.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
Yes, american Meter, which was an Erie company, made
these big iron steel desks theold way 500 pounds and they were
going out of business.
So for a hundred bucks we gotall those little desks, carry
them up through flights ofstairs.
Looked like shit, but that'sthe best.
My hand doesn't make you money.
So that's our culture.
We fly, coach and all that.

(42:09):
Well, these two guys were theship.
They were flying first classand they were going winemaking
and dining and it pissed me off.
And they were going wine anddining and pissing me off.
One of the things they had donewas they had these big giant
not even posters wooden,poster-sized portraits of them
in hard hats and white, you know, uniforms, like in front of the
ship, like you motherfuckers,like you didn't buy the fuckers,

(42:31):
but like they owned the fuckingthing, right.
And we got rid of them.
And I told one of my buddies atwork.
I said you know, the day we getout of this, finally, I'm going
to take a fucking axe and I'mgoing to knock the shit out of
this post and we're going tomake sawdust out of it, right,
but I forgot about it, right.
So this is like.

(42:51):
A year later, we finally soldthe ship for like 500,000 bucks.
You know we spent 8 million fortwo years earlier and I put a
notice on the speaker at work.
Three o'clock conference room,all hands on board and
everyone's thinking this is theend, like nobody knew.
I never did that, so I was likescared to death.

(43:13):
What I did.
I lined up there may be 60 ofus.
I lined up 60 shots.
I said, look guys sold.
Lined up, maybe 60 of us.
I lined up 60 shots.
I said, look guys Sold the shiptook a bath, it's over,
bleeding stopped and we're goingto come back from here.
We'll be all right, cheers,right.
So everyone cheers.
And then my buddy says, whatabout that picture?
I said ah, like, ah, I'm overit.

(43:33):
No, no, no.
So he starts.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
I'll get it, you know .

Speaker 3 (43:38):
Stupid, you know.
So we take this big, freakingfour by three wooden poster out
to the park outside the trainstation and everyone's in the
conference room looking out overthe park and there's no
hatchery to work but there's asledgehammer for some of the
guys that do the maintenancework.
So they give me thesledgehammer and I go across the
street.

(43:58):
I look up and they're all it'slike the Coliseum, they're all
cheering and I look, ah, this isstupid, what the hell.
So I take it and I slam, and Islam and I was like, yeah, I
went like Neanderthal on it,they're all cheering that was

(44:19):
the cathartic, uh end of thatepisode.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
That's a good release , that's great.
So I just want to point outsuch a valuable lesson in
leadership right here and in thepoint I'm thinking about is
businesses are forced to makehard decisions at various points
in their journey and it'sreally the leaders who have to
make hard decisions at variouspoints in their journey and it's

(44:41):
really the leaders who have tomake those decisions.
And how you frame the decision,how you frame the situation,
your perspective on it is so, soimportant.
I'm just thinking of the notionthat, as goes the leader, goes
the pack.
And you had this $8 millioninvestment you made in a ship
that was a colossal failure andyou sold it for $500,000, so you

(45:04):
took a massive bath on it.
There was plenty of reason toprobably be wallowing in your
own pity and feeling like crap.
And if you had set that meetingat 3 o'clock and said all right
guys, I'm sorry I screwed up.
And o'clock and said all rightguys, like I'm sorry I screwed
up and you know, I hope we canget better, blah, blah, blah,
like that sets a tone foreverybody to feel crappy and be

(45:27):
down and out about a hardexperience they had at work,
which is what happens a lot ofthe time but instead you took it
as this kind of rebirthopportunity and put some passion
and fire behind it and used itas an opportunity to celebrate a
bright future ahead.
And that's just such a pivotalway to think about it.

(45:49):
And by taking that direction,you instill fire in your own
people to say, hey, you knowwhat we did?
Just rid ourselves of thisnonsense, of this filth, of this
stuff.
That's not helping us.
We have a clear path.
Now let's go, let's run, let'smove forward.
And I just call that out becauseI think for all leaders, like

(46:12):
I've thought of so many timeswhere we made mistakes or we
made bad decisions, and like Ijust put myself back in that
mindset and if I had beennegative and feeling like crap
about it, then my people wouldhave felt the same way.
But if I come out and have thisfire and energy behind me,
that's like, hey, we're going todo this, this is how we're

(46:32):
moving forward you're going toget that same response from your
people.
So I just call that out becauseI think it's a super valuable
way to operate.
Sorry for the audience who'slistening?
I don't think it's.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
I must have given the wrong impression.
Certainly wasn't as bright andsunny as you seen the video of
us.
I put my best face on and Ithink people knew, but they knew
that I was giving them all itwasn't.
I tell people knew, but theyknew that I was giving them all
it wasn't.
Can I tell people in Hiram, ifyou dive for the ball, darren
Kincaid, I guess.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
Dalton, yeah, dalton.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
Kincaid yeah, and drop the ball.
That's one thing.
If you don't try, then you'renot part of this team.
You got to give it your all.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
That's kind of one thing.
So I probably was riding Sundayand there was no clear path.
We weren't sure what was goingto happen next, but we just knew
.
We got over a big hump and okay, guys, but they're not looking
back and they're going to gotoughest.
Because I'm a vindictivemotherfucker.
I wanted to kill these guys,but I knew I'd spent the next

(47:36):
year or two reading emails,going to court, talking to
lawyers, as hard as it was, turnthe page and let's go.
That was my decision.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
That's valuable too, and I'll call that so.
I appreciate you givingadditional context that I made
that sound rosier than it was,but I still think the point is
valid that when you're facedwith difficult, situations how
you approach the situation, how,like your perspective will
determine your, your team'sperspective, 100%.
But to pile on to your otherpoint about the vindictive

(48:07):
nature, I also have a vindictiveside to myself that you know.
I I got fired from a business Istarted and created from
scratch, and that was almost twoyears ago, and I spent the
first year of that really upsetand really feeling like crap and
I wasted a year of my lifebecause of it.
And the last six months, theperspective has just shifted and

(48:29):
I'm more focused on my ownaccountability and where I went
wrong, and that's allowing me tofocus on how do I make sure I'm
not like that in the future.
And so it just creates such abetter path for yourself.
When you're not like.
There's just no benefit to thevindictive, vengeful thinking.
If you can create some level ofmotivation for yourself, I see
some value there.

(48:49):
But, like you said, likewasting time dealing with emails
and legal crap, I mean it'sjust going to create additional
headaches versus beinglaser-focused on your mission
and what you're trying toaccomplish.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
I try to be a fatalist.
I mean to me like we don'tcontrol anything in life.
I don't think so.
You kind of, you know, ride thewaves as best you can, so it's
good.
I know it's tough to let thingsgo when things like that happen
.
I don't know how I'd be either,but it's a good thing.
You kind of get that pastEverything for a reason, man,

(49:24):
now you've got a different path,yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
So the business has grown substantially in the last
10 years or so.
Can you talk a little bit aboutwhat you think has driven that?

Speaker 3 (49:40):
Well, yeah, I don't know.
I think what's driven is justthat we say yes, so one of the
we've had a few.
So think about this.
The business is goofy, but wehad GE as a customer.
Ge was the biggest company inthe world's history, our first
customer who gets that right?
Then we had WeWork.
So WeWork was a crash and burnin the world's history our first
customer who gets that right?
Then we had WeWork.
So WeWork, you know, was acrash and burn in the end, but

(50:01):
its rise was incredible and wewere the ones that rode that
train to $47 billion valuationand that came about, which is
funny.
I mean, that came about becausewe said yes, I get a call on a
Friday in January and they'restill very small, they're just
mostly New York and juststarting to grow and saying that

(50:23):
their logistics company is notdoing a good job, they're not
responsive, they go home at 5o'clock.
You know we need someone to bailus out.
So I say yes, we do.
And he said, okay, well, canyou come down and see us down in
Chelsea Monday morning?
You know 10 o'.
He said, okay, well, can youcome down and see us down in
Chelsea Monday morning?
I'll be there I fly down to NewYork and it's a snowstorm.

(50:44):
I'm no truck driver in the snowso it doesn't bother me.
But I get an SUV and I getthere at 930, and I'm in a
coffee shop downstairs on 13thStreet and I call this guy.
I don't know if I'm sure, I justknow from this one email
exchange we had.
I said hey, patrick.
I said this is Jim.
I said I won't be today, wedon't work in the snow.
I said I'm downstairs.

(51:06):
So we come up and we say yeah,we can do this.
And we take over and took themto all around the world, to, you
know, setting up offices on the80th floor in Kuala Lumpur.
I mean like things that we hadno clue how to do.
When I said, yes, we can dothat.
But my thinking was and youknow, and there's a moral

(51:30):
ambiguity there I mean like, areyou lying when you say, yeah,
we do that?
In a strict sense you are, butnot if you can do it by the time
you get to the job site.
That's kind of my justification.
And I mean the best example oflying is when I when GM April

(51:56):
15th 1996, when I got called into G no, august 6th 1996.
And he says okay, we want youto do this project for us.
Do you have your own companyand not?

Speaker 2 (52:09):
even as a strategy thing.

Speaker 3 (52:10):
I just kind of said yeah, no, I didn't.
But by the time I got home anhour later, I did didn't.
By the time I got home an hourlater, I did.
But had I said no, I would haveworked for accountants or
manpower, I would have been justa vendor.
None of this happens, and thatwasn't a brilliant thing to say.
I picked yes or no off the coin, I guess, and said yes.

(52:32):
So this whole thing is based ona lie If you look at it very
seriously.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
I don't think it's a lie as much as it is, I don't
either.
You said yes to an opportunity.
That's what it was right.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
Technically I mean if you look at it by the book,
technically I did the lie.
I said yeah, I did, but I hadthe company by the time I got
home, so close enough.
And same thing with rework.
So the guy I bought down withme I didn't even bring an LP guy
down with me, I bought a friendof mine who owns a moving and
storage company down with me.
He's a good friend.
And they ask you you know, doyou do trucking?

(53:07):
Yeah.
Do you do railing?
Yeah.
Do you do customs?
Yeah.
Do you do importing?
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
And we get outside and he says you don't do
installations.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
I said no.
But one, if I said no to that.
Next, you know like you're notchecking the box.
That's all they're doing ischecking the box.
And two, you know how to dothem.
You've done all your life man.
He's retired, we got him backto come back to going here.
But you're saying yes to anopportunity.
That's a good way to put it,that's kind of a politically
correct way to put it.

(53:39):
But did we succeed Beyondfreaking doubt.
I mean, these guys went fromnothing to ruling the world.
The fact that they failed wasnot because we didn't get things
set up in time or anything likethat.
It was their own internal stuff.
We did things out of the statsbut we did like dozens of
installs a week, dozens ofcompanies in office buildings

(54:01):
all over the world like crazythat we were able to pull that
off.
We pulled off.
They loved us.
You know we did a great job.
So that was one of the biggrowth things.
And just like the GE see, theGE was the first customer and
all the GE vendors, whichthere's thousands of, said hey,
can you do that for us too?
And we said yeah, and GE washighly recruited.
So a lot of their guys fromErie went to run big companies

(54:24):
around the country and they knewwe were reliable.
So we kind of grew very organic.
We were the mouth.
I think for the first 10, 12years no one but me could do
this.
Every customer we had I couldconnect the dot back to G
somehow.
Then we worked the same thing.
We got into building installs,ff&e, hotels, stadiums, we're

(54:47):
doing those kind of things.
Then the IT world kind ofconnected us with.
We're doing stuff for Amazonand others where we do things
that are not just moving stuff.
I used to say people used toask me what's logistics?
I said we move shit and that'skind of what logistics is is
everything moves.
But the plus is, like all theseother things that are moving

(55:09):
stuff, they're kind of thebackground and help that happen.
We do all that too now, so Ican go into the truck room today
and still work today, but Ican't go into something like
Curova.
I'd be in the way.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
You started your career as a truck driver correct
.

Speaker 3 (55:29):
Yeah, my second or third career.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
Yeah, and how long were you doing that?

Speaker 3 (55:35):
Ten years.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Ten years just over the road.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
LTL local, not over the road, but big trucks
northeast.
And then I you know big mouth Igot kicked upstairs.
I was a union organizer, a teamstore organizer, did some crazy
shit there and then I moved to.
I moved from Buffalo toJamestown, which is like 60

(56:01):
miles, 70 miles southwest ofBuffalo, because there's no work
at the Townsend Casual and thecompany was opening up a
terminal on Jamestown.
So I moved down for that andthree years later they closed
the E5.
They closed.
So I called up my old boss atRed Star, who I'd been a driver
for for 10 years, and I said I'min Jamestown now.

(56:23):
Do you have any driving jobsdown here?
And he says no, but I have adock foreman job.
I said fuck you, I'm a fuckingteamster man.
I'm like okay, and then, likesix months later I was starting
to work.
I'm like okay, and then, likesix months later I was trying to
work.
Oh, I call him back.
Hey, george, is that job open?
And he said I do.
So I got a job as a midnightshift dock foreman in the small

(56:46):
town of Jamestown, new York.
Right, and I don't know thisbecause George Coleman, the guy
that gave me the job from RedStar has died since.
I think the day after he put mein management for Red Star he
went to wires.
I think it was like his lastfuck year to.
Red Star has put me inmanagement.
I'm pretty sure of that.
I can't prove it, but I becamea guy on midnight shift in a

(57:12):
small 12-door terminal.
They sent a guy from corporatein New Jersey to train me.
He walks in you know like 4o'clock in the morning and I'm
wearing my Teamster truck andplease, jacket.
He says you can't wear thatjacket.
He says I can't imagine.
I said it's a cold night, it'sfreaking winter, I mean like
nobody's here.

(57:33):
He says no, no, he can't wearit.
So I took her off my track andhe says you don't have a tie on.
I said tie the fuck do you needa tie for?
He says if you don't wear a tiethe men will respect you.
I said we are a tie and the menwill respect you.
Good start, right, but anyway,that terminal ended up being the

(57:53):
best operating terminal in astrong Northeast trucking
company.
I did really really well andkind of a lot of the same things
that makes LP go just theenergy and the passion and the
hustle and the kind of gettingpeople to pull in the same
direction.
Being the next driver, nextunion guy, I knew how you had to
kind of win the arguments alittle bit to get people to work

(58:15):
harder than they normally would.
But we operated you'll get thisRed Star that year operated
like a 104.
And the industry was like a 98.
We were like an 86, off thecharts.
You know that's because I wouldbe able to get away with things
, because guys kind of went intodoing stuff.
But anyway, I did that for 10years.

(58:37):
I got a call one day from NewJersey that they come to see me.
I said you coming to fire me,you coming to close the terminal
, what?
No, no, nothing like that.
And I still didn't wear a tie.
So I had a clip-on tie in thebathroom, in the medicine
cabinet.
So it's like Superman going tothe phone booth in China.
I'd go in and I see him comeand put on the tie and this

(58:58):
Bruce Kennedy, the vicepresident of sales, comes up and
he says Jim, I got some badnews for you.
We got to let you go, good luck.
And all the guys are watchinglike 10, 12 drivers.
I said you know what, bruce?
I said good luck to you.
You're losing the best guy yougot.
I won the tournament with 86.
Good luck to you, man.
And the guys were looking oohand I walked out down the stairs

(59:19):
around the corner I fall on myknees.
I had a sight of everybody Likewhat are you going to do now?
So again, another try to put astrong face so you get out of
the slate.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Yeah, talk to me a little bit about what you think
you took from those experiencesthat, like, helped you become a
better CEO or leader of this LPbusiness.
Now, like you had very directexperience operating truck,
managing drivers working in theterminal, like, what did you

(59:55):
take from that Ten years?

Speaker 2 (59:57):
of each.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
Yeah, what do you think you took from those two
decades that really helped youbuild a really successful
logistics business?

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
A lot, I think how you deal with people, how you
motivate, how you try to framethings sort of swing-wing
instead of class war.
I was a guy pulling pins forthe team.
I was doing some bad shitbecause it was us against them.
You're against the fuckingmanagement.
Where did I get you?
I learned you've got tocollaborate, you've got to find

(01:00:29):
ways to engage and move peopleforward.
You paint the vision of okay,guys, we could fight all the
time.
You win some, I'll win some andwe'll end up being gone which
ended up being gone anyway.
But while we're here, let's tryto make this a good situation.

(01:00:50):
So an example of that as youknow, when you're management,
you can't work on the dock.
You're management and whathappened is we were.
Red Star Express was a northeastcarrier based in Newark, new
Jersey.
It went from Maine to Virginiaand the area was Jamestown.

(01:01:10):
New York was as far west as itcame like 37 terminals, and back
in the day, after deregulation,service mattered.
You had to deliver freight ontime, in good shape at a fair
price.
That was the model and we werethe end of the line.
So we were getting second-dayservice as opposed to overnight
service.

(01:01:31):
So I proposed to the bosses.
I said you know what, don't cutthe freight off at Buffalo
until the next day, send itthrough.
And they said well, we'll getthat old 10, 11 o'clock Too late
for the pedal runs.
Let me work on it, send itthrough, we'll put it in bed in
the next hour.
So they didn't like itnecessarily.
But okay, try it.
What I would do.

(01:01:51):
All the guys were out already.
I mean everyone's on the streetby 8, 9 o'clock.
I see what was coming.
I diagram several.
You know how we can get most ofthem delivered that day locally
.
And then, on the way out to oneof the areas somewhere and I
concocted a run, I called theguy next, casual, who's not
working that day.

(01:02:12):
I said look, if you come in andhustle your ass off, I'm going
to help you on the dock.
I'll help you load the truck,don't say anything.
But you've got a day's work.
But yeah, it's a couple hundredbucks to him that day.
So better than sitting home.
And after a while it was routine.
I didn't have to make the pitchanymore.
But he'd come in.
I'd be out there checking hedon't know the truck.

(01:02:34):
I'd be put away to go help himload stuff.
He'd get out at about 11o'clock.
He'd make five or six stops inJamestown that got delivered
next day.
That way, on his way to Eriehe'd deliver five or six stops
in Erie and then, instead ofhaving the Erie guy wait on
overtime till 8 o'clock for thebig G-load we get every night,

(01:02:54):
that guy would come home, be outat five o'clock, a whole new
wife at dinner with his wife,and this guy would wait on
straight time.
Say, take a long lunch, dude,six to seven, pick up the load,
come back in and we're done.
So just kind of formulatingthings at work, at home and even
from a management side, thesame guy with the tie, he worked

(01:03:18):
in big terminals.
So I said eight doors, 12 doors, and he had each door this was
the Erie East, this was ErieWest, this was Olean, this was
Dunkirk.
And every night he used thesame thing.
Well, I'd look at it and I'dsee a load come in that had 14
skids going Ererie west.
Well, they parked in the dunktruck door.

(01:03:40):
They don't know.
So they park in the dunk truckdoor.
So he would tell me he'd come inand say, well, you got to move
this truck here and this truckhere.
I only got two guys on the dock, I said, well, I could just
move these four signs and it'sdone.
I mean, it takes me a minute,yeah, and you got two hours of
yard work to do.
Like that.
Just kind of like that mightwork.

(01:04:02):
In Newark you might need 150doors, you might need this door
being burgund every night.
But here you know, I will fuckit up, let me do it my way.
And so I finally were able todo that.
And even as a driver, I meanlike when I was casual in the
80s in Buffalo this was beforecell phones, right and as a

(01:04:23):
casual, you sit home by thephone and you wait for some
company you don't know who whoneeds a guy to call you up and
say, hey, you want eight hoursof work, you want to come in and
do something.
And I could have done that,which is what most guys did.
But I went out.
I didn't have money, but Ibought a pager it was a little
freaking pagers, you know and Igave everyone my number, and not

(01:04:44):
only that, that way one, it gotme out of the house.
I didn't have to sit by a phone, I could, because the pager
just told you who was calling.
You had to call back, you hadto find a payphone, but you
didn't have to sit home, so Iliked that.
Anyway, shopping or hanging out,whatever, I would stop by
different terminals.
I'd say, hey, you got anythinggoing today?

(01:05:05):
And no one said it, but I couldtell from the look in their eye
hmm, this guy's got someambition.
And I also could see thatthey'd say wait a minute.
And they'd be looking at theirWhitney board, the old Whitney
boards, and they'd say you cansee them thinking.
I could do this, I could do this, I could do this.
Yeah, go get in the truck, Igot something for you to do and
then he could bring guys homeearly.

(01:05:26):
So you kind of created your ownfuture, the opportunity.
You kind of created anopportunity that, had you been
home, you're probably just goingto use those guys that are out
already and you pick these twoup, you pick these three up and
you're not called.
So you kind of can, you know,not create the future, but it
influence things a little bit,that's.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
I learned that from that side of it yeah, I like, I
like how kind of there's justsuch a level of creativity
around your I don't know youraura, I don't know what it is,
but there's something about it'sa little there's.
There's there's a little bit ofum.
You're comfortable being on theedge of sanity, that's for sure
yeah um, I'm curious because alot of how?

Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
much more calm I used to be.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
That's good, that's probably good, but a lot of your
ways seem very old school like.
You just seem to have a veryold school vibe to you and I'm
curious how you think about theway technology is advancing in
our industry.
Things are moving away fromthat kind of old school approach
and I'm curious how you thinkabout applying the evolution of

(01:06:36):
technology within your business,given that you're a very old
school guy.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
I'm an old school guy .
Although I had a pager when itwasn't common, I owned a K-Pro,
which was the first portablecomputer.
I was on Prodigy before AOL andall this other stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
Okay, you're validating.
You're a tech forward guy.
All right, I take it back.

Speaker 3 (01:07:04):
I can't open the hood of a car.
I can drive a car.
That's not how I look at it,but I love what technology does.
I love how it takes away theredundant work that people have
to do sometimes, but I stillthink there is human interaction
.
That is as important as thetechnology.

(01:07:24):
So computers can fuck up, justlike old stuff can fuck up, and
it's how you deal with that fuckup.
So if you have the greatesttechnology in the world and your
instrument is late, how doesthat fix it?
You gave it all you had, youspent a lot of money on IT.
It's too late, it got fucked upand I'm not sure that that AI

(01:07:48):
calling the customer andapologizing and explaining it is
going to have the impact that'snecessary to keep that business
.
So I do think it's a simplisticthing, but I do think business
in the end is all about people.
And you know, I mean the phoneis new technology.
I mean everything used to be.
Teamsters were guys that shothorses.
You know, I mean that's whereit came from.

(01:08:08):
So the technology is alwaysdeveloping, but people are the
constant.
So I think that relationship iscritical.
So we have rooms of IT guys inour place and it used to be like
, you know, you slide the pizzaunder the door every week or so
and never enter there, you know.
But what I've noticed with usand Danny's part of this a big

(01:08:29):
part of it actually is that theyare now much more integrated.
The ops guys aren't afraid togo down there.
They walk into the ops roomsbecause they've realized that
the technology is not some, youknow, on an altar.
It's for these guys' jobs toget easier.
They've realized that thetechnology is not some, you know
, on an altar.
It's for these guys' jobs geteasier.
And when you give themsomething now, they say, hey,
that's great, thank you Not.
Oh shit, I got to do this now.

(01:08:51):
And that collaboration andinteraction which I said Danny's
been a big part of.
It's a very noticeabledifference to me in the company
that there's no longer a wallbetween IT.
Sometimes there's friction.
I mean no doubt about that.
What we need is never fastenough and what operations need
is always like come on, how longis your list, man, cut it down.

(01:09:12):
But there's much more of acommunication, collaboration
which has made a big difference,and our size too.
I mean that's the other thing.
I tell people we're like theGoldilocks zone.
We're not a mom and pop.
It has no technology.
We have world-class technology.
We were one of the first usersof CargoWise 20 years ago.

(01:09:32):
We were like one of their betatesters.
So we use the top technology inthe world.
We're still small enough wherewe give a shit and the people
are involved and and you're not.
We don't force a customer tofit our model.
We will adapt whoever they need.
That's that's kind of the bigdifferentiator, I think, and we
will mold ourselves to theirneed, not the other way around

(01:09:55):
just a couple more questions foryou.

Speaker 1 (01:09:57):
I'm curious, curious for some advice you might give
to the young entrepreneurs inour space.
I interview a lot of CEOs, somewho are as experienced as
yourself, but many of them areyoung pups in the space, and
that they're a few years intotheir journey, a few years into
building a business.
I'm just curious what adviceyou might have for young,

(01:10:19):
aspiring entrepreneurs.

Speaker 3 (01:10:20):
I'm just curious what advice you might have for young
aspiring entrepreneurs.
Well, not to be negative, butit's tougher than people think.
It's tougher.
For business to succeed, a lotof things have to go right.
There's a million ideas outthere, but the greatest ideas
are a dime.
A dozen People who put theminto practice are priceless.

(01:10:44):
But to your earlier point,leadership is hard.
Like the analogy I use is youknow, as a Yankee fan and you
see back in the day, you see JoeTorre on the bench and just
like a thing, you know, justthere.
But all the things he'sthinking about and doing and
causing and anticipating, I meanlike it doesn't look hard but

(01:11:04):
it's really fucking hard.
I'm not sure everyone's cut outfor that and it's funny.
Like there's an example I used.
There was a guy that had a fireone time, a truck driver in
Jamestown and he was a terribleworker.
He was awful, awful, awful whenI fired him, and I fired him

(01:11:26):
for hitting the freaking bridge.
I mean he had good reason tofire him, but I could tell in
his heart.
He thought he was the hardestworking guy in the world.
He's a great driver.
No one cares more than he bled.
Red Star Red.
He was a fuck-off.
He didn't remember it.
But years before, when I was acasual at another company, I

(01:11:46):
went on a midnight shift andhe's the guy who told me.
He says we're going to sit inthe truck until 530 because my
mom's going to know that wedidn't do anything.
I know more about you than youremember.
That I know.
But that's the hardest part.
You remember that, but that'sthe hardest part, I mean again,
the hardest part is people.
You can either buy or createthe greatest software in the
world, but you have to find aniche, you know.

(01:12:09):
You have to be able to sellthings better than other people
do.
You have to compete on price,which is tough.
I mean what percentage ofbusinesses succeed?
Five percent, I mean, not a lot.
Yeah, but everyone thinks theycan do this and it'll follow
them.
So I would just kind of temperyour exuberance and enthusiasm
with a little bit of reality.
We can avenge reality somewhat,but there's still some facts

(01:12:33):
you've got to consider.
It's a hard thing.
And then the point you madeearlier too how do you deal with
people?
How do you rally people whenthings are slow?
How do you lay people off?
That was the hardest time of mylife besides, the ship was when
we lost part of our bigcustomers and let people go.
That did nothing wrong.
Some consultants came in andtold them hey, you need to use

(01:12:55):
the big guys.
These little guys, they're notyour world class.
Why are you using them?
They found out why they'reusing us.
The big guy sucked, but I hadto let go of half a dozen people
.
That was a hard, hard thing todo.
And what I've learned I'm notsure it's, you know it's always
a political one I learned whenthings don't work out, it's best
done with a hug, and you knowlike I'm sorry.

(01:13:16):
It was my fault, not your fault.
Even when it's for cause notwith a truck driver, it'll be.
I mean, even when it's not whatI hoped it would be.
I thought you would be.
I mean, that's not your faultthat you're not what I thought
you'd be.
It's my fault that I didn't seecorrectly.
You know.
So you try to never.
You know you never leave anger,you never kind of burn the

(01:13:38):
bridge.
You leave it open because theworld goes round and round.
You never know where you meetagain and that's proven a lot of
times.
People that we let go or leftus have come back around and
tried the rest of the world.
It wasn't as green as theythought it was going to be.

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
Great advice.
My last one it's got to bereally hard to be a Bills fan
Summer Like.
Will the Bills ever win anotherSuper Bowl or a Super Bowl?

Speaker 3 (01:14:15):
I don't know.
They never won any.
Yeah, my son, who works for usnow he was 12 years old in 92.
And I took the train out toMinneapolis for the Bill
Rivkin's Super Bowl had the timeof our lives and I was so
hoping that the commanders andthe Bills would have gone back

(01:14:35):
to New Orleans.
He's in Ukraine so he couldn'tgo with me, but that was my
dream.
I kind of do a Super Bowlreprise with my kid.
30-something years later, butyeah, it's tough.
I'm a big fan.
I got all kinds of helmets andJosh Allen pictures and jerseys
around.
I think he's a greatquarterback.
I'm not sure how we get pastReed and Mahomes, though.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:15:01):
Who's your team?

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
I'm the bears fan, so my, my misery is a little
different than yours lessexpectations?
I guess fewer expectations orlower expectations yeah I.

Speaker 3 (01:15:14):
I stay in touch with some of the old bill.
Kelly's and thomas's thatgeneration are great very nice
this team should get there, man,Maybe next year.
So yeah, I thought this was theyear.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
It's a famous saying in our house, so all right.
Well, any parting words ofwisdom you want to leave with
the audience or anything wemissed?
I'm sure we missed plenty inyour story, but I appreciate you
sharing everything you did andgiving us better insight into
the Logistics Plus world.

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
Like I said, don't try this at home.
It's very unique and odd and itshouldn't work, and it's been.
I call it the hand of God Adozen times.
It's come down and touched us.
I'm not sure why.
It's not because I'm specialand deserve it, but there's just
crazy, crazy examples of thingsthat should not have gone the

(01:16:06):
way they went, and they did.
It still worked out.
So knock on wood.

Speaker 1 (01:16:12):
Knock on wood.
Yeah, all right.
Well, that's all we got.
Listeners Appreciate you tuningin for another episode of the
Freight Pod and we'll see younext week.

Speaker 3 (01:16:22):
Thanks, Andrew.
Out listeners appreciate youtuning in for another episode of
the freight pod and we'll seeyou next week.
You.