As incoming chairman of the American Trucking Associations, U.S. Xpress Co-Chairman Patrick Quinn encounters longstanding industry challenges in costs and productivity – and a few relatively new ones.
Considering what Patrick Quinn has achieved, you probably wouldn’t guess that he literally attended a one-room country schoolhouse that lacked indoor plumbing. Life certainly wasn’t cushy, but this adopted son of a Nebraska tenant farmer enjoyed his classic prairie childhood. He even believes that he benefited from an accelerated education because he could overhear lessons presented to older school kids.
“It was a happy time,” says Quinn, co-chairman of Chattanooga, Tenn.-based U.S. Xpress and incoming chairman of the American Trucking Associations.
In many ways, these are happy times as well. Quinn and his business partner Max Fuller have grown U.S. Xpress to the point where it surpassed $1 billion in operating revenues for the first time in 2004, up from $215.4 million when the company went public in 1994. The company ranks sixth among truckload general freight carriers in CCJs The Top 100 and 17th overall.
And in terms of revenues and profits, these are happy times, too, for the trucking industry as a whole. But the industry faces some daunting near- and long-term challenges, and Quinn will dedicate himself during the next year to making progress on these challenges as ATA’s top member leader.
The importance of image
On the whole, the trucking industry is benefiting financially from an all-too-rare occurrence: Freight demand continues to outpace capacity. But while many carriers are enjoying healthy profits, good times don’t last forever, and everyone knows it. On the other hand, the factors that exert financial pressure on trucking companies do seem to last forever – and just get worse over time. These include fuel and labor costs, productivity, taxes, regulations, litigation and infrastructure, among others.
There are no quick fixes, but Quinn believes that substantial progress on many of these issues will require changes in the public perception of the trucking industry.
