Dan England
People make it happen, and many of those people are family.
C.R. England didn't have the burdensome cost structure that proved fatal for many of its larger competitors, but it struggled to compete with a flood of new entrants.
Through his private law practice and then as corporate counsel for C.R. England, Dan England spent years pulling together various pieces of operating authority for the family-owned trucking company.
By 1979 the puzzle was finally completed and the Salt Lake City-based refrigerated carrier had all the necessary credentials to haul general commodities nationwide.
The following year trucking was deregulated, opening the door to practically anyone who could get insurance and pay the application fee.
Dan England, who is now CEO of the company, chuckles about the timing, but not about the situation. "When deregulation came we weren't one of the big carriers. We had about 180 trucks (versus some 2,500 today) and less than $20 million in revenues."
C.R. England didn't have the burdensome cost structure that proved fatal for many of its larger competitors but - like those big carriers - it struggled to compete with a flood of new entrants who were trying to grab business by cutting rates.
"Those were some difficult years for us," England recalls. "But we put a growth plan in place and things have been pretty good ever since."
Part of the planning, then and now, clearly involves the unique personnel issues of a family business. The company was started in 1920 by Dan's grandfather, Chester England. Chester's sons Gene (Dan's father) and Bill ran the business for many years and still maintain offices at company headquarters. Three of Dan's brothers hold executive positions: Dean is COO, Todd is vice president of maintenance, Corey is vice president of operations support.
Many fourth-generation Englands work at the company and, in fact, seven of 18 people on the executive committee are Englands.
Family members are more or less guaranteed part-time employment while they're in school but those who want to make C.R. England a career have to meet certain standards.
"We have established a rule that no person - England or otherwise - can ascend to the executive committee without at least a four-year college degree," England says. As a result, many Englands have, or are working on graduate degrees.
The company takes pains to assure non-family employees that they'll never be pushed aside to make room for a family member. In fact, another rule dictates that an England who wants to join the company can only be hired into a position that's already open and his salary must be commensurate with the marketplace.
Many family members are filling new positions created through business expansions. For instance, C.R. England just started a receivables factoring business run by a fourth-generation England. Family members will also be involved in the management of hotels that the company is opening in conjunction with driving schools, another of its growth segments.
Like the rest of the truckload industry, one of C.R. England's major challenges is finding and keeping good drivers. But when many carriers were backing away from in-house training, C.R. England jumped in with both feet and now operates six schools across the country.
"We have a real strength, and that strength is training drivers," says England. Company statistics indicate that C.R. England-trained drivers have better safety records than those hired out of other schools or recruited from other fleets. And even though many C.R. England graduates move on to other companies, management looks at the schools as a hedge. "When others can't hire experienced drivers, and proprietary schools slow down, we still have our sources." The plan now is to step-up training activity and even offer training for other carriers.
But training alone won't resolve the driver issue. England says one of the questions he's asked most is "what will it take to get a stable driving force?" His answer: "A quantum leap in pay."
One of the ways carriers survived deregulation was by holding the line on driver pay, he explains. But that meant trucking, especially the truckload segment, fell behind construction, manufacturing and other industries where it competes for labor.
"We may pay the same as they do, but they don't have nearly the aggravation we do. We have to do something to soothe that aggravation, and that something is money. You've got to have a good work environment, and you've got to treat people decently and with respect. But that goes without saying. You still have to have a certain level of monetary compensation to get drivers to put up with the kind of jobs we have."
England and many others are talking about boosting driver earnings to around $60,000 a year - a 50% raise for many truckers. It's a tall order and can't happen quickly. A current capacity shortage has opened the door for higher rates. If that doesn't change significantly and if the economy stays on track for a few years, improvement is possible.
"The hope is that we can stay ahead of the costs," he says. "We've got to get respectable financial returns and, at the same time, give more to our drivers. There are a lot of needs out there that have to be met."
It's probably unrealistic to hope that demand and supply will continue to work in trucking's favor, but England remains optimistic about long-term success. "If you've got good people around you, if you've got good management, you can navigate all these challenges and storms and still make it through. We've been fortunate to be able to do that," he says.
"We enjoy the industry we're in," he continues. "The vast majority of the people we compete with are competent people - people of character. For the most part, they have survived the rough times and they know what they're doing."
— Patricia Smith
