A. Duie Pyle

A nice read in today's "Philadelphia Inquirer"...

EMPLOYEES ARE VALUED, LAY-OFFS ARE UNHEARD-OF
Trucking firm's road paved by family culture​

By Henry J. Holcomb
Inquirer Staff Writer

At the headquarters of A. Duie Pyle Cos., the only reserved parking space is for expectant mothers.

That's part of the culture. "We don't have pecking order. We don't create perks based on positions in the company," said Peter Latta, 51, chairman and owner of the West Chester trucking group.

For a very long time, Latta said, "the culture has been treat others as you would like to be treated."

Steve O'Kane, 54, who two years ago became Pyle's first nonfamily president, said he learned quickly that "if you can't get along with people, you won't do well here."

Latta and O'Kane park in the farthest lot, a five-minute walk away.

The culture seems to be working. Pyle is still family-owned and still growing.

The company has nearly 2,000 employees, 835 trucks, 1,600 trailers and 15 terminals, which it calls service centers. It provides less-than-truckload, full-truckload, warehouse and logistics-management services to customers throughout the Northeast and in parts of Canada. Partner companies extend its reach to the Southeast and Midwest.

The company was founded 84 years ago this month by Latta's grandfather, A. Duie Pyle. He was a farm boy who didn't like the furnace heat at Lukens Steel Corp. in Coatesville, where he worked. So he bought a truck and hauled for Lukens. The mill, now Mittal Steel Co., is still a customer.

The trucking industry is groaning and sputtering through soaring fuel prices, maddening urban gridlock, and declining freight traffic, but Pyle is expanding. This month it opened two additional New England service centers, at a cost of $30 million.

It also is sticking with its no-layoff policy.

"Our legacy customers are using us less as the economy slows, but we're picking up new customers all the time," O'Kane said.

Pyle's annual revenue, Latta said, was $2 million in 1960, $4.3 million in 1970, $9.6 million in 1980, $22 million in 1990, $114 million in 2000, and $223 million last year.

"We'll top that this year," he predicted.

Pyle doesn't disclose profit. "We may take it on the margin chin this year," Latta said, but the company is profitable and "has a very low level of third-party debt."

At a time when annual driver turnover in the trucking industry exceeds 100 percent, Pyle lost only 7 percent of its less-than-truckload drivers last year.

O'Kane said the 140 drivers who own their own rigs and make long hauls for Pyle get the full fuel surcharge posted on the company Web site. Truckers complain that many rivals keep that money, leaving them to cope with annual fuel bills expected to nearly double, from about $50,000 to nearly $100,000 this year, according to drivers.

Pyle runs its own driver school. Good workers in lower-paying jobs can take the 12-week course at company expense. Drivers are paid by the hour and can earn between $50,000 and the low $60,000s a year, O'Kane said.

Local drivers are home every night. Those who drive between Pyle's terminals throughout the Northeast are home at least one night a week and every weekend.

Creating a good place to work is common sense, O'Kane said. It helps attract and keep people who can handle the challenges and tensions of the job. "There are no easy jobs here," O'Kane said. "And much of the work is done in off-hours."

In exchange for freedom from layoff worry, employees have to be flexible. "A driver may clean a maintenance shop if it's really slow," O'Kane said. And when business is brisk, "it's all hands on deck" and lots of overtime.

Low turnover produces better service, fewer accidents, and lower recruiting and training costs. "Rivals have advertising budgets bigger than our total revenue. We need people who listen to the customers and meet their needs," O'Kane said.

The company's biggest challenge is 10 to 15 years down the road, when the fourth generation takes over, and Latta already is preparing for that. One out of 10 family companies makes it to the third generation, as Pyle has done. But, Latta said, only one in 33 makes it to the fourth.

Latta is assembling an outside board of directors to oversee the owner interests and limit interference. Family members who work in the company must have the education appropriate to their job, and must have established a track record elsewhere. Two of Latta's brothers work at the company now - Jim, 59, in sales, and Duie, 55, in administration and customer service.

Two years ago, Latta turned over chief executive duties to O'Kane, who had been president of a regional trucking company acquired by a big carrier.

This has given Latta time to study Pyle history - "to better understand how the culture grew so I can teach it to the next generation."

He has been talking with people who knew his grandfather, the company founder who died when Latta was just 7 years old. The other day he met with Gladys Flamer, the 101-year-old widow of one of the first drivers.

She told how her husband, Paul, a black man, became very sick and couldn't get into the hospital where Latta's grandfather was near death. Pyle insisted that her husband be given the bed next to his.

"She told me how me how my grandfather and her husband worked together - and died together," Latta said. "The culture goes way back."

Family companies once were the backbone of trucking. But big carriers gobbled most of them up in the brutal post-deregulation era.

Why stay in such a tough business?

"We enjoy the people. They are loyal, and we try to reciprocate," Latta said. "Each day is a new challenge. Bad weather. Congested roads. The challenges our customers face. It's fun at the end of the day when we say: 'We never thought we could get that done, but we got it accomplished.' It is a pleasure to see people do things they didn't know they could do, to see the good things we did together."

Story: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/17965824.html