Never Stand Still

Cannon Express Into the Go Go 1990s

Hello, everyone sorry for all the off topic talk on here, but were back on topic now, because I've got sometime and it's time, to get the ball rolling on this again because if I don't then how will we know what happened to Cannon Express?

So Cannon Express into the 1990s.

So we left off in the 1980s and Cannon Express was starting to grow they had sales offices set up and systems and operations set up and the company was growing and making money.

Despite the early recession of the 1990s being pretty bad where people lost there jobs and CF almost went bankrupt Cannon Express actually managed to make it through the early 1990s recession without any real trouble. Actually they did well. CF's problem was they had to much of a burden with Emery Air Freight which ended up always being an albatross for CF.

Cannon didn't have all that width and depth it was just an OTR dry van whole sale transportation provider and by 1990 Cannon Express was a bonified OTR company. The company carried almost no freight in and out of Springdale, AK instead most of there trucks ran east all the way to the Atlantic Ocean and west into Texas and Oklahoma.

The company in 1988 had a fleet of 288 tractors and 359 trailers.

By 1991 Cannon's expansion efforts coupled with customer demands had deemed 29% of there power fleet economically obsolete and the company was in the middle of a fairly big 85 power unit buy in 1991 and had slated 95 units for retirement. The company also had ordered 100 tractors and figured that by the end of 1991 the new units and tractors would be in service.

By this point Cannon Express was a $27million dollar a year company which was recorded in 1991 and that was a 47% increase over the previous year.

This gain in business propped Cannon Express into a major 48 state+Canada hauler as it was the go go 1990s and there was nothing but money to be made as money just fell from the sky.

Cannon Express got in with Wal-Mart who was in full blown expansion mode killing indoor shopping malls(remember those antiquated things? Shopping Malls?) and the money train to Cannon Express was steaming right along.

However Wal-Mart was growing at a very quick pace and the 1990s were not going to last forever. But while the good times were still good Cannon Express was the 8th largest trucking operation in Arkansas.

Much larger then my favorite company who by the way is still around today Conley Transport II from Searcy, AK:


I haven't seen a Conley truck in the longest time, but Conley is a small small company they look like there this big huge fleet, but actually there rather small.

Anyhow JB Hunt of course was the biggest and probably Tyson even though there not a trucking company was also high on the list.

Now the year was 1996 and Cannon Express was high on the hog money was coming in left and right and there was nothing to do, but rent VHS video's from Blockbuster, shop at the mall and drive fancy sports cars and talk on "car phones" oh and buy a desk top computer perhaps a Gateway 2000 after all it was the 1990s!


But trouble was ahead because in 1997 the party was about to end!

Wal-Mart was quickly out growing Cannon Express as far as size and scope was concerned Wal-Mart was no longer some 5 and dime dump from Arkansas they were quickly emerging as a domineering force and quickly becoming the big juggernaut retailer that they are known as today, however Wal-Mart today is in a little bit of a decline as the National Inflation Association said in 2008 Wal-Marts biggest competitor is Amazon well a decade later Amazon is starting to put the hurt on Wal-Mart.

Which I don't care I buy very little from Amazon and Wal-Mart actually I never think to go to Wal-Mart there isn't one around me so I don't bother with them anyhow. Home Depot, Ace Hardware, Heinens, GFS and places like Sherwin-Williams, and Autozone are usually where I go. I don't really price shop I go where they have what I need, as a one person house my actual cost of living is fairly cheap. I do maybe 2-3 loads of laundry a week. Produce maybe 1-2 bags of garbage a week. So if I need a seafoam sponge to wash the car with I can go to the Sherwin-Williams store around the corner from my house and buy one there not a big deal. But that's just me.

Cannon Express had $109 million dollars in sales n 1998 and 50% of those sales came from Wal-Mart Stores Inc of Bentonville, AK.

Well and doesn't this sound just like Wal-Mart in 1997 Wal-Mart changed it's bidding system to a "price only" system for trucking companies bidding on Wal-Mart work.

Well naturally another Arkansas concern trucking megatron company J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc was awarded the $100million dollar distribution contract to work with Wal-Mart stores Inc. In 2000 JB Hunt Company generated $2Billion in revenue and had 9,400 tractors and 38,000 trailers.

In 1997 Wal-Mart was distancing it's self from Cannon Express and in 2000 when JB Hunt got the big 100 million dollar Wal-Mart contract Cannon Express was nailed to the wall Cannon Express watched it's stock price drop by 70% that year and things were not looking good.

Ted Wade who was in charge of traffic at Wal-Mart at the time basically said that, Wal-Mart wanted to single source there traffic and JB Hunt was complete logistics control where Cannon was just a trucking company. Basically Cannon wasn't big enough to work for Wal-Mart anymore and didn't have the width and depth.

Dean Cannon in an April 1 2002 Interview with Arkansas Business Journal basically said that they had heard Wal-Mart wanted to find a single source for there transportation and that JB Hunt was there choice and basically Cannon couldn't compete with JB Hunt and Cannon took a big punch to the stomach with the departure of Wal-Mart Stores.

 

Hi everybody, one more chapter to go with Cannon Express. By the way Cannon Express is another company that went under in 2002. It seems like 2002 was the end of the 1990s era of trucking.

Anyhow one more segment to go with Cannon Express as they started losing ground with Wal-Mart in 1997 and were headed down the drain by the late 1990s.

After Cannon Express will start with JB Hunt the long haul to success.

 

This is a repeat but worth repeating:
Ahem, how is everybody doing tonight?

Today at work we had a safety meeting which is really more of just a meeting. They clue us in with what's going on with the company and business in general and I'm not going to get into all of that because what's going on in the broadline food service biz isn't always relevant to trucking it's stuff us drivers need to know but it's not important to this board. However I will clue you guys into what I learned today at the meeting.

The big take away from the meeting was 2 things and the main point is do not get to comfortable.

For one I remember watching a you tube video on backing up straight trucks and they said in the video that most medium duty truck accidents are caused when backing. Medium duty means delivery trucks.

My companies our own internal statistics have it written that most of our accidents happen while backing and in parking lots.

Which is what I've been saying my entire career most accidents happen when backing or in parking lots usually both.

However, that doesn't mean that those accidents are only going to happen to delivery route drivers.

How many times do we read on here about Swift this or that? Or at a truck stop and this or that happened etc etc. Same difference a problem at a parking lot.

Another thing is getting to comfy with stops or maneuvers. There are certain stops that we have that frankly even though I've been to them a number of times I've never gotten comfortable or great with them didn't say I couldn't do them, but you, know what I think that's good. In fact I think being to comfortable is bad it leads to complacency.

At our meeting they were talking about a competitor of ours US Foods and I guess as the story we were told goes US Foods had a safety meeting and you know I know safety meetings some people take them more serious then others or there's some place else that some of the people would rather be w, but anyhow, the meeting was over and it was late at night and after the meeting some of the drivers were leaving to go out on there routes because food companies dispatch routes all around the clock and one driver ended up running over another driver or person in the truck lot at that particular warehouse and a fatality was involved. And what can you say? That's just awful, but stuff can happen to anyone.

My company has a rule where two wheeler's are supposed to be laid noise down in the back of the trailer because if there lying down they can't move. Why is this important?
Well at one of there safety meetings they said remember lay your wheeler's down well someone didn't and it rolled out and they ran it over right after the safety meeting. Now running over a wheeler is an accident and you get written up for a non-preventable, but it's not even the same thing as running over a person in the yard a wheeler is just a thing yeah the company will be out the $300.00 for a wheeler, but they can deal with that, but a person that's a whole other story.

The fact is and it can happen to anyone, but it's important to be aware of your surroundings are there people around?
Am I backing down into a hole and is the lading in my trailer or in the back of my truck secured properly? I.E. Load bars and pallet jacks the entire thing.

I remember Big Don once saying that he lost his pallet jack he drove off from a stop forgot to close the trailer door and the pallet jack drove right off the back of the trailer. He said it didn't land on anyone or anything thank god, but I remember him saying boy did I get tight when that happens.

I guess the point here is it can happen to anyone. Never get to comfy or lazy out there. If you need to put another chain on. Or give the load bar an extra push of the lever, what ever it is an extra 5 minutes on the front end can save you hours or days on the back end.

As we say at work sometimes it pays to work harder to save time.

 

Hi guys I have to take a break and do some thinking and writing. I've way over dosed watching Party of 5. Party of 5 was this "great" television show that was on in the 1990s on Fox and it was considered "ground breaking" for it's time. The shows kind of dated now though I guess , and quite frankly I don't really like any of the characters, but I can stand the show, however I met my quota for now and have to walk away from it and do something else. The only TV show I ever gave up on was HBO's 6 feet under that show was just to dark for me. Anyhow, I need to do something smart and that's not watch Party of 5 so without further ado:

Cannon Express to the End:

In 2000 Cannon Express lost it's Wal-Mart account, but the trouble didn't end there oh no! Cannon's second largest customer International Paper was also having some troubles and turbulence of there own. Volume from International Paper went down 14.4% to 9.4% between 1998 and 2000.

This was not good. Cannon did launch a web site that for a $10.00 fee that allowed trucking companies to post loads and eliminate brokers.

However as Cannon tried to recover from the loss of Wal-Mart, it was plagued by other troubles. Rising diesel prices and lack of qualified drivers were now starting to become a problem. Also economic down turn started to also hurt Cannon.

In June of 2000 Cannon had no choice, but to down size the business. Cannon sold 120 power units and 180 trailers. At the same time Cannon started retiring there 48' trailers and replacing them with 53' trailers so they could be more competitive.

Cannon also got into risk shifting and switched over to a lease option for owner operators.

By the end of 2001 Cannon was in deep do do The past 12 months pointed to trouble, and the company's sales were down 8.1% from 1998 or $20million dollars down.

On top of that Cannon was in legal trouble by the end of 2001 from 3 guys who said Cannon hired them to recruit foreign drivers from New Zeeland and Australia and that Cannon owed these three guys $1.3 million bucks for services rendered.

However that lawsuit was dropped. However Cannon's legal troubles were short lived. In Febuary 2002 Cannon took another loss by now they had 7 straight quarters of financial losses and the IRS called up Cannon to let them know that they owed $6million in back taxes.

However troubles mounted in March of 2002 Cannon Express laid off 50 office workers which was 1/4th of Cannons non-driving staff.

Cannon and Mrs. Cannon both stopped taking a salary and by the end of Summer of 2002 Cannon Express had it's back up against the wall.

I want to note here that Post September 11 2001 and into 2002 things were pretty bad. Now 2003,2004 and 2005 were better years, but September 2001 and into 2002 were not great economic times.

In August of 2002 Dean Cannon fired himself from Cannon Express and replaced him self with CFOex a company that took over day to day operations. CFoex was a company made by trucking company executives mostly finance people and they took over control of Cannon Express. Rose Marie Cannon, the wife of Dean Cannon also resigned as Secretary and treasurer.

In the void of Cannon's leaving. Bruce Jones the founder of CFOex and former CEO of JB Hunt of all places was the immediate CEO of Cannon Express. With all the changes Cannon Express still lost money in 2003 revenue was down 3.1% and the damage after many months was irreparable and Cannon bit the dust in 2003. The end of another era.

Alright folks don't leave town this time we start JB Hunt! An actual company that doesn't or hasn't yet gone under! Wow!