Small Enough to Care

Small Enough to Care
Bennett Motor Express "can-do" for O/Os.
By Mary Hance

While drivers at Bennett Motor Express are asked to refer prospective owner-operators to drive for the company, the recruiting brochure reminds them, "Only give this application to a driver that is as good as you! The point is this company sets high standards.

"We want to be a company that the drivers are proud to work for," says owner Marcia Taylor. "Our goal is to have the best owner-operators in the business. We're not focused on numbers but on quality. We are a specialized carrier, and we want our drivers to feel they have found a home with us."

Bennett Motor is a subsidiary of the Bennett International Group. It currently contracts with about 500 owner-operators. The company plans to raise that number closer to 600 -- a substantial jump from the 17 truck, 30-trailer company that Taylor and her late husband, J.D. Garrison, bought in 1974.

Based in McDonough, Ga., about 20 miles south of Atlanta, it is now a 48-state general freight trucking company. It is privately held and operated by Taylor and her three children. Its motto is "Large enough to serve, small enough to care..."

"I think the key to our success has been listening to customers' needs and trying to fill them," Taylor says. "It has put us into some unique business. We are a 'can-do' company."

The backbone of the company is the flatbed division. It also operates multi-axle, detachable goosenecks, and double drop extendable trailers for the unusual load segment, as well as 48-by-102 vans.

A small but unusual part of the business is the Drive Away division. It delivers vehicles ranging from fire engines and ambulances to cars, trucks and buses. A high profile assignment for this division was to bring in 1,500 buses for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta (and drive them out when the games ended).

Generally, drivers earn 77 percent of the load if they provide their own trailers, or 67 percent if they use a Bennett trailer. Most are solo drivers, although there are a few teams.

"I tell people I wouldn't work anywhere else," says Barbara Tharp. She and her husband, Jerry, pull flatbeds for Bennett. "You can make what you want to out of it. Nobody pushes you around, and there is so much diversity within the company. You can go anywhere you want to go when you want to go. It is strictly your choice," Tharp says.

"A good driver -- a good businessperson -- makes $10,000 a month or $120,000 a year. A driver just starting out will make about half that," by running hard, says Lynette Alt, marketing director. The Tharps beat that, running 146,000 miles last year, which for them came out to about a dollar a mile. "You can make good money," Barbara Tharp said. "We had very little deadhead, and we were out a lot. We go where the freight goes. If you do the job and work with them, they will work with you."

The Tharps live near Birmingham, Ala., and have some 20 years experience over the road. They have been with the fleet for about two years and say they are impressed by its open-door policy, pay, efficient systems and flexibility. They can also take their dogs, Itty Bitty and Pirhanah, along on runs.

"It's a two-way street, they need you and you need them. If I get upset, there is a person there who I can vent to; they are very understanding. Nobody browbeats you. If you turn down a load, there is no payback down the road. If you say you need to be off, they leave you alone," Barbara Tharp said.

"I really like the pay system," she adds. "You can fax your bills in. It's easy to keep straight without stressing out. It is very seldom that you have to Fed-Ex anything. And they have direct deposit (through Comdata)." Taylor noted that some settlements are made within an hour of the delivery.

With terminals in 34 states, drivers can live just about anywhere. Other pluses are a discount fuel program at seven major truckstop chains, and loading and unloading pay. Bennett offers training tapes and classes to improve its contractors' business abilities. There is also a driver advisory board.

Taylor's leadership and ownership stand out in the male-dominated trucking industry. "Everybody respects her -- men and women," Barbara Tharp said. "She's also very accessible. If you need to talk to her and she is not in a meeting, you can get her on the phone. The company is strictly open-door and helpful. They try to make your end of the operation run smoothly."

Taylor was named Entrepreneur of the Year in 1988 by Venture Magazine. Bennett was chosen "Carrier of the Year" in 1998 by Ryder Carrier Management, and was recognized at the White House as part of the Working Women's Top 500 Women-Owned Business Conference.

For more information about Bennett Motor Express, call (800) 367-2249.

When Business is Bad...Better be Good

When Business is Bad...Better be Good
By Carolyn Turknett


Atlanta Woman, May/June 2003


"We went through some tough times," says Marcia Taylor, CEO of Bennett Transportation. Revenue and profits were down and Bennett was facing layoffs. Taylor knew that she needed to move fast to avoid disaster. She also knew that company survival depended on engaging the employees.

Many leaders today face similar situations, as organizations large and small struggle in the weakest economy in more than a decade. Managers find themselves forced to downsize and cut cost across the board to keep companies solvent. The intensity of the challenge too often results in plummeting morale and further erosion of profits. And companies lose top workers.

Thirty percent of those who responded to a National Survey Institute study say they are likely to leave their jobs when the economy improves. Forty-eight percent of younger workers say they plan to leave. And top performers, if dissatisfied, are more likely to leave first.

So how can mangers head off defections and keep employees productive and happy? Dr. Barbara Reilly, professor of management at Georgia State, says leaders who inspire and motivate in a recession will likely come out of it stronger and even sooner. Reilly says successful leaders make changes because "they know that people don't leave the company; they leave the boss."

Some turnaround specialist think tough economic times call for tough leadership, but if Taylor is any example, leadership styles that are open and participative, while still holding people accountable, work better and faster. This gives people what they want most - a feeling of being in on things, a chance to use their ideas, and sense of mission and purpose.

When sales targets weren't met, Taylor began her turnaround by telling the truth. "We brought in our managers, told them what was happening, and let them be a part of deciding how to deal with it." The group agreed that wages would be frozen and bonuses held, but that a bonus pool would be paid if plan targets were met. The strategy worked, bonuses were paid, and 2002 was Bennett's best year yet.

Leaders who don't set themselves apart reap double rewards - they hear what's going on and they motivate through dialogue. Meg LaVigne, who has spent five years as a general manager and is currently the GM and vice president of WUPA Atlanta, created effective staff meetings that employees actually enjoy. "We have monthly breakfast meetings where we discuss what's going on, talk about progress on goals, and share ideas. But we also play games and have trivia contests."

LaVigne says her previous years as a television producer taught her how to motivate others without using her position power. "As a producer," she says, "you're in charge of the project, but not the people. You have to work with people who don't report to you." The most effective leaders use collaboration to get things done. The key, LaVigne says, is not thinking of herself as "boss."

In the late 1990's the Gallup Organization confirmed via a huge analysis of 28 studies - involving 2,400 organizations, 80,000 managers and more than 1 million employees - that the most important factor in employee retention is the employee's relationship with the direct manager. The problem is, managers in tight circumstances often revert to destructive leadership styles, such as the autocrat ("Do what I say because I said so") and the pacesetter ("I have very high standards and can't tolerate anything less"). This sort of leader always has a corollary belief - "I'm perfect and no one else measures up."

Kellie Ann Brown, VP of financial planning and analysis of Synavant, admits to using this approach in her first corporate job assignment in Atlanta and recalls hitting a brick wall. As a high-flying MBA graduate, she expected all of her employees to work the hours she did and accept her no-holds-barred communication style. Instead of a willing, motivated work force, however, she got rebellion - people who did the least they could to keep their jobs, giving none of what motivated experts call "discretionary effort."

She finally learned the error of her ways. "When I went though a leadership development program, I realized I had to work on my "brutal honesty," Brown says. She got input from her employees, and the data opened her eyes. "I've learned it's important to understand how someone will react while still being honest. I have learned to be constructive, not destructive."

Emotional intelligence guru Daniel Goleman emphasizes the value of such lessons. Those who lead by creating a powerful vision, coaching and developing others and building strong teams have a positive effect on the working environment. Goleman writes in Primal Leadership: "Results showed that, all other things being equal, leaders who used styles with a positive emotional impact saw decidedly better financial returns than those who did not."

Brown proved this theory works in real life. She recognized that coaching a young associate to help him gain the skills to finish a project was preferable to taking over, and that a little flexibility for a mother who wanted to see her daughter's first softball game earned extra dedication when department deadlines were looming. She improved the climate, and motivation improved. And this didn't cost a cent.

"Money is tight, and managers are feeling frustrated because they don't have funds for merit raises or spot bonuses," says Reilly. She teaches executive MBA students, all of whom are actively managing. "In every new class I ask students when they felt most motivated at work. The answers are always when they were involved in critical work, when they were on an important project that had high visibility, or when they got a lot of recognition. In more than 10 years of asking this question I have yet to have a student say, "It's when I got that big fat bonus."

Jackie Greaner, managing consultant at Watson Wyatt, believes that leading and rewarding in tough times takes more "creativity, communication and thoughtfulness." She sees many companies making the mistake of using the same rewards for everyone. According to Watson Wyatt's strategic rewards research, the top reward for women is a flexible work schedule. For people making more than $100,000, it's opportunities for advancement. And for those over age 50, it's the quality of the retirement plan. Paying more attention to maximizing intrinsic rewards is essential when budgets are tight, says Andrea Deeb, Southeast practice leader for rewards and performance management at Towers Perrin. "When someone is working on a project, make sure they know how the project fits into the work of the total company. Put key employees on plum projects or in high-visibility assignments. And just say 'thank you.' Employees always complain that they are never recognized enough."

Small rewards for a job well done don't have to be expensive. Kellie Ann Brown now uses dinner for two, movie tickets, or gift certificates, and asks employees what they would like. Bob Nelson's bestseller, 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, recommends posting a hand-written thank-you note on the employee's office door, offering a half day off, using employees in commercials or a job title change.

Nevertheless, pay can't be ignored. Deeb believes, with merit budgets down, companies need to be careful about how they distribute scarce resources. "It's much better to strategically reward top performers rather than spreading merit pay like peanut butter. We found that top performing companies (the top 25 percent based on total shareholder return) did a much better job of differentiating and rewarding top performers." Other options include delaying bonuses in lieu of not giving them at all, and/or offering incentive pay to employees for increased productivity or sales.

According to Deeb, the most successful companies identify their top performers, make certain that those top performers know they are valued, and give them the biggest slices when divvying up the bonus pie. This is one way to improve morale and keep employees.

Paula Mohan, senior VP of operations for the American Cancer Society's Southeast Division, knows how critical good manager/employee dialogue is to employee retention and performance. When the company's HR executive recommended a "Why Do You Stay?" interview, based on Beverly Kaye's Love 'Em or Lose'Em, Mohan was interested. Many organizations do exit interview when people leave, but by then it's too late. Why not find out why people stay? "Each VP gave it to each of their managers," says Mohan. "The first two questions were, 'What about your job makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning?' and 'What makes you want to press the snooze alarm?'"

Mohan says she got great results. "The regional vice presidents sat down with each person and heard the good, the bad and the ugly. People felt heard, and the process helped build better relationships." At times managers discovered annoyances that could be quickly addressed. The process provided a platform for discussing long-term career goals and progress at other than performance appraisal time.

Good leaders at all levels are critical for creating an engaged, motivated work force, but it senior management says one thing and does another, those they supervise get conflicting messages about how they are expected to behave. Leaders who walk the talk become inspirational role models that mangers want to emulate.

"We see many organizations interested in teaching managers to be good managers, helping them learn to give people the feedback and coaching they want," Deeb says. "But I think for that to really work it must be part of the culture and modeled at the top. Companies often reward managers for financial success, but don't reward for good management skills."

Mohan tries to model an involving management style and to create a culture that supports the values of the organization. "We use 'cultural assessment' surveys that have been very helpful in making sure we're living our values and supporting our people." The surveys ask about things like company values, integrity and ethics, whether people feel respected at the office, and adaptability to change. "When we do a survey, we're committed to follow up," says Mohan. "We say, 'Here's what you told us we were doing well, here's what we're not doing well, and here's what we pledge to do about it.'"

ACS strives to have headquarters support the field, not vice versa. "We build our business plan from the bottom up," says Mohan. "Our managers out in the field make projections based on the potential of the area. Everyone is focused on our goal of eradicating cancer by 2015, so goals are aggressive. Managers write up their own business plan and roll it up to their manager, who rolls it up to me. That business plan also becomes a road map for the year."

Meg LaVigne goes even further, encouraging senior managers to be fully engaged with their employees. "Someone said before I took the GM job: 'Meg, being a GM is going to be really lonely.' I haven't found it to be at all lonely. I feel more connected that I ever have. If you don't put yourself on a pedestal, you won't be lonely."




Atlanta Woman - May/June 2003

Trucking With a Mission

Trucking With a Mission
Marcia G. Taylor
Chairman and CEO, Bennett International Group, Inc. (BIG)

Marcia G. Taylor is not your typical entrepreneur. She’s a matriarchal leader of a highly successful, Atlanta-based, family-owned and family-run, diversified trucking and transportation conglomerate that’s almost thirty years old.

Ranked #4 on the list of Atlanta’s Top 25 Women-Owned Firms – #107 on the Top 500 Women-Owned Companies in the U.S. at the end of 2000, Mrs. Taylor’s business profile also includes recognition as "Entrepreneur of the Year" by Ernst and Young, recipient of an Athena award, on the board of directors for Eagles’ National Bank and the Henry County Medical Center, and a member of the Georgia Motor Trucking Association. Her family and employees are also very supportive of various community initiatives including a shelter for abused children called A Friend’s House.

The road taken

Beyond the business profile and obvious accomplishments and contributions for which Marcia is known lies the heart, the brains, and the resolve of a steel magnolia. Her personal story began on a farm in southern Illinois. At sixteen, Marcia was married and had her first child at seventeen. The following year she had a second child, and by nineteen, she had her third. As happy as she was with her growing family, she admits that she married too young and there were difficulties.

"Wanting to start a new life, and knowing I needed to make a change," Marcia said, "I decided to move to Georgia in January, 1971." Perhaps because her husband was a truck driver, she got a job as a "girl Friday" in a small specialized trucking company. Marcia could not have known just how much this decision would alter her life. Neither did she know that it would pave the road for her family’s future.

Over the next few years, Marcia began to learn the specialty trucking business from the ground up. She also divorced her first husband and remarried – a "good man" whom she met at the company. At the same time, she continued to raise three children with the help of her mother. Marcia and her new husband, J.D. Garrison, soon saw an opportunity to buy the company from George Bennett. In 1974, with fifteen trucks in inventory, $500 cash on which to operate, six employees, two really good customers, and a lot of guts and determination, Marcia and J.D. began the journey to build their own business – one step and one struggle at a time.

In 1981, just when things were beginning to look up, J.D.died unexpectedly following a brief hospitalization in Texas. He was receiving treatment to help him quit smoking. For Marcia, it was a devastatingly painful blow, both personally and professionally. "To go on or to give up, those were my options," she said. Not being a quitter, Marcia dug in her heels – high heels though they may have been – and set about to grow the business primarily through diversification and non-traditional trucking services. She also learned to adapt to the impact of deregulation and listened even more intently to her customers and their changing needs. Her company’s motto and mantra soon became – Large enough to serve, small enough to care..

The making of a conglomerate

Today, the company prides itself on both its customer and employee loyalty. Customers include UPS, Ford, and AGCO. Marcia’s company not only does specialty trucking internationally, but hauls and drives customers’ equipment, moves buses across country for the Olympic games and other special events, picks up tractors at incoming ports, and provides warehousing. The newest enterprise is a motorcycle dealership, Easy Rider of Atlanta, which - not surprisingly in this family saga – is run by Marcia’s daughter-in-law.

"As we’ve grown," Marcia says, "our company has actually divided into eleven separate entities under the corporate umbrella which still oversees the core business. The management team is comprised of about twenty people including myself and my three grown children – two sons and a daughter. My mother has also worked with us in the past. Key managers have been brought in to add breadth and depth to the organization." Something else that has worked well for Marcia and BIG is the practice of hiring employees’ family members to work for the company, including husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, etc. "It may not work for other companies," Marcia said, " but it works here and it definitely builds loyalty."

Building a loyal work force is one clear example of Marcia’s impact as a leader. "I like to find good people, empower them, give direction in the course that I want, and let them go," she explains. "My own inspiration comes mainly from hard work and a deep faith." It isn’t too surprising then that one of her role models is Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s former prime minister, whom Marcia says always appeared to be a "tough old broad."

Leadership for tough times

Drawing a parallel to her own ability to weather tough personal times, Marcia spoke pragmatically about the future and her vision for the company in the years ahead. "Truthfully – the current year’s economic volatility has given me the greatest challenge our family-based company has had to face," she said. "Right now, we’re managing each day as it comes and we intend to stay the course. We’ve learned some valuable lessons from this experience, and we don’t plan to repeat any mistakes. By leveraging the company’s excellent reputation, controlling growth, and remaining true to our customers and what we do best, I believe our company and our family will continue to do well."

"It’s not our goal to sell," Marcia added, "and we have a second generation already in place. Our family meets once a quarter and we’re still solidly committed to the business. We love it. I may step back in ten years or so, but the business will be in good hands."

No doubt it will. This lady, this leader, this family matriarch has created a legacy in her industry – not to mention a way of life for her extended family. Her pride is justified. No wonder her employees often call her "MOM" and that the average tenure is twenty-eight years.

September 2001
By Susan B. Hitchcock (Creator of the Age of SHEroes)
VP - Client Services -Turknett Leadership Group

Carter Center Appoints Atlanta Leaders to Board of Councilors -- May 2004

Carter Center Appoints Atlanta Leaders to Board of Councilors

20 May 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jon Moor
404-420-5107



ATLANTA....The Carter Center, a not-for-profit organization working to promote health and peace worldwide, recently appointed 20 new members to its Board of Councilors, bringing its membership to 202.


The Board of Councilors is a leadership advisory group that promotes understanding of The Carter Center and its activities among opinion leaders and the broader community. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter and staff give updates on Center activities to board members throughout the year.


"The Board of Councilors features some of Atlanta's most dynamic business leaders," President Carter said. "When we founded The Carter Center, Rosalynn and I envisioned a Board of Councilors that would help to create an intimate link between the Center, the city of Atlanta, and the state of Georgia. These new members will continue to promote the work of the Center in their communities."


Since its founding in 1987, the Board of Councilors has been led by some of Atlanta's most distinguished civic leaders including its current chair, Paula Lawton Bevington, director of development of the Marcus Institute, and vice chair, Frank Belatti, chairman of AFC Enterprises.


The Board of Councilors' new members are:

• Dr. Marilyn S. Black, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Air Quality Sciences
  
• Jason and Kate Carter
  
• Bob Crispin, Chairman and CEO, ING Investment Management American Region
  
• Ed Ellis, VP Business Development, URS Corp.
  
• Rex Fuqua, President and CEO, Fuqua Capital Corporation
  
• José Ignacio González, Executive Director, Hemisphere Inc.
  
• Phil Greifeld, Chief Executive Officer, Huddle House
  
• Dr. Richard L. Hammonds, Medical Director, WellStar Health System
  
• C. Tycho Howle, Chairman, nuBridges, LLC
  
• Jim McAlpin, Chairman, Powell Goldstein Frazer & Murphy
  
• Kris Miller, President, Ackerman & Co.
  
• Karen Robinson, President and CEO, Prime Point Media
  
• William M. Sharp, Sr., Partner, Sharp, Smith & Harrison P.A.
  
• Calder Sinclair, President, Sinclair, Townes & Company
  
• William R. Spalding, Partner, King & Spalding
  
• Wally Stover, CEO, Wally Stover Homes
  
• Marcia Taylor, President and CEO, Bennett International Group
  
• John Watts, President and CEO, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia
  
• Don Williams, President and CEO, Princeton Healthcare
  

---

The Carter Center was founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, in partnership with Emory University, to advance peace and health worldwide. A not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization, the Center has helped to improve life for people in more than 65 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity; preventing diseases; improving mental health care; and teaching farmers to increase crop production. To learn more about The Carter Center, please visit: www.cartercenter.org

Doing The Fun Stuff

Cover Story
Ground Support
By John Latta

Airline Transportation Specialists veteran Tom Hipp delivers to Northwest Airlines in Minneapolis

When Ray Cline pulled out of Ogden, Utah, bound for the Tampa (Fla.) International Airport in late June, his 12-foot-wide load weighed 100,000 pounds and was 100 feet from bumper to rear overhang. He was pulling one of the most awkward loads aviation haulers ever carry — an extendable motorized boarding bridge used to load and unload passengers from airplanes.

“They’re long, they’re top heavy and they bridge the trailer,” says Cline, an owner-operator with a 1997 Kenworth T800 and double-drop lowboy leased to Bennett Motor Express of McDonough, Ga. “The front is on the trailer’s front deck and it’s hanging over at the back of the trailer, and there’s a lot of spring in one of these. They can get awkward in a hurry.”

Awkward, it seems, is a buzzword in aviation hauling. Passenger boarding bridges aside, consider some of the loads: jet engines, wings, nose cones, radar domes, fuselages, de-icers, pushback tugs, erected scaffolding, thrust reversers, landing gear, baggage carts, freight containers.

Ask Boeing company driver Donny Jones what the most uncomfortable part of hauling a $20 million dollar jet engine, fully rigged and ready to be bolted on to a jumbo jet wing is and he’ll tell you “It’s four-wheel drivers in my blind spot trying to take pictures.”

Or talk to Airline Transportation Specialists (ATS) veteran Tom Hipp, who often has to stop and take the wheels off of tall de-icing equipment to fit it into some awkward places. Then he has to put them back on when he’s through.

Or ask Boeing’s Bob Schoenleber, who has to run through small communities and out-of-the-way roads to avoid low overpasses when he’s hauling rocket parts from Seattle to Southern California.

Versatile Drivers
If loads are commonly labeled awkward, aviation industry drivers are known to be versatile, adaptable or creative because of the way they can handle them.

“Somebody who is good at this can make the most difficult job look easy,” ATS co-owner Tom Medved says. “But it isn’t. It requires top of the line drivers, the very best. We have them, but I’ll tell you, we’re looking for more, the best can be hard to find.”

Trucking companies that haul for the aviation industry know there is little room for error. Airlines won’t tolerate damage, and it’s not because of the astronomical cost of most of the material these guys haul — it’s the lack of a big inventory. “If something gets damaged, like say a jet engine, it takes a while to get another one — and that means an airplane sitting on the ground, and no airline will stand for that,” says Medved.

Dave Young, the Memphis agent for Bennett’s parent company Bennett International Group, says he is amazed at what aviation industry haulers can do. “They impress the heck out of me. And I’m a dispatcher!” he jokes.

Hipp, 51, who pilots a ‘98 Peterbilt 379, is based in Minneapolis, and says hauling aviation equipment requires boundless resourcefulness and specialized knowledge from a driver because almost any of the industry’s big loads comes with its own set of problems and variables. “But,” Hipp says, “it’s up to the driver to make it work, whatever it is.”

Medved says Hipp is a classic example of someone who is “making things work.” He labels Hipp as “a driver/mechanic/engineer.” Because of loads like de-icing equipment, which constantly create delivery problems because they are tall enough to reach jumbo jet wings, Hipp keeps his toolbox well stocked and handy.

“I carry tools for the special problems I know are likely to come up, including a 20-ton hydraulic jack and a 12-ton, and pneumatic wrenches that I need for de-icers,” Hipp says. “I can take the wheels off, get under something and then put then back later. I could wait for a crane or someone from the airline to help, but it’s my way to do it myself, faster, better for everyone.”

Medved says airlines rely on a good trucking company to help keep their costs down. ATS has developed a strong working relationship with Northwest Airlines over the years, so, while Hipp has to deadhead a lot of miles out of Minneapolis, the airline helps where it can.

Recently he needed to pickup some tugs — the pushback tractors that move airplanes on the tarmac — in Toronto and haul them back to Minneapolis. Northwest found Hipp an engine that needed to go from Minneapolis to Detroit and a load of baggage carts that needed to go from Detroit to Toronto.

Most jet engines that tractor-trailer are stripped down units that are crated, unlike Boeing’s fully worked up, ready-to-go giants. Crated engines but must be chained down properly. The engine inside is bolted to a frame and protected by shock absorbers. But chains can’t touch the engine because the soft metal could be severely damaged. Drivers complain that weigh station officials are regularly puzzled by the chaining setup and delay trucks as they argue the case.

These engines come with another potential problem: they are not filled with hydraulic fluid under pressure, so one major pothole can actually damage bearings and send the engine back to the shop.

Baggage carts can be stacked up to get a lot of them on a trailer. But if you don’t have a full support staff at the other end, the driver has be creative to get them off at when delivering. Hipp must carry the proper tools and equipment to unload them himself if he has to rather than wait for heavy lifting equipment.

But tugs, at 60,000 pounds or more, can destroy a trailer. “Those big push-back tractors have rubber tires,” says Hipp. “You have to jack them up then put hardwood blocks under them. If you don’t, those wheels will bounce, and snap chains like a string of popcorn. And if the blocks are softwood, the wheels will eventually smash it and then they’ll start bouncing.”

Young also sees tugs as potential headaches. “We haul a lot of tugs,” he says. “They can weigh over 85,000 pounds, and they’re wide too. You need a double-drop trailer and eight axles, sometimes 10. Part of the problem they bring is that you also have a lot of service equipment that goes with them and we sometimes move four or five at a time. We just took a lot of them from Florida to California for shipment overseas. The support equipment trucks go faster than the trucks hauling the tugs. They have less restrictions so they can also go a more direct route. The nightmare is to get them all to the port at the same time because the shipper doesn’t want to store them even for a day.”

One of Bennett’s most intriguing hauls was some of the scaffolding that fits around a parked aircraft’s shell so work can be done on its exterior. “This isn’t the sort of scaffolding that you see set up around buildings,” says Young. “It’s prefabricated and you can’t take it all apart. We took a load from Denver to Tacoma, Wash., a few days ago. When it was loaded it was nine inches too high. The driver and the guys loading it worked on that for 18 hours to get it legal so the shipper wouldn’t have to pay extra to run it over height.”

Cline, 35, married years and a father of two young boys who lives in Tallahassee, Fla., is a third-generation trucker, who says the hardest part about hauling multi-sized aviation equipment is dealing with four-wheelers.

“I’ve learned to ‘read’ cars, to be ready for someone when they get impatient or when they drive to close to get a look,” he says. “Going through an intersection I need every inch there is and then some more, and while you’re turning you have to see every vehicle around you because some of them are just looking for an opening to race through. There are times I’m amazed at the risks they take.”

Cline, and another Bennett driver with another passenger boarding bridge rolling along behind him, faced some major potential headaches hauling these behemoths more than 2,300 miles across eight states including loading delays, countless permits pickups, routing logistics to comply with city and state regulations, weather woes (especially wind), parking and law enforcement hassles.

Cline says he doesn’t hit the road until he is comfortable with the load. “I’m the one who decides how it’s going to be put on my trailer and secured,” he says. “I’m the one who must be satisfied before I move. Sometimes you look at the load and it all fits together quickly, other times there are nagging worries that have to be worked through.”

Seattle-Everett is the seventh most crowded metropolitan driving area in America — and 777 engines attract four-wheel gawkers ‘like a magnet’ to Boeing semis.

Schoenleber says Boeing adheres to the same philosophy with its drivers. “They’ve been great at listening to drivers,” Schoenleber says. “They don’t question us if we have a problem. They back us up. It’s safety first. A haul that’s safe to one driver may not be to another. The driver makes the decision.”

Schoenleber, 57, has been driving since 1968 and has spent the last 16 years at Boeing. His main work is hauling oversize loads, like jumbo ready-to-mount jet engines, in the Seattle/Puget Sound area that is the company’s manufacturing home base.

Schoenleber also works two weeks out of 16 on long hauls to Southern California. Some runs collect consolidated general freight from various Boeing vendors at a new Seal Beach facility.

But another Southern California run is not as simple. Boeing is part of a joint program called Sea Launch, a cooperative effort between the U.S. company and Russian, Norwegian and Ukrainian agencies. Rockets are assembled in Long Beach, Calif., and carried out to the equator by ship where they are launched, the most efficient way to get a satellite into geostationary orbit above the earth.

“We haul the farings and other portions of the top of the rocket that house the satellite. We leave here 86 feet long, including the tractor, 14 feet wide, 15 feet or more high and with four inches of ground clearance,” says Schoenleber. “We spend our time skirting overpasses and bridges and running through small communities. It’s quite a drive.”

When the Boeing boys bring 147-foot wings from one their manufacturing facility to the fuselage for attachment they are running with a steer trailer. With 70-foot wings for smaller planes a stretch trailer does the work.

Jones, 44, who has been with Boeing five years, says he makes sure not to get into a routine mindset. “We are constantly changing from one heavy load to another, and each one of those has its own demands, there are no short cuts,” he says. “For example a lot of manufacturing tooling has wheels on it so that it can move around a facility or be easily moved to another. After moving an engine that is bolted down, moving a heavy machine with wheels is a totally different mindset with different safety and logistic worries.”

And when it’s engines that Jones and Schoenleber carry they face another problem — they often drive through major metropolitan areas like downtown Seattle, where the big engines that power Boeing 777s attract four-wheel gawkers who drive perilously close to the Boeing Freightliners. “These engines are like magnets,” says Schoenleber.

Airport Delivery
Delivery to the airport has its own set of problems. “A lot of 25-year-old airports never dreamed that 53-foot trailers and big tractors would have to get in and move around,” says Medved “We try not to send someone who is brand new into difficult airports.”

ATS works a great deal with Sky Chef, delivering to the airline caterer.

“Their operations are closer to the main area of the airport, so we can have some troubles getting in and out,” Medved says. “When you’re not working near the perimeters there’re a lot of buildings to negotiate, especially at the big airports like a JFK or Newark. There’s very little room to maneuver.”

Hipp says fewer access gates at airports now also cause some problems. “Sometimes you have to go in one that is not really designed for big loads and you might have to wind your way through narrow alleys and roads,” Hipp says. “And a lot of security guys don’t understand that my 70 -foot load won’t make that 90-degree turn that they’ve been told is the only way to go.”

Surprisingly, hauling to airports is still more mundane than heightened post-Sept. 11 security would suggest. Medved feels some of the security changes have actually helped companies delivering aviation material. “You can’t really go to the wrong place any more, someone will stop you,” he says. “I suppose we may get tied up in security a little longer, but sometimes we actually make up time because we don’t go to the wrong places.”

Who is David Close?

David Close

Bennett International Group
McDonough,

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Role and responsibilities: Program Project Management – Developed Yard Management, Warehouse Management, Transportation Management and Repo’d Homes Management Applications for Bennett Internal and External Customers Administration and Strategic Planning Customer Integration Management and Consulting Direct Supervision of Java and AS 400 Programmers

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University/College Affiliations: Jones International University - Denver, CO
Positions held prior to current:
Professional organization affiliations: APICS
Community/volunteer involvement:
Most challenging business decision:
Biggest mistake ever made and lesson(s) learned:
Most important lesson learned from a mentor:
Most admired leader (business or otherwise): Ronald Reagan
Most overrated technology:
Most underrated technology:

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My Personal Favorites -
Book: Band of Brothers - Stephen E. Ambrose
Quote:
Saying:
Spot in Georgia: North Georgia Mountains
Hobby: Performing Music, Reading, Woodworking
Executive gadget: North Georgia Mountains
Car:
Best advice to those just starting out in technology: Learn How to Speak a Foreign Language

New Imaging System

Trucking Company Gears Up
With Document Imaging

Research shows the typical business stores 95% of its information in paper form. While computers and networks have inundated the workplace, generally they contain less than 5% of a company's total information. That was the case of the Bennett International Group - before imaging.

Business Solutions, June 1998 by Joseph Legler

Bennett Motor Express, a nationwide trucking company (McDonough, GA) and subsidiary of Bennett International Group, had too many documents on paper. Because the trucking industry is heavily regulated, records must be retained and produced for audits by the U.S. Department of Transportation to verify safety regulations, vehicle maintenance and driver-rest periods. Bennett tracks vast amounts of information, including drivers' logs, bills of lading and various other forms originating from more than 70 locations across the nation. With every square foot of space in Bennett's buildings used to house sales, marketing and accounting departments, Bennett was running out of space for more administrative people and paper. The company would print and distribute reams of daily reports to various departments. Printing and distribution costs were in the thousands.

Something had to be done to relieve the waves of paper that were swamping the company. Bennett's customer service personnel alone were spending between 70 and 80 percent of their time looking for information. "Transportation is an on-time business," says Bennett founder and CEO Marcia Taylor. "Drivers are always in the field waiting to pick up the next load and waiting to be paid, so it's important we work in real-time with all of our information."

Imaging Solution Delivers Answer
Taylor decided to try document imaging as a means of helping the company maintain its growth within its present infrastructure. For ease of use, Bennett selected a system which required no custom programming. The system consisted of FileClerk® and Mirror Image software from Inter-American Data (Lawrenceville, GA), A RAID subsystem, an AS/400 mainframe, an NT server running Optical Technology Group's DiskExtender, and an HP jukebox.

The system allows Bennett to index and file drivers' logs, fuel tickets, safety and maintenance reports, bills of lading, etc. - all as a byproduct of data entry. Invoices, accounts payable checks and business reports generated on Bennett's AS/400 are automatically captured, indexed and filed as well. "There was no custom programming needed," says Taylor. "This system is user-friendly. Within thirty days of installation, the system was implemented and all the users were trained and operating."

Taylor liked the system because the installation did not require additional code to be written for pre-existing programs on the AS/400. With an extra mouse click or keystroke, Bennett employees can either grab an image or digitize a document from within existing software applications.

Archiving Saves Company Thousand Of Dollars
FileClerk allows Bennett to capture 100% of all inbound information instead of just a portion - giving the AS/400 a photographic memory. Original documents are scanned at high speed, indexed, compressed and stored on RAID disks or DASD (Direct Access Storage Device) on the AS/400.

Mirror Image, the sister product of FileClerk, is used to archive anything the AS/400 prints. "We anticipate saving between $4,000 and $5,000 a month on copy machine and fax paper alone," says Taylor.

The Imaging Process At Bennett
When trip tickets are received in the imaging department at Bennett, all fuel tickets, driver's logs and delivery receipts are scanned in batches and indexed immediately. This enables the settlement department to pay drivers right away. The driver logs are routed to the driver log department where the logs are auto-filed as a by-product of data entry. The audit department can immediately check to be sure that each driver is not spending too many hours behind the wheel. The accounts payable department uses the system to more efficiently store and retrieve invoices pertaining to maintenance performed on truck trailers.

No Custom Programming Needed
High speed filing and indexing does not have to be managed by the Bennett AS/400. Since its imaging application is a true client-server application, the images and their corresponding indices are mapped to an NT server running Microsoft SQL as a database and Optical Technology Group's (OTG) DiskExtender software for proper caching and permanent filing to optical disks in an HP jukebox.

Bennett's entire installation was very fast by industry standards. The workstations were upgraded to Pentium status with 32 megs of RAM and minimum 17-inch SVGA monitors added. Bennett's MIS department time stamps each electronically-filed document by department. Different periods of retention are allowed on the NT server's RAID drives for the fastest possible response time. The software knows which platters in the jukebox belong to which department. At night, it files documents or copies them from the cache to the corresponding optical disks. Immediate access is simultaneously available to all users because of the software's management of the disk cache on the NT server's RAID drives. The file is held in the cache for a predetermined amount of time and the jukebox is searched only when that file is not found in the cache. Bennett's imaging system responds in less than one second to a maximum of five seconds.

Agilysys -- R-File Manager Meets Challenge of Real-Time Recordkeeping

About Us

Dear Valued Customer: Over the years we have taken pride in providing our customers with excellent service, all across this great country.

And we want to continue the tradition by introducing, Bennett International Transport, your global connection, for international shipments around the world. At Bennett International Transport we have the staff, resources, and Knowledge to move your valuable cargo to any destination. With our global partners located strategically around the world, we can now provide competitive pricing for both import and export moves. With the ever-growing international market place, it is important that we continue to expand and grow our overseas presence.

If you require Ocean, Air, Truck, Rail or Barge we at BIT can arrange the shipment of your cargo in the safest, most cost effective and efficient manner. Our staff has years of experience working with other countries to provide the necessary paperwork needed for both import and export shipments. At BIT we are both a NVOCC (non- Vessel Operating Common Carrier) and Freight Forwarder who can handle all of your global needs.

At Bennett International Transport, we can move anything from small cargo to large projects, all receiving the same attention to detail for each shipment. The one reason we can do this is because we have joined with major ship lines and airlines to provide some of the lowest prices in the industry to key locations around the world, giving you and your customer the edge in international shipping.

Let our experts at BIT provide you with rate quotes, letters of credit, and plan logistics, plus provide the answers you need. And with our "One Bill Concept" we can take the hassle out of paying for your shipment. With this one invoice all costs are itemized for your convenience.

Before you pay too much for your next shipment, let the experts at Bennett International Transport be "Your Global Connection" around the world.

Marcia G. Taylor
President/CEO

The Management Team

Lee Gentry
President, BIT
lee.gentry@bennettig.com

Phil Gurney
National Sales Manager
phil.gurney@bennettig.com

Robert Rockwood
Operations Manager
robert.rockwood@bennettig.com

Ronald Joseph
Managing Director
ronald.joseph@bennettig.com

Lynette Alt
Marketing Director
lynette.alt@bennettig.com

Our Mission Statement

"Committed To Providing Our Customer with the highest Quality of Service, Value, And Integrity. Committed To 100% On-Time Delivery and Complete Customer Satisfaction."

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Bennett International Group, Inc. is Dedicated to the Principal and Philosophy of being a Leader in Both Domestic and International Transportation through Providing the Highest Quality Service, Safety Value and Integrity Resulting in Customer Satisfaction. Providing a Professional Environment to Enrich the Quality of Life for All. Fulfilling Our Civic and Social Responsibility in the Communities We Serve.