Wisconsin trucking firm opens regional center in North Salt Lake
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Wisconsin trucking firm opens regional center in North Salt Lake
Olson, Debbi
Schneider National Inc., one of the nation's largest truckload carriers, has entered the Utah market with the opening of a regional center in North Salt Lake. The center is one of our new regional facilities the Green Bay, Wisc.-based company recently opened in the western United States in order to meet a growing demand for its services.
The new regional center is designed to effectively meet customers' rapidly growing short-haul shipping demands. The North Salt Lake center will serve as a hub for customer service representatives and drivers dedicated solely to the company's new Schneider Regional Service division.
"We've serviced customers out of Utah in the past but we didn't have a physical presence here," said Marc Rogers, vice president of regional services for Schneider. "Utah is an important part of the western United States and a very good location - from a growing economy to a good workforce - and really what's most important to us is to find good quality people. We feel very strongly about what we can find in Utah and growing our business."
The company will hire nearly all of its employees from within the area and plans to grow its fleet from 12 trucks, which it currently has, to between 50 and 60 trucks by the end of the year. Within the next few years, Rogers said, the Salt Lake fleet should increase to approximately 200 trucks.
"This is all getting closer to our customers and closer to our employees and really getting into the market that we're servicing." Rogers said. "We feel that it's important to be in that market and to hire people in that market and we felt that Salt Lake City, and Utah in general, was a good place to be."
Located on about three acres at 35 N. 700 W. in North Salt Lake, the regional center will have its own dispatchers as well as a sales and customer service staff that will work with local and regional customers in the area. The facility also includes a driving recruitment staff and will conduct onboard driving and safety training sessions as well as a series of driver orientations.
"Safety is a big part of our value in teaching our drivers to be safe on the road," Rogers said. "Previously new drivers would have had to travel somewhere else in the country for orientation and safety sessions. Now we are able to do that orientation and training in Salt Lake, which was another big reason why we wanted to be in the area."
Schneider National is a truckload carrier of goods of all shapes of sizes. It delivers manufactured goods to distribution centers, such as those operated by Wal-Mart in Utah, and also delivers goods from the distribution centers to the associated stores or other locations.
"With the rise of retailer distribution centers and hub-and-spoke models, many of today's shippers are averaging a length of haul of less than 500 miles per shipment," Rogers said. "Schneider Regional specializes in this kind of move, where drivers who transport these short-haul loads get to know their routes like the back of their hands. This translates into highly efficient service."
Schneider's drivers are typically away from home for a week, then home for a couple of nights, then back on the road delivering either within the state or going to and from California or Arizona, but primarily staying within the seven-state western region.
With the addition of regional service, Schneider's portfolio now includes three solutions for dry van truckload - expedited, long-haul and short-haul regional.
Since creating the Western Regional Service division in January, Schnieder has also opened regional centers in Fontana, Calif., Portland, Ore., and French Camp, Calif.
Copyright Enterprise Business Newspaper Inc. Jun 2, 2008
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
Utah, Salt Lake Crossroads of the west baby....
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