John Johnson wanted to pass on a couple of instances of supervisors taking the extra step to ensure Customer Satisfaction and Team building with the Drivers.
Attached are photos from the unloads.
When loaning drivers out to driver-unload accounts that they are not accustomed to it can take a toll on them. We hear from many of them saying they felt muscles in their bodies that they had not used in years. Dave Raybeck was an example of this on Wednesday, 02/13/2013 when he called account management in Owensboro, KY. Dave was on his second load of the week and had not had a shower since Monday. He was delivering about 20 minutes from Owensboro in Calhoun, KY and said he thought he would have to stay at the store overnight because of running out of hours after the unload. Chris Savelle and Nick Van Hooser drove to Calhoun, KY and met Dave to make what would have been a 2-3 hour single person unload in about an hour wit hthe asistance. Dave was able to make it to the truck stop that night for a hot shower and meal.
Spencer Tapp was delivering to a Dollar General store in Owensboro, KY late in the day on Friday 02/22/2013 with a large sized load of over 1300 pieces. For a single driver to unload this much freight it would have taken several 4 hours. Chris Savelle and Nick Van Hooser assisted with this unload as well and were able to get the freight off in time for the driver to start his break and be early for his delivery the following day in Newburgh, IN.
This strategy has proven to build rapport with the drivers and make them more willing to lend a helping hand when asked in the future.
Recently one of our company drivers (Terry McCue) decided that he wanted to become an owner operator. Terry has been with JB Hunt since July of 2010, and has spent the whole time on the Family Dollar account. He just purchased a brand new Volvo, and is ready to pull his first load out of FD as an owner operator. Here are some pictures of Terry's new rig.
For a special time only, J.B. Hunt will be offering the Clean Inspection Incentive Program for all drivers. During the month of March 2013, any driver that achieves a clean Level 1 or Level 2 roadside inspection will be paid $25.00.
To qualify for the $25.00, the following requirements must be met: 1) Must undergo a Level 1 or 2 inspection; 2) There can be absolutely NO violations on the inspection; 3) The inspection form must be scanned or faxed in within 10 days from the date of inspection. Calling in to report the inspection does not count; 4) The inspection must take place between March 1 and March 31.
Some tips to help you achieve a clean inspection:
1. Make sure to always complete a proper pre-trip every day. Document any defects and get those defects repaired immediately. Pay special attention to lights, tires, and brakes.
2. Verify that your CDL is and medical card is valid and in your possession.
3. Verify all permits, registration, and insurance is current and valid.
4. Make sure your logs are accurate and current at all times.
Whirlpool, the maker of home appliances, reported late last month a fourth-quarter profit that fell 40%, although lower costs and higher prices helped the company expand its appliance-business income. The company’s 2013 per-share earnings forecast of $9.80 to $10.30, and adjusted per-share earnings of $9.25 to $9.75, exceed Wall Street estimates. Whirlpool also expects industry-wide shipments of appliances from manufacturers to rise 2% this year to 3%. Whirlpool said an improved U.S. housing market and sales growth in developing markets fueled the higher forecast. Last week, the company announced that its board approved a quarterly dividend of 50 cents a share. Shares of Whirlpool were up 99 cents to $110.59 just after Wednesday’s opening bell.
Quarterly net income at Home Depot, the biggest US home improvement chain, surged 32 percent to $1.02 billion, beating expectations. Full-year net income rose 17 percent, to $4.54 billion. The results were helped by strong US sales and the Hurricane Sandy cleanup. Rival Lowe’s Cos. on Monday also beat profit estimates — more evidence of a housing market recovery. Home Depot said that its results were strong across the country — even in places not hurt by the storm.
J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ: JBHT) announced the Company has been recognized by Walmart for Innovative Excellence in Transportation for 2012.
In a letter of commendation to J.B. Hunt, Rob Kusiciel, Vice President Walmart Inbound Transportation, and Ken Braunbach, Senior Director of Transportation, wrote: “We are aware of the operational challenges and financial pressures the transportation industry continues to face. Your ability to rise above these obstacles has won our utmost trust and confidence. We look forward to continuing our rewarding partnership for the years to come.”
John N. Roberts, III, President and Chief Executive Officer of J.B. Hunt, said, “J.B. Hunt prides itself on being an industry leader in finding creative and novel solutions to the transportation needs of our customers. We truly appreciate this recognition from Walmart and look forward to continuing our work together optimizing their transportation network.” Through capitalizing all resources – Intermodal,Dedicated Contract Services, Final Mile, Integrated
Capacity Solutions and Truckload – J.B. Hunt has the ability to provide comprehensive solutions to nearly every supply chain network. This enterprise approach allows J.B. Hunt to fully integrate the increasingly
complicated and multiple transportation requirements of customers into a seamless process.
A particular analysis company has reported off and on over the years relative to the continued transformation at J.B. Hunt, away from the traditional truckload carriage upon which the legendary J.B. Hunt founded the company on, and towards intermdodal and "dedicated" services.
J.B. Hunt's Q4 earnings report triggered us to see how this has unfolded over the past 10 years. Below is a graphic of Hunt's revenue by major business segment from 2002 versus 2012.
As can be seen, over that time, straight truckload carriage has shrunk from 36% of the business to just 10% in 2012. Meanwhile, intermodal revenue has grown from 36% of the total to 60%. (Note: the "integrated capacity solutions" segment, a 3PL transportation management type service, appears not to have really existed in 2002.)
In absolute numbers, straight truckload revenue has decreased from $827 million in 2002 to just $488 million last year. Meanwhile, intermodal has grown from $809 million to more than $3 billion in 2012. Dedicated has also grown, but at a slower pace, rising from $628 million in 2002 to just over $1 billion last year.
Frankly, we thought J.B. Hunt was just getting into intermodal in 2002, but obviously the strategy was already well in place by then.
The transformation is even more dramatic when in comes to profits. The chart below shows the share of operating income for Hunt by business unit.
Here, the straight truckload business has seen its share of profits at Hunt fall from 26% in 2002 to just 3% in 2012, while intermodal now dominates the business, producting 71% of profits. Wow.
Is regular truckload carriage from one of the industry's greatest TL carriers going away at some point? Not clear, but we will note Hunt downloaded its TL fleet size by almost 20% in Q4. Their may be a core that will remain strategic for Hunt, but that seems to be about it.
Whatever you think of that, it seems to be smart business strategy - J.B. Hunt saw profits rise another 20.8% in 2012, on a revenue gain of 11.7%. Other truckload carriers, notably Werner and Swift, seem to be getting the message based on their recent results that show much faster growth in these other types of services.
On Thursday night a celebration was held at Joe's Crab Shop in Louisville for Richard Love, who is retiring with over 24 years of service at JB Hunt.
Richard is a 3 Million Mile driver and celebrated with 2 fellow 3 Million Mile Team Toyota drivers, Al Skarya and Bob Pratt, along with his management team.
Richard has over 43 years in the trucking business, the last 24 with JB Hunt and the last 3 on the Toyota account.
Richard said he could have left long ago but "he enjoyed working for JB Hunt and he always made Money"
In retirement Richard looks forward to Traveling, Fishing and Tinkering, he has a huge selection of tools and enjoys building and working on anything with metal or wood.
Richard was one of those drivers that was always there for you, always willing to help out, and you knew that the outcome was always going to be a quality job with no issues.
How do you show the team how much you appreciate their hard work? The managers at OVACO cooked breakfast for their drivers for going 200 days collision free and 300 days injury free. Everyone had a great time. It was said "there is nothing like coming to work and have a hot breakfast waiting for you". To the team at OVACO thank you for the great job you have done.
Jeff Holle was in charge of fixin the vittles........Thank you Jeff for taking the lead role as the chef!
Attached is week 2’s Late Delivery Notification Report. As you know, a few months ago you were asked to begin logging the date, time, and person you spoke to when completing our on-time reporting process. We have been tracking everyone’s progress in making sure to notify stores and all of the data is included on the “detail” tab of this scorecard for your review.
The expectation for notification of late stores is 100%. This week our network of carriers continued to improve and notified 85% of stores that were delivered late. Top performers were Greatwide in Alachua, Hogan in Fulton, Swift in Jonesville, JB Hunt in Scottsville and Ruan in South Boston. All notified 100% of their late deliveries.
Great Job to all of our Scottsville Team---Terry, Garek, and JR!
Please join us in congratulating Mike Quigley on his promotion to Account Manager for the Family Dollar - Morehead, KY site. In this new role, he will be supervising 30 Drivers and two Operations Supervisors at one of the Central Region's most challenging locations.
After working in sales for a 3rd party natural gas and electricity supplier, Mike joined the J.B. Hunt team in October 2010 as a DMIT. Through an exceptional work ethic, he quickly became an Operations Supervisor at the Home Depot account in Monroe, OH. After only being in this position for a few months, he moved up yet again into the Logistics Coordinator role where he has been doing next level work for the past year and a half.
Mike graduated from Wright State University in 2009 with a Bachelor's degree in Marketing and still has a passion for it. He is also an avid dart player and a diehard Cincinnati Bengals fan... Who Dey!
Let's all congratulate Mike on his promotion and wish him continued success.
We are pleased and excited to announce the promotion of Jamie Kleemook to Account Manager at PPG Industries. Jamie was hired in December of 2010, where he played an integral role during the management and operations team relocation from Delaware, Ohio to PPG Corporate Offices in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Under the leadership of Jerry Hoban, Jamie spent 18 months as an Operations Supervisor prior to being promoted to Logistics Coordinator. Jamie quickly excelled in the LC position as he oversaw the increase in driver utilization and overall driver productivity. Along with the PPG operations team, Jamie's roll was critical pertaining to the financial success of PPG, and taking home the Account of the Year for 2012. Furthermore, he was directly responsible for keeping the drivers busy (thus happy), which played a large part towards reduced turnover and PPG being the recipient of the Driver Dedicated Account of the Year for 2012.
Prior to Jamie's 2+ years with J.B. Hunt, he spent five years working in cross docking and transportation management for General Electric. He is a proud graduate from Penn State University, with a degree in Business Management and Administration. Jamie currently resides in the Pittsburgh suburbs with his wife Erin, and enjoys burning off stress at the gym, auto mechanics, and spending time with his local Pittsburgh family.
Please join the Central Region leadership team in congratulating Tracy Walker, our new Regional Operations Manager for the Final Mile Network. Tracy will be replacing Lloyd Trader on March 4, 2013.
Tracy began his career with J.B. Hunt in 2003 as an Operations Supervisor at the Archway Cookies in Ashland, OH. J.B. Hunt was fortunate to acquire Tracy's services from Archway Cookies. He had worked in various supervisory roles at Archway for 18 years, including the management of the private fleet drivers. After 1.5 years, Tracy was promoted to Account Manager II of the Archway account. Tracy was responsible for 30 drivers, 3 Operation Supervisors, and over 575 independent distributors over a delivery area that included everything east of the rocky mountains. In August of 2007, the opportunity to transition to safety arose in Columbus, OH. Tracy supported our Columbus Service Center as a Safety Instructor. As our region continued to grow, we quickly transitioned Tracy to an Area Risk Manager role for the state of Ohio.
With the addition of Final Mile Services in 2009, we placed Tracy at the Clyde, OH location. At the time, Tracy also owned the Solon, OH location until the official P & L split allowed for two separate LDC sites. Tracy's leadership helped Clyde and Solon perform to all our key service, safety and operational expectations. Due to a need for Tracy's safety skill and knowledge, we asked him to return to his ARM role in May 2011. He has supported accounts in OH, PA, MI and WV along with being a key component of our flawless Start Ups for Falcon Packaging, Pet Supplies Plus, Toys R Us, and COE Distributing.
Tracy attended North Central State College with a focus in Business Management and completed Leaders 301 in 2006. Tracy and his wife Lynn reside in Greenwich, OH. They have two children named Ashley and Adam. Ashley is a massage therapist in Cleveland and Adam is currently serving in Afghanistan with the US Army 1487th TC.
The Marco's Pizza franchise system has doubled in size in less than five years. Jack Butorac, CEO of the Toledo, Ohio-based chain, attributes the rapid growth to the company's "infrastructure."
Specifically, Marco's has about 55 area reps in place throughout the country actively seeking out franchisees who can operate at the company's standards level. Subway, Butorac says, became the largest restaurant chain in the world by using this same strategy.
The AR plan helped Marco's open 61 new locations in 2012, with plans for 104 more this year. Still, Butorac admits such numbers are "disappointing."
"We've got such a pipeline full of applicants and leases and it just takes time to get through bureaucracy," he said. "There is a huge amount of interest right now in the Marcos' brand and as we go through potential franchisees, a lot of them are qualified. We've just got to find them somewhere (to operate). We have a lot more opportunities out there than 104 stores this year."
Butorac's ultimate objective is to become the fourth largest pizza chain in the U.S., behind Domino's, Pizza Hut and Papa John's. Marco's would have to surpass many other big players to reach the No. 4 spot, including Little Caesars, Papa Murphy's, Chuck E. Cheese's, Sbarro and CiCi's.
He also wants to hit the $1 billion sales mark (only Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's and Little Caesars have done so). Revenue-wise, Marco's ranked No. 19 in 2012, with about $144M in sales, according to data from Technomic.
Butorac is optimistic about the daunting task.
"We're doing very well, our same-store sales are up and when we open up in more markets, interest in the brand magnifies," he said. "And (founder) Pasquale Giammarco created a fantastic product. Our team just needs to replicate what he created across the country."
The expansion strategy
Marco's is now in 26 states and is just starting to penetrate the West. The current push is to expand in Florida and California. The brand's strongest markets are in the Southeast and the Midwest, as well as Oklahoma and Texas.
Beyond 2013's goal of 104 new units, Butorac is aiming to open 153 new stores in 2014, followed by 230 in 2015.
"We have a five-year plan to get to (fourth largest). With all the area reps we have, they each need to open four stores. That's easy to do, especially if you have a franchisee out there that's got multiple stores," he said.
In addition to expanding through its AR network, Marco's also intends to leverage its fledgling partnership with Family Video to grow its footprint. In February 2012, Family Video announced its plans to invest $100 million to open Marco's locations near or in video stores to enhance its business. Since the first co-branded store opened in Bowling Green, Ohio, about a year ago, Marco's has added 60 locations and five states to its portfolio.
"They have 700-some locations. The founder doesn't believe in debt. They were familiar with our brand. It really is a progressive company with a strong business model and our management styles and cultures are similar," Butorac said. "It's been a phenomenal experience."
Co-branded Marco's and Family Video units typically split a building. Family Video can therefore shrink their footprint and lease the rest off to a Marco's franchisee. Since the initial agreement, Family Video's same-store sales and revenues have increased and a "huge number" of co-branded stores are planned in a short period of time, Butorac said.
Keeping it consistent
Other keys to Marco's ambitious growth include:
Maintaining product consistency. "Product is key," Butorac said. "Our product is well received across the country, so we need to make sure it's the same in Bowling Green (Ohio) as it is in Louisville (Kentucky)."
Butorac adds that Marco's is rolling out salads nationwide, and will also focus on sub sandwiches in the Midwest markets. "The salads and subs have been a part of Marco's menu for 15 years. We've just upgraded them. Before, they were good, just not Marco's good. Now they fit," he said.
Focusing on store-level profitability. Marco's has put together a task force that looks at every line on a PNL, every dollar spent and how the company can improve profitability without compromising its product. That could mean renegotiating contacts, relocating stores, etc.
Butorac also said the company spends a lot of time managing commodity prices. "We have our own distribution company and can buy several months' worth of a product so our franchisees won't feel price increases if they're coming," he said.
"Smart marketing." Finally, Butorac said it is important for the company to continually market its differentiation in a crowded pizza segment.
"We are authentic Italian. When you walk into one of our stores, you will have the perception that it's a quality product. Our dough is made fresh daily, our cheese is fresh, our sauce is an Italian family recipe. Our meats are hearty," he said. "Communicating those differences is a big focus of ours."
When Marco's first opened in Toledo in 1978, Giammarco avoided TV advertising. Now, the company has regional ad funds that primarily go toward TV, as well as print, social, billboards, etc. Also, Marco's now has a point-of-sale infrastructure in place that can mine customer data for future marketing.
"We are really mining that data. We want to know who you are, what you're ordering, what you're not ordering, how much you're spending, how much you're coming in. This way, we can tailor offers to entice you to buy new or more things," Butorac said. "You have to listen and monitor what your customers want in order to get them to come back and tell others to come in."
It seemed like we would never be able to invest in a true cross dock in the Cincinnati, OH area. We are still in a month-to-month relationship with our landlord, but we have finally placed a manager on-site and have plans to support a will call. Brian Turner is the Operations Supervisor in Cincinnati.
Here are the facts about our shared site with Petco:
5,255 square feet
5000 usable warehouse space
255 office space
5 tractor parking spaces
5 trailer parking spaces
4 dock high doors
We have new volume coming from Tempur Pedic. As you can see, these are large, bulky mattresses. One cool fact---the bear comes with the delivery!
Ray Martin, one of our valued drivers at The Home Depot-Monroe, OH Rapid Deployment Center, was honored on Thursday evening for achieving 1 Million Miles Safe Driving.
Ray and Linda joined Steve Rogers, John Kemp, Dustin Hatfield, and Alan Boadway at the Red Lobster in Cincinnati, OH and enjoyed a great meal. Luckily we were early and beat the Valentine's Rush.
Ray was hired in August 1999. He has worked in DCS at the following accounts: P & G Drop Lot, Southern Ohio Support Board, Primesource-Cincinnati, Office Depot and Wausau Paper previous to joining the Home Depot team.
Ray and Linda reside in Goshen, OH. We are very proud to be able to honor a driver that has been loyal to the company and has provided safety in everything that he does in his job duties.
Congratulations to Sidney Roberts, our January Central Region Driver of the Month!
Sid is a very valuable part of our team in Cincinnati, OH. As one of the veteran drivers on the team, Sid is very knowledgeable and experienced. He is our go to guy for important deliveries within the Cincinnati market due to his attitude, workmanship, and customer interaction. Sid's current home delivery performance score is 9.64. This score is extremely high, especially for an account that does a lot of home deliveries.
During the month of January, Whirlpool had a very important event at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Cincinnati with Home Depot. This event required us to send a team out to set up a display of several appliances (between 25-30 pieces). That day we sent Sid and his helper out to the site. Not only were they on-time, and delivered everything without damage, but the entire display was set up and taken down without any issues. The job took Sid over 5 hours to complete due to all of the pieces and having to work around people in the hotel, but Sid went out, got it done, and then still completed other deliveries that day.
Another example of Sid's willingness to help out is when another driver had a bad liftgate and was unable to do the delivery and of a large ICON treadmill. Sid ran his whole route that day and then came back and picked up this piece to deliver it, during the early evening, so the customer would have their treadmill as they expected. This prevented us from having to reschedule with the customer and having customer service issues.
Since his hire date in 2009, Sid also has zero collisions on his record and only 3 preventable incidents. (1 negative observation, 1 home delivery property damage (WOW!), and 1 negative DOT inspection). For almost 4 years with the company he has only had 3 negative incidents on his record.
Sid is a very valuable member of our team, and any account would be lucky to have him as one of their drivers.
Dear J.B. Hunt Final Mile Services Team-Solon, OH ,
I just wanted to send you a quick note in regards to the wonderful customer service Eddie and Brain provide me yesterday. They were not only
knowledgeable, friendly, and patient but they were extremely efficient.
They un boxed and dropped over 13 appliances in about 2.5 hours. I have
done large appliance shows numerous times, and they were by far the best JB
Hunt delivery people I have dealt with. I thought it was important for you
to know the caliber of individuals on your team.
Toys R Us Inc said on Wednesday that Gerald Storch will step down as its chief executive, just weeks after the world's largest dedicated toy retailer reported disappointing results for the all-important holiday season.
The news added to doubts about the retailer's chances to return to being a public company this year, after filing for an initial public offering in May 2010.
The company, which saw its U.S. sales fall during the holiday season, said it will start a search for a successor. Storch, 56, will remain chairman of the board.
"There was a lot of pressure on him, there was a lot of finger-pointing. 'How did he mess up 2011? Why wasn't 2012 better?'," a source familiar with the matter said.
Toys R Us first went public in April 1978 and operated as a public company until July 2005, when it was taken private by KKR & Co LP , Bain Capital and Vornado Realty Trust in a $6.6 billion deal.
While the company's results were far better when it was originally considering an IPO, some of the owners thought they would be able to raise more if they waited, the source familiar with the matter said.
But the results have lagged expectations since then.
"Everything subsequent to the decision not to go (public) at that time, you could probably say was the result of operation," the source said.
The New Jersey-based retailer's chances of going public this year are very small, two sources told Reuters this week.
"What will require (for a Toys R Us IPO in the future) is the owners to take a more conservative view of what the value of the company is," one of those sources said.
Toys R Us spokeswoman Kathleen Waugh declined comment on the IPO and did not give any more information on the CEO search. She said Storch was not available for an interview on Wednesday.
A former Target executive, Storch joined Toys R Us in 2006. While Storch has been credited for boosting the toy retailer's e-commerce business, the company operates in a tough industry where it competes against Wal-Mart Stores and Amazon.com .
1 + 1 = 2 Our Pittsburgh LDC Team has now delivered 2 Years Injury Free and the banner is hanging proudly at our site. We had every employee at the LDC sign the banner along with Steve Rogers, Tom Lastovica, Brad Hicks and Nick Hobbs. It is really a source of pride that we are able to recognize great performance in such a creative way.
For-hire trucking companies added 5,000 payroll jobs in January on a seasonally adjusted basis as the overall economy added 157,000 nonfarm jobs, according to the latest estimates released Feb. 1 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The national unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 7.9 percent.
Payroll employment in trucking in January totaled 1.375 million jobs — up 0.36 percent from December and 47,400 jobs, or 3.6 percent, from January 2012. The total number of seasonally adjusted payroll jobs is higher than previously reported because BLS has adjusted figures going back at least five years. Trucking employment is up by 141,100 jobs, or 11.4 percent, from the bottom in March 2010, but it remains 78,300 jobs, or 5.4 percent, below the January 2007 peak.
The BLS numbers for trucking reflect all payroll employment in for-hire trucking, but they don’t include trucking-related jobs in other industries, such as a truck driver for a private fleet. Nor do the numbers reflect the total amount of hiring since they only reflect the number of employees paid during a specified payroll period during the month. Due to high turnover rates, the BLS estimates may overstate the number of job positions due to the methodology used in the agency’s Current Employment Survey.
J.B. Hunt was active in a Career Fair at Ohio State University 2 weeks ago that Deirdre Staten organized. The participants included Matt Burns and Graham Watson from our intermodal division and John Kemp from the Dedicated Contract Services division. Several of our customers were represented at the career fair today.
Cargill
Coca Cola
Goodyear
JC Penny
Limited Brands
Scotts
Target
Toyota
Several competitors attended as well and are listed below:
We have officially moved into our new site in Noblesville, IN. The space is located in northeast Indianapolis. Here are some attributes of the site:
Total sq ft: 35,033
Warehouse: 32,033
Office: 3,000
Trailer parking: 10
Tractor parking: 10
Dock high doors: 7
Drive in doors: 1
For anyone involved in the old LTL crossdock, the new site is a welcome addition to our network. Some of us will miss the efficiency of the multiple door offerings that the previous location allowed our FMS loaders and drivers.
Please join the Central Region leadership team in congratulating Jerry Hoban, our new Regional Operations Manager for the Greater New York Region. Jerry will be replacing Matthew Walsh on March 4, 2013.
Jerry worked as a Store Manager at AutoZone prior to joining J.B. Hunt. Jerry was hired in March of 2008 as an Operations Supervisor at our Family Dollar account in Rome, NY. After 10 months of excellent performance, Jerry was promoted to Account Manager of the Cargill Animal Nutrition account with responsibility of the Liverpool and Gouverneur, NY sites. Both these operations saw great improvement during Jerry's brief tenure. In September of 2009 the decision was made to bring Jerry back to Family Dollar in Rome, NY as an Account Manager II. This account involved leading a team of 50 drivers/tractors and 2 Operations Supervisors. Meaningful steps were taken during the 1.4 years of Jerry's leadership in the areas of risk management, tractor utility, and budget effectiveness.
With the move of our PPG-Delaware, OH fleet to the 35th floor of PPG place in downtown Pittsburgh, a search for a leader was undertaken throughout our division. Jerry applied for the Transportation General Manager opportunity and has performed admirably for the past 2 years. As a testament to the leadership exhibited by Mr. Hoban, our PPG team was awarded the Central Region Driver Dedicated Account of the Year and Overall Account of the Year for 2012 for our large account category. The performance of this fleet under Jerry's direction has been solid in all the key metric areas.
Jerry is originally from the Utica, NY area. He is a graduate of St. John's University in Queens, NY with a degree in Business Administration. With the promotion to Operations Manager, we fully expect Jerry to return to the Central New York area. He will be leaving behind great memories of a flawless startup with PPG and a set of season tickets for the 2013 Pittsburgh Pirates season.
Toyota scored huge sales gains last month, besting Detroit's Big 3.
The top-selling Japanese automaker, now the largest maker in the world, says sales rose 26.6% last month. The day also brought a double dose of good news for Toyota: it's U.S. tracking stock was trading at a 52-week high.
Lately, Toyota has indicated it has been making huge sales increases with its Prius hybrid lineup, which includes several models. January was the best month ever for Prius and hybrid sales overall were up 45.4%.
Whirlpool is considered by many to be a bellwether of consumer demand, with discretionary items such as Maytag and KitchenAid appliances.
Jeff Fetting, the Whirlpool CEO, said new home construction is "on its way to recovery and it is clearly creating new appliance demand." He does, however, see weakness in discretionary spending, which he sees as driven by consumer confidence.
"We're coming off low levels and we have a long way to go before we come to what we consider to be a norm," he said.
This video is some of the most powerful I have seen regarding safety and the trucking industry. As you know, we have made a meaningful investment in Bendix Wingman and Peoplenet. We are also testing lane departure technology.
The video should also be extremely important considering the fact that one of our Home Depot-Monroe drivers was involved in the crash in Plainfield, IN.
Watch this video with your drivers and your fellow employees. Spread the word on this information. Send the blog address to your drivers and their families.
