CEO John Elliott rattled off Load One’s achievements in the fast-paced world of expedited shipping during a chat with FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller on the FreightWavesTV show “Fuller Speed Ahead.”
“When you look at the world of transportation or trucking, everyone wants to optimize, squeeze every penny and learn how to preplan,” Elliott said. “We’re the polar opposite. We deal with everything on the fly.”
Elliott compared expedited services to calling an ambulance in that you only want to call when you have no other options. He said that although the service is faster than that of customary shipping, shippers should not rely solely on expedited shipping to optimize their supply chains. He even called the expedited industry the most inefficient model there is.
But its inefficiencies don’t make expedited service impractical. In fact, expedited shipping is extremely invaluable for goods needing to reach their destinations in a short period of time. Elliott pointed to supply chain disruptions and last-minute needs for such things as parts for an airplane repair as the main reasons for using expedited shipping.
Elliott recalled Load One delivering an emergency shipment of a specific baby formula for a newborn and having to do so in record time. “We had to go 700 miles nonstop with a sprinter van to get the formula there,” he said. “We literally knew there was an infant waiting and that was going to be the fastest route to get that there.”
Elliott said other unusual cargo Load One has hauled has included actor Mark Wahlberg’s personal gym between filming locations, rocket engines and even the Bumblebee prop for one of the “Transformers” movies.
“It can be a lot of automotive, manufacturing and aerospace parts and health care, but there are definitely some very interesting nuance items thrown in there that keeps things interesting for sure,” Elliott said.