O’Connor named YRC COO; remains president of YRC Freight

· Thursday, June 06, 2019

T.J. O'Connor (Photo: YRC)

Less-than-truckload carrier YRC Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:YRCW) said Thursday it has named T.J. O’Connor the company’s chief operating officer, filling a post vacant since April 2018 when then-COO Darren Hawkins was promoted to the CEO position.

O’Connor will remain as president of YRC Freight, YRC’s long-haul unit. He will report to Hawkins, the company said.

O’Connor has spent 35 years in the LTL industry, starting with the former Roadway Express, which YRC, then known as Yellow Freight Corp., acquired in 2013. He became president of YRC Freight in January 2018.

On Tuesday, Justin Hall announced that he was stepping down as YRC’s chief customer officer, a position that was newly created when Hall filled it three years ago. YRC has not determined if it will replace Hall or if it will maintain the position.

Mark Solomon

Formerly the Executive Editor at DC Velocity, Mark Solomon joined FreightWaves as Managing Editor of Freight Markets. Solomon began his journalistic career in 1982 at Traffic World magazine, ran his own public relations firm (Media Based Solutions) from 1994 to 2008, and has been at DC Velocity since then. Over the course of his career, Solomon has covered nearly the whole gamut of the transportation and logistics industry, including trucking, railroads, maritime, 3PLs, and regulatory issues. Solomon witnessed and narrated the rise of Amazon and XPO Logistics and the shift of the U.S. Postal Service from a mail-focused service to parcel, as well as the exponential, e-commerce-driven growth of warehouse square footage and omnichannel fulfillment.