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TALKING TCA
Those Who Deliver
with Contract Freighters, Inc.
By Cliff Abbott
It all started in 1951 with a truck, a pair of
trailers, and a dream, the story goes. At least,
one of the stories. That’s because, as currently
configured, Contract Freighters, Inc., has incorporated
the history of numerous carriers, each
with a story of its own. Con-way, XPO, Transport
America, UPS Freight, and many more are
familiar carrier names that are now a part of
the Joplin, Missouri-based operation that does
business as CFI.
CFI is, itself, a subsidiary of the larger TFI
International, a holding company operating
more than 80 individual companies in the U.S.,
Canada, and Mexico. CFI currently has more
than 90 terminals in North America and handles
more than 260,000 shipments per year.
“I know everybody says this, but our people
are what really makes a difference,” explained
CFI President Greg Orr. “We just celebrated our
70th anniversary as a company. I think that is
probably one of the biggest things that we’re
extremely proud of as we continue to invest
in our people and our professional drivers.
Ultimately, that’s what made this company
successful for so many years.”
Like other carriers, CFI was hit hard by the
COVID-19 pandemic and weathered changes to
its day-to-day operation.
“I think there is a ton of learning that we’ve
encountered over the last couple of years,”
remarked Orr. “Literally within about two
weeks, we had 450 to 500 people that went
from working in an office environment to
being dispersed in their homes to execute
our business, and we never missed a beat.”
While the work of running the business was
being accomplished, Orr noticed the downside,
too.
“You don’t realize what you have until it’s
gone,” he stressed. “Our environment is set up
here, especially in Joplin, to be open and available
to all of our drivers, and we had to literally
shut that off for 18 months.”
While communication could be accomplished
through phones, emails and satellite
units, the team struggled with losing many of
the interpersonal relationships enjoyed prior to
COVID.
“You can tell when we talk to our drivers
that that culture is missed,” said Orr. “We’re
just now slowly kind of opening that back up
again to where we have a lot more face-to-face
conversations.”
The pandemic caused relationships with
some customers to change as well.
“You realize what customers you want to
work with and which ones you don’t,” he added.
“There were a lot of customers that were very
open, willing, and able to do whatever they
could to help accommodate the professional
drivers. And I’ll say there was a select few that
— how do I politely say this? — just didn’t
respectfully handle the situation probably as
well as they could have.”
With more than 3,000 tractors in the fleet,
CFI depends on professional drivers for
its truckload, dedicated, and temperaturecontrolled
divisions.
“Ultimately, it’s not just us; it’s everybody in
the industry,” explained Orr. “We’ve got to make
sure that we don’t lose any drivers, whether it’s
CFI or whether it’s the industry.”
CFI can boast of some unique statistics
among its driving fleet. Over 560 of its drivers
have achieved million-mile status. Women
make up around 14% of the driving staff, about
twice the national average.
“We’ve had some very strong female representatives
that we were very fortunate to have
that helped us market, and that drew a lot of
attention,” he said. One long-term female driver
has since retired, and the company is looking
for the next representative.
CFI’s She Drives CFI program helps female
drivers feel safe and supported at work. The
company has been named a Top Company for
Women to Work for by Women In Trucking
multiple times.
“We definitely have a desire to find the most
professional, safest driver, whether that be
male or female,” he said. “We love and respect
our female drivers because their performance
is very similar to male drivers, and in some cases
we see that their accident ratio is improved.”
The company has a robust program for recruiting
military drivers, too. About 14% of
the driving cadre comes with veteran status.
CFI’s True to the Troops program honors veterans
with specialized truck and trailer wraps,
and an apprenticeship program is available for
28 TRUCKLOAD AUTHORITY | WWW.TRUCKLOAD.ORG TCA JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022