News
The Institute’s Annual General Meeting
In reading from a roster of professionals who had earned their Professional Logisticians designation during the Canadian Professional Logistics Institute’s Annual General Meeting, held at the Vaughan Estate in Sunnybrook at the end of April, the Institute’s President, Victor Deyglio, and Program Director Karyn Ferguson announced more than 158 individuals had earned their P.Log. designations during the past 12 months.
An unsignalled and welcome presentation was also made by Rentway Inc. President Ron Waye and Vice President, Strategy and Human Resources, Bruce Toner, who presented the Institute’s Victor Deyglio and his team with a plaque featuring a picture of the Institute’s staff and Rentway professionals who have earned their P.Log. designation.
“As the Institute was providing its designations and awards to members of the industry, we wanted to contribute this plaque in recognition of what the Institute has contributed to our company and others,” reflected Waye, adding: “The Institute provides leadership and its program distinguishes it from others in logistics - it goes beyond the parameters of logistics.”
During his presentation Waye noted that Rentway had reached a milestone of having 50 graduates successfully complete the P.Log. certification program over the course of four years, referring to the Institute as “the company’s primary external training program” that has prompted his company’s employees to further their overall education in different fields. “It has been an excellent program and really contributed to our organization,” Waye said, characterizing the relationship between Rentway and the Institute as “truly being a home run.”
The P.Log. designation identifies those select individuals who have attained a high level of expertise and certified competence in logistics.
YELLOW FREIGHT SYSTEM NAMES NEW PRESIDENT
Yellow Freight System has named Dan Goodwill to the newly created position of President – Yellow Freight – Canada. He reports directly to Yellow Freight System President Bill Zollars. Yellow currently operates 24 terminals and has 400 employees in eight Canadian provinces. Canadian operations currently generate approximately $200 million in annual revenue.
RECOGNIZING LEADERSHIP
Linda Collier, president and sole owner of Tri-ad International Freight Forwarding Ltd., was recently chosen as one of Canada’s finest business leaders based on Canada’s fourth “Top 40 Under 40 Awards.” Alongside 39 other winners, she was featured in the April 30th edition of the Report on Business (ROB) section of the Globe and Mail newspaper, which referred to the 40 award winners as “40 of Canada’s best and brightest.”
Up to 800 applicants were entered in the program, and this list was winnowed to 100 award candidates for the 19 board of directors to consider. The 40 winners in The Caldwell Partners International-owned program were chosen based on criteria such as: vision and leadership, innovation and achievement as well as their impact on the business community.
“It was not just based on your success as a business person,” Collier emphasizes, adding: “It depended on your community involvement and giving back to your industry.” She points out that she has been involved in a mentor protégé program through the government, as well as speaking regularly at high schools, colleges and universities “about being an entrepreneur, as well as women participating in business in non-traditional female roles.” She also sponsors several baseball and hockey organizations and raises funds for the Hospital For Sick Children, Toronto.
Her list of many awards, from Women on the Move (1991), Women of the Industry (1992), to Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Canada (1993) and the award for the fastest growing company in Ontario for the past three consecutive years, have come after mitigating some daunting hurdles.
To begin with, Collier’s achievements have not stemmed from a privileged background. After working summers with her mother for a customs brokerage company located near Toronto’s Pearson airport and then employment at Emery Worldwide following her schooling, as well as tenure at a European freight forwarder, Collier embarked on her own path, founding a freight forwarding business in 1981 with $15,000, a Federal Government loan and four employees. Her first business plan was prepared to service the computer industry. Compaq Computers was Tri-Ad’s first client, followed by SHL Systemhouse.
“Twelve years ago this was a very male-dominated industry and being young, and founding a small business, it was difficult to get commitments from major corporations from steamship lines to airlines,” she recalls. “But when you walk in the door with major clients you earn their respect.”
Today, with offices in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, her company continues to focus on the high-value commodities market, targeting primarily the aerospace and pharmaceutical industries, as well as maintaining accounts in other high-value commodity areas, including clients such as Hewlett Packard, Toshiba and some of the computer distributors. The typical Tri-ad client has averaged monthly expenditures of $40,000 to $80,000 on freight forwarding and other logistics services.
With current annual revenues of $18 million and on target to hit $30 million by 2002, Tri-ad now has 64 employees and is opening a new warehouse and distribution centre in 2000, large enough to contain 1,100 tractor-trailers.
Collier, 36, notes this hasn’t been easy in a highly competitive environment. There are, for example, an estimated 350 freight forwarders within a two-mile radius of the Toronto airport and her offices, which range in size from multinational corporations to people with a “phone and desk,” she says, adding, the industry in on the cusp of a radical transformation. She likens this looming change to the process the Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association (CIFFA) witnessed in reducing its membership size to ensure specific requirements were met. “I think you will find that the only companies that will survive in this industry will be those that are committed to investing in information technology, raising the quality of their people and making a commitment to develop their facilities and services for their clients,” she forecasts. “These are the only companies that will be left in five years. And I am glad to see the industry becoming more professional.
“The greatest problem in starting a business and growing it pertains to human resources: attracting good people and keeping good people.” Empowering people to act as though they were her business partners and mentoring skills have been vital to her success. “I am very accessible and I work with my people, they don’t work for me. As a result, we have very a lot of dedicated people.”