Greatwide Logistics Names Tague New CEO

Greatwide Logistics Services last week said it selected John Tague to succeed trucking industry veteran Leo Suggs as CEO of the Dallas-based diversified transportation provider.

Tague, 49, is a former president of United Airlines. He left the air carrier when it merged with Continental Airlines. He took over leadership of Greatwide on July 11.

Suggs, 71, will remain with the company as its chairman of the board, a position he has held since February 2009, adding the CEO title a year later.

Suggs is perhaps best known for his lengthy career in the less-than-truckload sector, which reached its peak when he was chairman and CEO of Overnite Transportation Co. through its acquisition by UPS Inc. in 2005.

“John Tague is a proven leader who has the experience and skill set necessary to lead a complex, market-leading organization,” Will Manuel, senior managing director of Centerbridge Partners, said in the Greatwide statement.

Centerbridge, a private equity firm, owns a majority of Greatwide.

“Leo Suggs has left a lasting legacy of success in senior leadership roles throughout the transportation and logistics industry,” Manuel added. “We look forward to working with Leo in his continuing role as chairman of Greatwide and a trusted senior advisor to Centerbridge.”

In switching from passengers to freight and from air to ground, Tague will run a company with more than $1 billion in annual revenue that ranks No. 20 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in the United States and Canada.

Greatwide’s four main business sectors are dedicated contract carriage — especially refrigerated — freight brokerage, truckload management and warehousing and distribution.

The company’s other top executives are Tyler Ellison, president; Bill Doherty, chief operating officer, and Bob LaRose, chief financial officer.

“This is certainly not the norm in our industry,” said Rodger Mullen, a Greatwide executive vice president, when asked about a passenger airline executive turning to ground freight.

“John’s experience and skills are for running a large complex organization, and he has a strong track record in customer-focused logistics,” Mullen said in explaining the choice.

Mullen, a former president of Schneider Logistics, said part of Tague’s job at United included responsibility for ground freight logistics, including food and drinks for passengers, their baggage, and fuel and maintenance for the planes.

In reporting on Tague’s planned departure from United a year ago, Bloomberg News said he joined the airline in 2003, during its Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. Tague helped increase revenue by $1.2 billion and reverse the airline’s on-time arrival rate from worst to first among the so-called legacy airlines, the wire service said.

Greatwide went through its own bout with Chapter 11 in 2008 and 2009, emerging when it was purchased by Centerbridge and minority shareholder D.E. Shaw Group.

Tague does have some direct experience with a freight transportation company. From 2002 to January 2005, he was a member of the board of directors of intermodal company Pacer International.

Before his work with Greatwide and Overnite, Suggs led the now defunct Preston Trucking Co. and worked for Yellow Freight System, now part of YRC Worldwide, and Ryder/P.I.E. Nationwide.

Greatwide started in 1967 as Refrigerated Transport Inc., later becoming Transport Industries Holdings.