Lumpers Turn Pro: Firms Supply Labor for Unloading
With backing from an Atlanta venture capital firm, Thomas M. Caudell is turning the lowly business of lumping into a big, high-tech center of profits.
“Historically, loading and unloading has been provided on an ad hoc basis by free-lance laborers on shippers’ and receivers’ docks,” Caudell said. “Then mom-and-pop businesses began to serve single locations. Several things now are putting pressure on to take it to the next level.”
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Caudell worked for 28 years as an executive with several refrigerated truckload carriers, including Oklahoma City-based Rocor International, where he dealt with loading and unloading problems on a daily basis. Now as president of Progressive Logistics Services in Atlanta, he runs a company that employs more than 900 loaders at 35 facilities and is on track to generate $30 million in revenue this year.
Progressive is one of a handful of businesses that are bringing professional management and technical know-how to the largely cash-based and sometimes unruly world of independent laborers, known as lumpers.
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