‘Mac’ Became a Trucker By Chance, and Like His Father, Led His Peers

INCENNES, Ind. — Clarence James “Mac” McCormick III, chairman and chief executive officer of dedicated contract carrier Bestway Express, and a former leader of the Truckload Carriers Association, said in an interview here earlier this year that he had entered the trucking business almost by accident.

His father, C. James McCormick II, himself a past chairman of ATA, had run a less-than-truckload carrier he sold in 1976. But the younger McCormick, upon leaving the University of Tennessee, said it was his plan “never” to go into trucking.

However, a man who had bought some Freightliners from the McCormick family’s truck dealership saw his business fail.

“Indiana was still a regulated state at the time, and he had a nice certificate [for operating authority]. I figured I’d operate the company for a year and then get out of debt,” McCormick said.

“One year went to two. Then Indiana deregulated and the certificate was worthless. At that point, I figured I really had to get to work. It seems it’s easier to get into things than to get out of them,” he observed.

As is so often the case with business start-ups, McCormick said that as a new entrepreneur, he worked in all aspects of his firm — dispatch, accounting, sales, fuel tax reporting — and still maintained his commercial driver license from those days.

Bestway took business from the private fleets of local manufacturers, particularly suppliers to the automobile industry.

“When I started Bestway, I knew nothing about the trucking business. Trucks, yes, but not the business. Ninety percent to 95% of what I know now, I learned through the associations ATA, TCA and IMTA [Indiana Motor Truck Association].”

In working with ATA and the other associations, McCormick said he felt he was giving back service for all he had learned.

His company’s name, Bestway, comes from an old phrase used by traffic managers on bills of lading.

Bestway is the flagship company in the McCormick family’s chain of enterprises, which includes interests in truck leasing, freight payment and brokerage, warehousing and logistics.

On a combined basis, McCormick said the companies generate about $65 million in annual revenue.

Automotive suppliers account for about 90% of Bestway’s revenue, but the company is looking to broaden its customer base. Two of McCormick’s three sons work at Bestway, and expansion is something that concerns them.

“I think there’s a lot of opportunity in this industry, with room to move up the ladder and an unlimited amount of potential customers,” said Eli McCormick, the youngest of the three McCormick sons.

“Ninety percent of what we haul is automotive now, but who’s to say we couldn’t haul golf clubs for Titleist?” he asked.

Eli works in dispatch for the logistics division, whereas Will, the eldest, works in the equipment leasing section. Mac McCormick said he wanted Will to work on expanding the customer base for leasing.

Mac McCormick’s interest in trucks and trucking was part of his obsession with internal combustion engines.

“I’ve thought about this and noticed that everything I do has to have an engine,” he said, referring to his business with trucks and hobbies such as motorcycles, airplanes and power boats.

McCormick said he had recently gotten together with some TCA friends for a motorcycle expedition.

“I tried sailing, but didn’t like it,” he said. After getting battered by a storm in the Caribbean Sea near the Dominican Republic, McCormick said he sold his sailboat and learned “never to put a boat on the asset side of a balance sheet.”

His interest in machinery helped him get the most out of a fact-finding mission to Europe earlier this year. McCormick went with ATA President Bill Graves, 2004-05 ATA Chairman Steve Williams, Transport Topics Publisher Howard Abramson and ATA Vice President Dave Osiecki to visit manufacturing sites operated by DaimlerChrysler AG, Volvo AB and Siemens AG.

McCormick said he was originally skeptical about the trip and its usefulness, but he wound up learning a lot.

“Their safety consciousness is years ahead of ours, and we need to get there, too,” McCormick told TT.

“We went to a Mercedes test track and were driving an 86,000-pound load at 60 miles per hour. We were barreling down on a car in a cabover, and it got way past the ‘oh [expletive]’ point, but then the truck shut itself down without flipping over or jack-knifing,” McCormick said. “They have a radar-based system they use with the cruise control for collision avoidance that can stop you more quickly than a human being can.”

He and Graves also observed test demonstrations on lane-change warning systems, night vision and selective catalytic reduction emission devices. They also learned about biodiesel.

McCormick said the advanced safety equipment was intriguing for two reasons: While safety improvements are highly desirable ends in themselves, they also could be the key to unlocking greater productivity for trucking.

“We need more productive trucks, and we need to put every safety tool on bigger trucks. How many industries have gone since 1982 with the same level of productivity?” he asked, referring to size and weight restrictions that generally have remained at 53-foot trailers and 80,000-pound rigs since then.

A major theme of Patrick Quinn’s tenure as ATA chairman has been more infrastructure for freight transportation. McCormick said he was in solid agreement with that — “We’re all singing the same message” — but he also wanted to see rules that would allow trucks to haul longer, heavier loads.

Moving up to a standard, legal maximum of, say, 97,000 pounds from 80,000 pounds, and up to six axles from five, might be the way to proceed, McCormick said.

“You’ll need the best safety equipment to pass the public scrutiny test,” he said.

As for biodiesel, McCormick said he learned, “It’s very popular [in Europe]. We had heard there were limits as to how much biodiesel you could use, such as 2% or 20% blends, but they’re using 100% biofuels.

“We talked to a German whose trucks run to Moscow and back. It shocked us about the 100% biodiesel, but we kept asking the same question a number of times to get it right,” said McCormick, who added that the European base for biodiesel is canola oil.

With fuel prices high during that time and not expected to decline in the long run, McCormick said he also thought hybrid engines would come to the heavy-duty world, with hydrogen fuel cells complementing biodiesel as strategies for coping with world oil prices.

Asked how this prediction meshes with ATA’s current opposition to multiple types of fuel, often referred to as “boutique” blends, he suggested: “We might have to change ATA’s fuel policies on this. We should know more about biodiesel.”

“I thought Europe would have been behind us on technology, but that was not true. They’re ahead of us on SCR and other issues. We need to glean everything from them we can. Right now, we’re at the beginning of a three- to four-year period where we need to start making substantial changes."

Editor's Note — Sympathy cards may be sent to:

C. James McCormick II

/o Bestway Express