New CEO Primes Pump At Quality Distribution
When Thomas L. Finkbiner joined Norfolk Southern Corp. as head of intermodal marketing in 1987, he told his railroad colleagues that to be successful, they had to think more like truckers.
Focusing on customer service and using new RoadRailer technology, Finkbiner is largely credited with transforming NS’s intermodal service from a no-profit backwater business into a key profit center and one of the driving forces behind the $10 billion takeover of Conrail by Norfolk Southern and CSX Corp. in June 1999.
Quality Distribution is the product of a merger between Montgomery Tank Lines, Plant City, Fla., and Chemical Leaman Corp., Exton, Pa. — two companies with sharply different management cultures and business systems. Both firms were acquired in 1998 by Apollo Management, a New York-based buyout firm, as part of a consolidation strategy. Apollo owns 85% of Quality Distribution, with company management holding the rest.
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 |  Quality Distribution |
| Thomas L. Finkbiner |
Now Finkbiner finds himself once again preaching the gospel of customer service, this time as chief executive officer of Quality Distribution, the nation’s 12th-largest trucking company and the biggest tank truck carrier in North America.
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