YRC Chief Zollars to Retire After Recovery Plan Is Done

This story appears in the Oct. 4 print edition of Transport Topics.

William Zollars, the chief executive officer who built YRC Worldwide Inc. into a $10 billion freight company and then navigated the company through large losses during the recession, said last week that he will retire when the company’s comprehensive recovery plan is completed.

YRC, in a Sept. 28 regulatory filing, didn’t give a specific date for Zollars’ departure, though it said the 62-year-old executive would retire sometime after Dec. 31.

“Upon the successful resolution of many of our recent business challenges, the time would be right for me to hand over the reins to new leadership,” said Zollars in a statement that noted YRC “had to deal with the most difficult economic environment our industry has ever experienced.”

Zollars told YRC workers, customers and investors in a video posted on Sept. 29 on YRC’s website that he intends to remain on the job until a new CEO is hired and in place to assure a smooth transition.

YRC embarked on a series of financial and worker-related turnaround steps more than two years ago as its losses mounted and topped $1 billion a year. The Teamsters union agreed to cut pay 15% and to reduce pension; they also have made a third deal, subject to ratification by the rank and file (see story, p. 5).

By the second quarter of this year, YRC managed a profit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, compared with a $309 million loss in last year’s second quarter.

YRC said in its statement that it will begin a search for a successor both within and outside the company.

John Lamar, lead director for YRC who was commenting for the board, said, “We are grateful to Bill for his exemplary leadership, first directing the company’s business expansion over more than a decade, and most recently switching gears to help navigate the organization through its most challenging period. We are pleased that he will remain at the helm through this process as we work together to identify his successor.”

Zollars has been at YRC and its predecessor companies since 1996, when he was named president of Yellow Freight System. He joined Yellow from Ryder System Inc., and prior to that was an executive at Eastman Kodak.

He became CEO in 1999, when the company was called Yellow Corp. and its annual revenue was $3.2 billion.

Four years later, he doubled the company’s size by engineering the acquisition of larger national LTL rival Roadway Corp., which doubled the company’s size; the company was renamed Yellow Roadway Corp.

That move gave the combined company a dominant place in the national LTL market.

Then, in 2005, YRC bought USF Corp., which operated regional LTL fleets. By 2006, YRC was a $9.92 billion company with $277 million in net income and it was renamed YRC Worldwide Inc. in that year. As the economy soured, YRC’s results followed suit, beginning with losses at the end of 2007.

YRC also expanded abroad, establishing operations in China and building a logistics unit. YRC divested most of that unit in two separate transactions over the past 12 months.

“Over the past two years, we have achieved success in resolving our business challenges and returned the company to growth,” Zollars said. “Other companies in our industry now are facing the challenges we are now well on our way to handling,” Zollars said in the video.