Is it raining where you are?
That old joke about April showers bringing May flowers and Mayflowers bringing pilgrims isn't exactly holding up this year. This year the May flowers are bringing June floods. To quote Bob Dylan, 'there's high water everywhere'.
If you know someone who lost everything in one of the many floods around the country this spring, why not reach out and donate to your local Red Cross.
It will make you feel good all over.
TruckDriver.com
Carrier of the Month
Triple Crown Services
Triple Crown began operations as a bimodal transportation carrier in July 1986, while a division of North American Van Lines, which was then owned by Norfolk Southern Corporation. Triple Crown’s initial shipments were automotive parts between manufacturing and assembly plants in Detroit and St. Louis.
Today, Triple Crown employs nearly 300 people at its Fort Wayne headquarters and at fourteen (14) terminals located throughout the eastern two-thirds of the US and in Toronto, Canada. Triple Crown transported over 300,000 truckloads of freight in 2006 and has plans for continuing market expansion.
Its bimodal transportation system is a hybrid technology utilizing unique RoadRailer® trailers to combine both over-the-road and on-the-rail transportation. Truckload freight is picked up from shippers and driven to a Triple Crown terminal where the trailers are set on railroad wheels, called bogies. The assembled train then travels to the destination terminal where the trailers are hooked to truck tractors to complete freight delivery.
Triple Crown Services Company was named the nation’s 2007 top Rail/Intermodal Transportation Service Provider in Logistics Management magazine’s 23rd annual “Quest for Quality” survey of transportation professionals. The distinction marks the sixth time in the past seven years that Triple Crown was voted the nation’s top provider in the Rail/Intermodal category.
The “Quest for Quality” survey is regarded as the transportation and logistics industries most important measure of customer satisfaction and performance excellence. Over 6,500 transportation experts participated in the 2007 voting.
The survey asked transportation professionals to rate carriers on five key criteria: On-time Performance, Value, Customer Service, Information Technology, and Equipment & Operations. Participants then ranked the importance of each, and a weighted score determined the final evaluation.
Logistics managers rated On-time Performance as the single most important factor, followed by Value, Customer Service, and Equipment & Operations. Triple Crown took top honors in all four of those categories. Triple Crown will be presented with the “Quest for Quality” award at the annual conference of Supply Chain Management Professionals to be held in Philadelphia in October.
Jim Newton, President of Triple Crown Services, stated, “We are very pleased to be honored with this prestigious award. To be recognized by the nation’s logistics professionals as the number one intermodal carrier is, by itself, a great distinction. Being so honored six of the past seven years is a reflection of the focus and dedication of our exceptional team of employees and independent drivers. Triple Crown’s mission is to provide the highest quality truckload service, and the 2007 ‘Quest for Quality’ award is affirmation that we are fulfilling our commitment.”
If you are an independent contractor and are interested in a lease agreement with Triple Crown Services, click here.
Did you ever wonder why your company is so strict on hours of service? Why they want toll receipts, fuel tickets and other time stamped documents to match your logbook?
It's not just a mater of company policy; it's to protect you and the company. That's right. Both the driver and the company can be liable when it comes to log falsification.
Check this video from J. J. Keller concerning hours of service.
A Primer on Mutual Fund Investing
Once upon a time, owning stocks was an affluent person’s pursuit. No longer. These days, roughly 50 percent of American households are direct stakeholders in the U.S. stock and bond markets due to the fact that they own securities.
How did this penetration come about? Mutual funds, the ultimate cooperative. A mutual fund pools money from thousands of investors to build a portfolio of stocks, bonds, real estate, or other securities, according to its charter. The charm of diversification is that losses on some stocks will often be offset, or even be outweighed, by gains on others.
Mutual funds are managed by professional investment analysts and transaction costs are low because funds make purchases and sales in large blocks. Since a fund can own hundreds of various securities, its success isn’t dependent on how one or two holdings perform. Because the fund’s professional managers keep constant tabs on the markets, they can adjust the portfolio for the strongest possible performance. Mutual funds never invest at random. Each shops for investments that fit its investment strategy.
To learn more about mutual funds and to determine if investing in them might be appropriate for you, please contact your Hilliard Lyons Financial Consultant.
Augustine Gattuso
Financial Consultant
|
Hilliard.com
865-769-6479/ 1-800-491-0717
J.J.B. Hilliard, W.L. Lyons, LLC. | Member NYSE and SIPC
Mutual Funds are sold by prospectus. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing.
We wish we could tell you that the general consensus on the economy was that it's strong and getting stronger, but from what you told us on the TruckDriver.com It's the Economy, Stupid Survey, that's not the case.
Over half of you don't expect the economy to rebound for a few years while over 20% of you said it wouldn't be until sometime in 2009. Only 5% thought the economy was doing fine. You must be the ones with the oil stocks.
15% of you said the economy would be rebound when the election is over. And on that note, we'll offer up The TruckDriver.com 2008 Presidential Election Survey . Should be an interesting one.
Until next time, keep on truckin' and please drive safely.
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