Draining their life savings, Lillian and Earl Congdon launched Old Dominion Freight Line in 1934. She dispatched loads from the dining room table; he hauled freight between Richmond and Norfolk.
called Oak Harbor Freight Lines, which they merged and adopted the name. As with the Vander Pol brothers, most trucking companies that cut their treads during the 1920s and 1930s were fam- ily affairs. Earl and Lillian Congdon started up Old Dominion Freight Line in the wake of the Great Depression. They first sold the family car, a wedding gift from Lillian’s parents, and bought a truck that Earl drove until it was wrecked.
bought and incorporated it as Schneider Transport in 1938. Today it’s the largest truckload carrier in the United States. As legend goes, the Vander Pol fam- ily got into trucking because they had too many sons to work their farm on Whidbey Island, Wash. So, in 1936, John and Gus Vander Pol purchased Oak Harbor Transfer, a local cartage carrier founded in 1916, for $600 cash. Their younger brother Henry joined them one year later. In 1942, the brothers pur- chased another small trucking company
Thereafter he worked various jobs, including stints with Virginia Motor Express and as a salesman for a Packard dealership. In 1934, he and his wife poured their savings into a dream. Lillian dispatched pick-ups from their dining room table and Earl drove the truck between Richmond and Norfolk, hauling coffee, paper, chemicals, and bales of burlap. “On his first load, Earl had to hawk his spare tire to pay for fuel,” says Chip Overbey, vice president for Old Dominion. “After he made the delivery and got paid, he bought back the tire. The rest is history.” The Saia family started their trucking business in 1924–without a truck. Louis Saia Sr., who came to America from Sicily in 1912, began hauling produce from New Orleans to his sisters’ grocery store in Houma, La., 60 miles to the south- west. It started out as a horse-and-wagon enterprise but soon evolved. With Louis Saia working as the driver and salesperson, and his wife Th ft h k d i In 1935, Al Schneider sold the family car, bought a truck, and drove as an independent contractor before acquiring the assets that became Schneider Transport in 1938.
36 Inbound Logistics • September 2009
FACING LOGISTICS CHALLENGES? USE IL’S 3PL EXPERTS AND
Powered by FlippingBook