She was a field recruiter for Swift
and had a master’s degree, plus grown children, and was wanting to venture out when a headhunter lined her up with Wallace and Grojean. “When I met the two of them, I knew
it. I just trusted them immediately, I just knew, everything was going to be fine.” That even meant a sudden switch to
their new acquisition, Transco Lines, in 2012. At first, Wallace and Grojean want- ed her just to help with the transition on the recruiting side. “I went home every weekend [to
Illinois], then it turned to every other weekend … then it turned into going home every three weeks, then six months. I thought, ‘Well, it’s been six months, I think we’ve made the transition’ and Terry said, ‘Anne-Marie, it’s your job per- manently if you want it.” She said, “Terry has just opened his
whole life up to me, trusts me, believes in my views, and he sees and appreciates my energy. He calls me his firefly, I’m ‘like a firefly,’ he’ll say. That’s who you have to be on the capacity side. There’s no time for being tired and being slow. You’ve got to be on it.” After a year, she said, the owners
switched from slowly growing the compa- ny to “letting the leash go,” and capacity now is soaring. Hojnacki has four recruit- ers in her department who have “turned into a beautifully fine-tuned machine.” She adds that it’s added comfort
knowing that Wallace, Grojean, Tim Pool and others at TLI have more than 100 years of trucking or business experience and are “coming from different angles to the business.”
CONTINENTAL COVERAGE Transco Lines’ heaviest traffic lanes
for its dry vans are primarily east of a line extending from Minnesota to Dallas, Wallace said. “But we do a lot of business that is coast to coast. A lot of business is out of Southern California as well as the Pacific Northwest.” Its largest customers are typically business- es needing expedited just-in-time ser- vice, from paper products to consumer goods to food.
ARKANSAS TRUCKING REPORT | Issue 5 2015
“THIS IS A TRUE TEAM. EVERYBODY HERE IS WORKING TOWARD THE SAME GOAL. WE’RE BRINGING THE DRIVERS IN, GETTING THEM TO
ACCEPT THE CULTURE ... EVERYBODY HAS EACH OTHER’S BACK.
—HARRY KIMBALL, DIRECTOR OF SAFETY, TRANSCO LINES FedEx Freight, for example, has
been a major part of TLI’s business since before the acquisition, along with Peterbilt. “Our strategy is to seek out cus-
tomers who have very high expectations for performance, where we can meet and exceed those expectations,” Wallace said. “We’re all about relationship and value. “We really appreciate the loyalty of
those who stuck with us when we took over.”
Wallace and Grojean are both 52
and found much in common over a decade or more of knowing each other. He said, “Bill was looking to do
something different in 2003 and was looking at businesses to buy. And it turns out I was as well. We decided to partner up, and it’s been a great rela- tionship. A lot of times partnerships can be a stressful, strained deal, but this has been great. Our skills complement each other.” When Wallace needs a sounding board, Grojean is just a phone call away, he said. Brad Heisterkamp, TLI’s vice presi-
dent of operations, said, “Bill is a bril- liant man. He has the ability to see where the industry is going before it goes there … Terry is a guy who really just puts his whole weight into it, he tackles a problem with full force. “[Terry] serves as a mentor for me,
but as an employer he’s the firm but fair guy. He’s going to tell you those expectations he has, be clear with those expectations and trust you to go get them done ... I’m 33 and there is a lot of things I haven’t encountered. Sometimes you have to call and say,
‘Hey, I don’t get this,’ but at any hour, he’s always willing to talk with you. I’ve called him when he’s sitting at one of his girls’ homecoming games, and he’ll just do it.” Heisterkamp, a native of Iowa,
joined TLI in August of 2013 after seven and a half years at CRST. “They found me, I wasn’t looking,” he said. “I was sitting in my kitchen when I get a call from a recruiter who asked if I wanted to talk to the owners of Transco Lines, and the rest was history. I met Bill and Terry and was very impressed by both gentlemen.” Heisterkamp was at an age where
he wanted “the ability to get my hands around more of the business, to be involved with every single aspect, and the ability to have close mentors.” No commuting for Heisterkamp, however — he and his wife have found Russellville the right place to raise their family, with a 9-year-old and another child less than a year old. “Terry has picked people who have
some of the same values and work ethic as he does,” said Heisterkamp, who said he wears hats both for overseeing the dispatchers and handling customer ser- vice. “It’s a different conversation with customers when you’re running both sides. It also allows us to offer fair pric- ing to customers where we don’t have to be lean and mean,” Heisterkamp said. Tim Pool is the franchise’s new-
comer, only joining the trucking indus- try in May. His wife, who he met while both worked as accountants for Alltel Corp., was from Yell County, and they were both happy, with a 3-year-old in
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