the industry for years to come. Armed with this information, state trucking associations and the American Trucking Associations are better equipped to address the issues more broadly and proactively. ATRI is the trucking industry’s 501(c)(3)


not-for-profit research organization. It is engaged in critical research relating to freight transportation’s essential role in maintaining a safe, secure and efficient transportation system. A copy of the 2013 Top Industry Issues Survey analysis report is available from ATRI at www. atri-online.org. FTN


Rebecca M. Brewster is president and COO of American Transportation Research Institute. ATRI is the trucking industry’s 501(c)(3) not-for- profit research organization. It is engaged in critical research relating to freight transportation’s essential role in maintaining a safe, secure and efficient transportation system. A copy of the 2013 Top Industry Issues Survey analysis report is available from ATRI at www. atri-online.org.


All in the Family


From business to the FTA and beyond, it’s a famiy matter for FTA Chairman Phillip Pritchett


BY JENNIFER BARNETT REED Contributing Writer


IT’S EASY TO IMAGINE that when you’re the youngest of three siblings to follow your dad into the family business, it might be hard to find your niche — to carve out your own identity sepa-


rate from the tracks laid by your older family members. Not so for Phillip Pritchett, vice president and manager of daily operations for Pritchett Trucking and


current chairman of the board of the Florida Trucking Association (the second Pritchett to hold that posi- tion). Malcolm Fabre, manager of procurement and supply for Seminole Electric Cooperative in Palatka, a long-time customer of Pritchett Trucking, has no problem describing who’s who in the family: Company founder and CEO Marvin Pritchett, is old-school, works hard and gets up early every day. The older son Jon is president and a respected businessman. Phillip’s sister, Robin Wilson, is the payroll manager. Phillip, the “go-getter,” is the hands-on guy, the one who keeps up with the trucking and logging


crews. “He gets out there with us,” said Fabre. “Phillip’s the relationship guy,” said Victor Garrett, president of Gilman Building Products, which has


used Pritchett Trucking since the late 1980s. “He handles 90 percent of our issues for us.” For over 20 years, Pritchett Trucking has built the relationship with Gilman. They service the compa-


ny’s three chip and saw mills in Lake Butler, Perry and Maxville, Florida, hauling by-products such as chips, bark, shavings and sawdust from these lumber production locations. At 42, Pritchett is just a year or so older than the family business. His father started out as a timber


man, running a handful of trucks that came with the deal when he bought a timber company in 1970. Logging quotas in the late ‘70s triggered a shift away from timber and toward trucking, and in 1980 Pritchett Trucking was officially born. By then, Phillip was already a regular around the office. “Since I was a kid I would go to work with my dad,” he said. “When I was as young as 10 years old, I’d


ride with drivers to mills to unload trucks.” “I was one of Phillip’s coaches in high school, and he was a good student—worked extremely hard on


the football field,” said Carlton Faulk, Superintendent of Schools for Union County and Pritchett’s former football coach. “And when he left football practice, he went to work in the family business. He was always very respectful and just an outstanding role model in school.” Pritchett’s first official job with the company came in high school, when he worked in maintenance


servicing trucks. During college at the University of North Florida, he began managing the family’s timber operations. He continued with that when he finished his business degree, and started working in opera- tions for the trucking company as well. Eventually he worked his way up to vice president. “I’ve worked most of my life in the trucking business,” he said. “I’ve done it all, so I know — you’ve got to do it to


know how to do it. We’ve got a local customer about two miles away from our office — every now and then I’ll take a truck and trailer out there and load it, just to keep it fresh. And I always like to test out the new equipment locally.” Today, Pritchett Trucking employs more than 300 people and runs about 250 trucks, 225 of which are owned


by the company, including live floor, refuse trailers, dump trailers, chip/sawdust van trailers, flatbeds, and log equip- ment. Most of its hauls are within 100 to 200 miles of the company’s two terminals in Lake Butler and Palatka, and the business is split about evenly among dump, wood by-products, and municipal solid waste contracts. The Pritchett family’s business portfolio also includes a number of Mack and Volvo truck sales and


service centers in Florida, Georgia and Alabama, operating under the name Nextran Truck Centers. Nextran Corporation is a network of 14 full service and medium and heavy duty truck centers conveniently located


12 ➤ Florida Truck News Q1 2012 Florida Truck News Q1 2012 PHOTOGRAPHY BY RYAN KETTERMAN 13


“I’VE BEEN A MEMBER,


ATTENDING FTA MEETINGS MY WHOLE LIFE. OTHER


COMPANIES THAT ARE NOT INVOLVED DON’T REALIZE


THE SUPPORT FTA PROVIDES FOR REGULATORY AND LEGISLATIVE ISSUES.”


—PHILLIP PRITCHETT, PRITCHETT TRUCKING


ONLINE DIGITAL MAGAZINE


NOW AVAILABLE! WWW.FLTRUCKING.ORG


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