Trucking company takes team aspects on the road

Dec. 16—TUPELO — When transportation is the name of the game, every contest is on the road.

That fact doesn't make the teamwork any less real. For Craig Waddle and his trucking company, working as a team grows more important every day. It's how they've grown from a single truck in 2005 to 260 today.

"I think of it like a numbers game," Waddle said. "Money doesn't drive me, but the number of cars we move in a day drives me. To do that as well as we can absolutely depends on teamwork. Payroll has to know what the shop's doing. Dispatch has to know what the drivers are doing. There has to be a lot of trust involved."

On average, as much as such a thing can be averaged, Waddle Trucking is moving 1,200 to 1,300 cars per day from one location to another. They haul new cars for Kia, Hyundai and Genesis, and they haul used cars for nearly everyone under the sun. From ports in Alabama to railheads in Chicago, from Kentucky to the Carolinas and beyond, cars are on haulers behind Waddle Trucking rigs night and day, covering 30 million miles per year.

It the present stage of a journey Waddle began as a very young man, helping his dad do a job.

Waddle, 44, grew up in the car business. His dad spent a lifetime buying vehicles in places of ample supply, then selling them in spots with aggressive demand. Cars bought in Texas and Georgia might be sold in Hattiesburg or along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Connecting supply to demand typically meant the vehicles had to be hauled from one distant place to another, and the logistics of making that happen put cars on trailers behind big trucks and rolled them down the road.

"I always worked around the car lot," Waddle said. "My dad taught me to drive at a young age, and I helped out any way I could."

Any time he was out of school, Waddle was at work, where loading and unloading cars from trailers was part of the everyday game.

"I became good friends with the guy who hauled cars for dad," Waddle said, "and I'd go with him whenever I could."

When he turned 21, an opportunity to do the hauling himself arose.

"I went and got my commercial driver's license, which was $75," Waddle said. "After I did it, I told dad I didn't know if I'd ever make that investment back."

Soon, Waddle was hauling his dad's cars on their own truck. They were in business at a lot in Tupelo near the intersection of Gloster and South Green, and life was good. Still, the variety of opportunities available in the car-hauling world intrigued him — so much so that, in 2005, he bought a single rig and founded Waddle Trucking in the back of the place his family already had. That spark, carefully nurtured and fed, has become a thriving fire that still continues to expand.

One truck in June 2005 became 10 trucks a couple of years later. As opportunities expanded, the small business grew.

"We were hauling cars for dealers we knew through dad's lifetime in the car business," Waddle said.

They hauled used cars bought at auction or accumulated in quantity from Point A to Point B, then dispatched the trucks to a following Point C to move cars to Point D. That meant roughly every other ride found the trailers hauling empty. The model worked fine until 2009 when fuel prices climbed high and stayed.

"At that point, we had to start loading two ways," Waddle said. It was a condition that motivated their pursuit of work with auto manufacturers — transporting new cars from ports and rail yards to other hubs. They got their foot in the door by hauling on subcontract for other trucking companies. Waddle Trucking's teamwork and dependability soon won over opportunities to do business in their own name. As success connected to success, Waddle Trucking continued to expand.

Today, the company employs around 300 people and is still growing. Three years ago, they moved from their place at Gloster and South Green to a 26,000-square-foot building on McCullough Boulevard. At that location, they have eight technicians who do the company's own maintenance and warranty work through Peterbilt and Western Star, key brand names in the hauling industry. The support staff includes masters of logistics, connecting drivers with loads and emergency mechanical service.

Though the company has grown exponentially, Waddle says their mission has not changed.

"Our business model is to haul as many cars as we can every day in the safest, most efficient way," he said. "That's a simple mission. By taking care of that mission, a lot of people are taking care of their families at the same time, which is really what it's all about."

Waddle's own family is proof of that assertion.

"My sister works for the company. My mother works for the company. Hopefully, one day my kids will take it and run it and keep the legacy going," he said. "It's been really good to us, and we're making a point to give back to Tupelo and our communities to say, 'Thank you.'"

Kevin is the weekend edition editor for the Daily Journal. Contact him at kevin.tate@journalinc.com.