Some Business News

Jacksonville Business Journal - August 4, 2003

All in a day's work for Crowe

Making time for a phone interview before his 145th "Safety Thursday" conference call and a flight to Washington, D.C., to meet with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Landstar System Chairman and CEO Jeff Crowe admitted that yes, it was a very busy week.

Also of much significance was the release of his company's second-quarter earnings. Landstar (NASDAQ: LSTR), a national, non-asset-based transportation capacity provider, reported 2003 second-quarter net income of $13.6 million, up 11 percent from the comparable 2002 quarter of $12.2 million. Revenue was down; $390.1 million, compared with $391.2 million for the second quarter ending June 2002.

Last year, the company earned $49.2 million on record revenue of $1.5 billion.

"Wall Street loves Landstar because of the performance of the stock," said Tom Ming, vice president of business development at Crowley Logistics. "The company uses other people's assets to bring value to the company. Landstar doesn't own the trucks. Jeff and other top executives go out and get the business." [...]

Chicago Tribune - September 23, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Two days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, as images of devastation along the Gulf Coast and despair in New Orleans flickered across television screens, the head of one of the nation's largest bus associations repeatedly called federal disaster officials to offer help.

Peter Pantuso of the American Bus Association said he spent much of the day on Wednesday, Aug. 31, trying to find someone at the Federal Emergency Management Agency who could tell him how many buses were needed for an evacuation, where they should be sent and who was overseeing the effort.

"We never talked directly to FEMA or got a call back from them," Pantuso said.

Pantuso, whose members include some of the nation's largest motor coach companies, including Greyhound and Coach USA, eventually learned that the job of extracting tens of thousands of residents from flooded New Orleans wasn't being handled by FEMA at all.

Instead the agency had farmed the work out to a trucking logistics firm, Landstar Express America, which in turn hired a limousine company, which in turn engaged a travel management company....

Mayor C. Ray Nagin has acknowledged in television interviews that the city had hundreds of transit and school buses available to at least begin an evacuation ahead of Katrina's arrival but couldn't find enough drivers willing to chance getting caught in the huge storm.

When Katrina's storm surges breached the city's levees, putting much of the city under water, it was up to state officials and FEMA to oversee a gigantic evacuation.

But they, too, were caught unprepared.

Though it was well-known that New Orleans, much of it below sea level, would flood in a major hurricane, Landstar, the Jacksonville company that held a federal contract that at the time was worth up to $100 million annually for disaster transportation, did not ask its subcontractor, Carey Limousine, to order buses until the early hours of Aug. 30, roughly 18 hours after the storm hit, according to Sally Snead, a Carey senior vice president who headed the bus roundup.

Landstar inquired about the availability of buses on Sunday, Aug. 28, and earlier Monday, but placed no orders, Snead said.

She said Landstar turned to her company for buses Sunday after learning from Carey's Internet site that it had a meetings and events division that touted its ability to move large groups of people. "They really found us on the Web site," Snead said.

[...]

In a regulatory filing last week, Landstar Express said it has received government orders worth at least $125 million for Katrina-related work. It's not known how much of that total pertains to the bus evacuation.

Landstar Express is a subsidiary of Landstar System, a $2 billion company whose board chairman, Jeff Crowe, also was chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the nation's premier business lobbies, from June 2003 until May 2004.

Pantuso said changes for the better may be afoot, perhaps even in time to aid the response to Hurricane Rita, now bearing down on Texas' Gulf Coast near the Louisiana border.

"I have been getting a tremendous amount of follow-up from Landstar over the last two days . . . looking for ways to work together in the future," Pantuso said Thursday, adding that he feels "much better about . . . our opportunities to work in a more coordinated fashion."

Whatever happens likely will be good for Landstar's bottom line.

Landstar's regulatory filing also said that because of Hurricane Katrina, the maximum annual value of its government contract for disaster relief services has been increased to $400 million.

Which wall, exactly, does one choose to begin banging one's head against?

(Hat tip to Dmsilev and commenter Kagro X)