Volunteer Express

Volunteer Express
www.volunteerexpress.com
Headquarters: Nashville, Tenn.
Employees: 300
Specialty: Trucking
Volunteer Express: “We are built to last for the benefit of our customers and shareholder employees.”

Built For Success

Volunteer Express says its employee ownership is one of its greatest advantages.

Longevity is hard to come by in the highly competitive world of trucking, so when a company has been able to withstand the test of time, it’s worth noting. For more than 40 years, Volunteer Express has been serving the Eastern United States with quality trucking services, and the company says it is no accident that it also happens to be an employee-owned company. As Volunteer Express explains, putting the future success of the company directly into the hands of its drivers and operators ensures that it always lives up to its core values because those drivers and operators are fully invested in doing the best possible job they can, every time they get behind the wheel.

As a full-service carrier, Volunteer Express provides LTL services throughout the Southeast and Northeast, but its services aren’t limited to LTL. The company says it also provides truckload, volume, expedited, dedicated and local cartage operations for customers throughout its service area. “Volunteer is a true niche carrier providing service advantages with improved transit times as well as less handling of freight moving within our network,” the company says.

No matter what service the company provides for its customers, Volunteer Express says the devotion of its employees and the scope of its services add up to a powerful combination that is virtually unmatched by most of its competitors. “We are large enough to perform and small enough to care,” the company says.

Employee Ownership

One of the most significant advantages Volunteer Express brings to the trucking industry is its status as a 100 percent employee-owned company. The company says it provides its employees with a consistent amount of miles combined with enough time at home to make them comfortable. According to Volunteer Express, its shareholder drivers also benefit from regular routes, paid vacations, quarterly fuel bonuses, health and dental insurance options, 401k plans with company contributions, and its free employee stock ownership plan for retirement.

“In addition to all these great benefits, Volunteer Express shareholders enjoy our fleet of well-maintained equipment, including 2013 Peterbilt and 2016 Volvo tractors, full equipped to offer the highest level of comfort while providing the tools professional drivers need while on the road,” the company adds.

Core Values

Another substantial advantage Volunteer Express has over its competitors is the breadth of its terminal network, which consists of 27 terminals spread across the Southeast and Northeast. The company’s presence in Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland and Connecticut gives it the ability to serve customers more effectively and efficiently, while also providing its drivers with the ability to run daily or weekly schedules, the company says.

Of course, locations and equipment are not much good without an organizing principle behind them, and Volunteer Express says its core values serve as the backbone of everything it does for its customers, how it treats them and how it treats its employees. Chief among these core values is that the company says it strives to be “safe, professional and accountable in everything that we do.”

The company also says it is “results-oriented,” and believes in rewarding its employees based on their performance. When problems arise, Volunteer Express says it bases its interactions with clients and employees on “honesty, integrity and open communication” to solve problems and drive continuous improvement. Ultimately, Volunteer Express says, these values add up to a company that does right for all of its customers, external and internal.

“We will be the best value provider, run lean and efficient while maintaining the highest standards of safety, service and compliance,” the company says. “We are built to last for the benefit of our customers and shareholder employees.”

Looking Forward

With its employees behind the wheel of the company’s success and its network of terminals spread strategically throughout its service area, Volunteer Express believes it is in a good position to continue living up to its core values and ideals. As long as the company maintains its focus on those ideas, it says, it should continue to be successful for years to come.

“The mission of Volunteer Express, a progressive transportation organization, is to provide superior service through safe and efficient operations and innovative thinking, thus providing the best value to both our customers and our shareholders,” the company says.