Tanguay to Step Down as OTA Chair

I have yet to see a bankruptcy where people don't get screwed, Planned or unplanned. The fact of the matter is many people will be seriously affected by the closure of L.E.Walker Transport. I think the issue is not that the company failed but to the extent ($4mm). As a 20 year Carrier we too are struggling for survival, we are in no way insolvent our suppliers are paid in a timely manner. That is my obligation as owner. I choose the customers we deal with, I decide when we can spend and when not to. I have no right to place my vendors at risk and I must operate in a responsible manner. If my company was to fail I would not blame the economy, customers, drivers, fuel costs etc... it would be because of the choices I made as owner period!

How can you honestly think that this company was unaware of its financial position? Where did $4mm go? and should all be forgiven because Julie Tanguay was an advocate for the trucking industry?

Oh and by the way we too deal with ActiveT. They are a company that hold high morals and ethics. I find his comments are usually very accurate. Our industry could use more of these types.
 
I think the strange thing is focusing on Julie Tanquay and yet McKinnon's part in this is not even mentioned. To me the announcement was that McKinnon was saving the day and merging the 2 companies but after a few months we find out that is not true. I think anyone who is taking over a company and it has over $4 million dolloars in unsercured debt, which you cannot hide by the way, would know at the time that there is no way possible that you could save that company. So was it a wink wink nudge nudge take over to move any good customers and employees and then let Walker suffer the fate that it was already going to meet? I believe that there is a lot to this story that we will never find out about but I question the ethics of any involved and I will say that Julie at least did the right thing by resigning.
 
Yup, the old expression is true " to the victor goes the spoils".
In cases like this the "buyer" (for lack of a better term) does end up with all the customers, but usually not forever. The shippers will stay in the short term because they havent had the time to make any changes and will usually give the new guy a chance out of loyalty to the old carrier.
However mergers are tough to manage without operational and billing glitches.
If McKinnon looks after the old Walker customers they should keep most of the business but if there are problems the old customers will bolt.
Shippers have many old friends calling on them begging for business these days but it is hard to justify a change to upper management without a reason. This may just give them a reason.
Again, time will tell.
As far as JT spending too much time on OTA business, the OTA has over 100 directors that attend the meetings. Most are owners. If I was looking for someone to take over my business or help me survive I would spend a lot of time at Martin Grove and Dixon.
 
Activet said:
I'm not an OTA member, associate or otherwise, and I've never met MS. Tanguay nor heard her speak, however I do have a question regarding personal priorities.

If your business was in trouble (she knew or ought to have known), would you be devoting your precious time (we only have a limited amount and you can't buy any more), to the duties and responsibilities that come with being an industry association executive?

If MS. Tanguay had not resigned her position and I were a member of the OTA, I would have been be questioning the wisdom of having someone with that degree of business acumen represent my interests in anything.
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The OTA is essentially a lobbying effort for their member carriers and to a lesser extent the industry at large. Thus her efforts at the OTA were likely motivated by her desire to promote her business by bringing about changes that would help Walker and other carriers...nothin wrong with that...thus not a waste of time. Should she have been more focussed on her business to the exclusion of OTA activities? Who knows..Walker was a privately held company and what happened there that brought them down is therefore not in the public domain. Sure..lousy management and poor decisions may have played a role, but sometimes bad things happen to good people...We really have very little control over the course of events..and just when you think you do you get sick and can't work..bad luck can reek havoc when least expected.
 
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There's a lot of couch side quarterbacking in this thread... I have nothing but respect for anyone that is willing to put the time and effort she did, not for herself, but for the industry as a whole. Maybe we should all just stop for a minute and take a real good look at the industry. The past 5 - 10 years have been brutal. Rather than sitting there and slinging mud take a look at what she has done and has tried to do for the industry as a whole. There have been bigger companies and there have been smaller companies that have faltered, all of which have stung people. Does it really matter that MacKinnon took control of LE Walker, no. People are still employed, bottom line there are losses, yes, but that is what a bankrupcy is about, it could be my company or yours next, who's to say. The only thing to do is dust ourselves off and figure out a way to squeeze some vodka out of this crap potatoe we call trucking...Keep on keepin' on, and keep your stick on the ice.
 
godfather said:
There's a lot of couch side quarterbacking in this thread... I have nothing but respect for anyone that is willing to put the time and effort she did, not for herself, but for the industry as a whole. Maybe we should all just stop for a minute and take a real good look at the industry. The past 5 - 10 years have been brutal. Rather than sitting there and slinging mud take a look at what she has done and has tried to do for the industry as a whole. There have been bigger companies and there have been smaller companies that have faltered, all of which have stung people. Does it really matter that MacKinnon took control of LE Walker, no. People are still employed, bottom line there are losses, yes, but that is what a bankrupcy is about, it could be my company or yours next, who's to say. The only thing to do is dust ourselves off and figure out a way to squeeze some vodka out of this crap potatoe we call trucking...Keep on keepin' on, and keep your stick on the ice.
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well put Godfather
 
Could'nt agree more Godfather.
In my 30 years in this business I have seen many good, honest, smart business people fail and I have seen many clowns that I wouldnt hire to sweep trailers create huge carriers and become millionaires in the process.
Who knows?
 
Was unfortunate enough to be in her employ during the whole takeover with Walker/Mid America. Julie may be a dynamic speaker and looks pretty while doing so. The reality of it is much different. She is the female version of "chainsaw bob". There was a revolving door of employees in St. Thomas. She systematically fired 30-40 people at Mid America. I overheard her and her sisters calling it "stump removals". These were people's lives! She fired people many times a week. The Mid America dispatchers had over 20 years experience each. You can't say they were all stumps. As a mechanic for them, I hung on a bit longer. Where ever possible, she cheated these employees out of severance pay by encouraging people to squeal on each other. She may have had good intentions in the industry as a whole but as a boss, she was flip and a tyrant. We used to call her car, the big white hearse, because when she pulled in, you knew someone was getting fired. Just posting this for posterity. Oddly, she kept one driver with a known drug problem while getting rid of a bunch of others. Maybe he was an informant which went a long way with her.
 
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