Knight Praises Trucking’s ‘Green’ Measures

By Frederick Kiel, Staff Reporter

This story appears in the Feb. 16 print edition of Transport Topics.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Kevin Knight, chief executive officer of Knight Transportation, touted trucking’s efforts in recent years to become more environmentally friendly, and said the industry should work to improve its green message to the public.

“I’m not an environmentalist, but it’s important that we play offense on this,” Knight said here Feb. 9 during the Technology & Maintenance Council’s spring meeting.

“We are much cleaner than we get credit for,” he said. “I don’t think we’re vocal enough. The modern truck engine is 60 times cleaner than a [past] engine.”

Knight said the truckload carrier’s adherence to its business model through good times and bad times have allowed it to avoid excessive environmental costs.

“Basically, when everyone was not buying, we were in early ’07,” Knight said. “Consequently, our suppliers were very grateful, and the prices we paid where not what you expected.”

He said the company had about 1,700 2007-technology trucks on the road and, despite some early glitches, they were performing well. He also reiterated the company would not conduct a pre-buy this year ahead of 2010 federal engine emission regulations.

He said the company focused on funding equipment for expansion from profits rather than borrowing. That policy helped a family business grow from just a few dozen trucks when it started to a publicly traded carrier with about 3,800 tractors and 9,300 trailers today.

“We have two primary tractor suppliers, two primary trailer suppliers, one primary engine supplier and one primary tire supplier,” he said.

Knight Transportation ranks No. 38 on the Transport Topics 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in the United States and Canada.

“We’re always focused for building for the long term,” Knight said. “That’s not to say we didn’t have some difficult times. . . . I sometimes felt like a hamster running on a circular wheel the past few quarters, running as hard as I can but staying in the same place.”

Also during his speech, Knight said finding competent technicians had been one of the company’s most urgent problems, mainly because the major manufacturers and their dealers were able to pay a higher salary.

The current recession has allowed Knight Transportation to recruit higher-quality technicians, in part because of partnerships with technical schools, he added.

“I’m glad we’re getting these good service people now and we have to make sure we can keep them when times improve,” Knight said. “Equipment maintenance is a major part of our business, and we have worked hard to integrate technical maintenance in each part of our business when it makes sense.”

Knight said the company found that “there is still too great a difference in costs between doing it [repairs] in our place and outside.”

He said he had no illusions about how difficult the current recession has been for trucking, but he thought “it was an enormous opportunity for young people to live through a difficult period” early in their careers.

He advised younger people “to take notes and learn,” but compared the recession “to just like [Hurricane] Katrina. It’s a storm and we’ll have to rebuild.”