Company: EMAC Transport Co., Cranston, R.I.
President: Edward L. MacDonald
Type of business: Regional trucking company
Number of employees: 87
Sales for 1997: $7.19 million
Year founded: 1976
In the late 1960s when he joined the Providence Fire Department, Edward MacDonald said the pay and benefits were decent enough; but not so decent that hundreds of men and women were crowding the Civil Service exam list, as they do today hoping for a shot at secure employment. So to improve his quality of life, MacDonald, like many of his colleagues, moonlighted.
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“On off days you can go out and rustle up a few extra bucks and try to make your family eat better,” he explained. His family includes his wife, their son, who is also a Providence firefighter, and his daughter who is married and has two children.
MacDonald’s part-time job driving trucks in 1971 has, however, evolved into a $7-plus million regional trucking business, which recently ranked 17th on Providence Business News’ list of the 45 fastest growing private companies in Rhode Island. Reporting some $7.19 million in sales for 1997, EMAC had a 66 percent growth over its previous year’s sales figures.
And MacDonald credits much of this success to the help of dedicated employees and his roots as a blue collar worker.
“My drivers have to support their families. Being a firefighter, a blue collar worker all my life I understand this,” he said. “I appreciate how they work.”
MacDonald started driving a truck part-time in 1971 for another company, and his boss eventually asked him to try a sales job. “So I put a suit and tie on and I went out and got him some new business. I was pretty good at it,” he said.
In 1976, he started his own business with one truck, which he parked at home. Gradually he built up a client list and took on three or four part-time drivers. But EMAC’s big break came in 1979 when the company won a U.S. Postal Service contract to haul letters between the bulk mail center in Springfield, Mass., and the Providence post office.
“That just opened doors,” he said.
Then he hired three or four full-time workers and moved the business out of his house, MacDonald said. EMAC still has the post office contract, hauling 12 to 14 loads of mail between the two cities every day, he added.
The post office contract is very competitive, said Sales Manager Tom Johnston, who is also a retired Providence firefighter. “If you don’t provide good service, you’re out. The mail must get through.”
MacDonald continued working as a firefighter while growing the trucking company, gradually moving from “riding the back step” of a fire truck to battalion chief. But in 1994 he decided to end his status as a “part-time owner” and retired. He went from battalion chief to full-time commander-in-chief at EMAC’s headquarters on Fletcher Avenue in Cranston.
Reminders of his previous career adorn his office: old fire helmets lining a bookshelf, a plaque bearing his lieutenant’s helmet from the Broad Street station and the group’s bulldog logo, and framed photographs of former coworkers and fire scenes hang on the walls. The smell of diesel fuel from trucks in the garage below his second floor office also serves as an occasional reminder of firehouse life, he added.
EMAC now has 67 tractors, 300 trailers, and runs trucks as far south as the Carolinas and as far west as Pittsburgh. It also has satellite locations in Springfield, Mass., and New Brunswick, N.J. About 60 percent of EMAC’s business is related to the beverage industry, delivering and picking up freight for companies such as Pepsi, which has a Cranston facility, Johnston said. Although EMAC hauls many types of products, it doesn’t deal with hazardous materials, mostly Johnston explained “because of our background in the fire department.”
Over the years as the company has grown, EMAC has also expanded the services it offers to clients. For instance, Johnston said, they have a warehouse facility at the Quonset Point/Davisville Industrial Complex where they provide some storage for customers. “Customers let you know what they want,” he explained.
Running a trucking business offers a number of other challenges, such as updating and maintaining equipment and keeping up with driver and safety requirements set by the U.S. Department of Transportation, MacDonald said. For instance, truckers hold a commercial drivers license, which means they can only drive for a certain number of hours before taking a mandatory rest break. Federal law requires trucking companies to keep records of drivers’ hours on the road and have documented proof of rest breaks, he explained.
EMAC administrators are also responsible for complying with drug and alcohol testing regulations.
But that’s all part of the business. The biggest challenge MacDonald said he faces “is to acquire good drivers, good workers, and to treat them well.”
Before becoming firefighters new recruits learn of the “triangle of fire,” MacDonald and Johnston explain. It takes heat, fuel and oxygen to create a fire, said Johnston, adding without even one of those components “you don’t have fire.”
They have spun that off into a business motto they could easily relate to: the triangle of transportation. For success, Johnston said, all they need is: quality service, reasonable rates, and quality equipment.
“We’re not Harvard graduates, but being in the public has been a great education. Life’s a great teacher,” MacDonald said. “I didn’t step out of management school. I’m a regular street kid who got lucky and appreciates it.”
