Milgard School of Business names Marc Rogers as Business Leader of the Year

For a man who appreciates a challenge, things were going a bit too well at Schneider National.

Marc Rogers, then a senior vice president at the Wisconsin-based trucking company, said recently that he wasn’t looking for a new job, but he did hear from a corporate headhunter. Rogers had taken Schneider, he said, “from being barely profitable to the return they expected.”

Rogers’ family — wife Allyson, three daughters and two sons — liked the idea of moving.

“Our family wanted to be out West,” he said.

The headhunter had an opening at a company called Interstate Distributor, based somewhere called Tacoma.

Rogers started checking.

“You hear rumors,” he said. “I really didn’t have a good picture of how bad it was. I knew I had a management problem. I knew I had a morale problem. I knew I had a profitability problem that I had to go fix.”

He took the job, happily.

What he found, he said, “was shockingly bad.”

The company had been purchased about a year before by Saltchuk Resources, a Northwest holding company that also owns Foss Maritime, TOTE and other transportation-based companies around the country.

SALTCHUK

After Saltchuk bought Interstate for more than $100 million in 2011, the former owners discussed why they had chosen those investors from among more than a dozen other serious suitors.

“Saltchuk was the only company that asked about safety, and we could tell this was a different company. They were interested in our employees, our family,” said Renee Trueblood, then an Interstate senior vice president and corporate counsel.

Saltchuk is not known as an owner that flips companies to make a quick profit. Instead, it buys companies that provide a service that “will be needed 50 years from now,” according to Mark Tabbut, Saltchuk chairman.

“We were making a decision like we were going to own this business for forever,” he said after the sale.

And so Saltchuk went looking for someone to lead the newly acquired operation.

They chose Marc Rogers.

A few years after making that decision, Saltchuk has assessed their choice.

“Marc had a vision for what Interstate could be, and we shared the expectation that he was in it for the long haul,” said Tim Engle, Saltchuk president, in a statement. “The turnaround in safety is the area we are most proud of. Marc’s focus has been on hiring the right team and changing the culture of the operation. It’s something that takes time and constant attention, and Marc’s dedication to safety is paying off.”

The average age of the fleet stood at five years when Rogers arrived. Now, he says, “it’s less than two years,” with Saltchuk proving its own commitment by replacing its tractor fleet since Rogers arrived.

LEADERSHIP

“My goal is to get Interstate to $1 billion in revenue five years from now,” Rogers said.

But that’s not the greatest goal.

“What’s more important to me is to make this a great place to work,” he said. “My passion is to help advance people in their careers. I get excited about the opportunities we’re creating for others.”

Rogers said the company’s success, so far, “has pleased our customers but frustrated our competitors.”

He said he does not plan to rest on that success.

“We’re looking to acquire other trucking companies,” he said. “We’ll look to grow organically as well.”

He said he expects to focus growth within the company’s current footprint, especially in the West and the South.

“We’re open for business and looking to expand,” he said.

Along with increasing the routes Interstate represents, Rogers said a new offshoot, Interstate Logistics, has grown from its beginnings last year to a predicted $40 million in 2016 revenue.

On business leadership, he said, “It’s building trust, it’s setting an example, it’s being a good coach.”

Another goal, he said, has been to empower his employees.

“It’s hard to teach people that,” he said. “It comes back to trust. You have to trust your employees.”

When Rogers heard that he had been named Business Leader of the Year by the University of Washington Tacoma’s Milgard School of Business, he said, “I was shocked. I was surprised. Obviously, I was humbled. The recognition is less about me than about the team. As a leader, you can’t be successful without a great team.”

This story was originally published April 2, 2016 at 11:55 AM with the headline "Milgard School of Business names Marc Rogers as Business Leader of the Year."