On any given day, at any given time, some 75 employees at Toledo’s
Bolt Express are dispatching and tracking millions of tons of cargo being transported by truck and air freight carrier all over North America, including Canada and Mexico.
The company’s operations center is teeming with activity 24/7/365, managing shipments for its hundreds of customers in the manufacturing, retail and construction sectors.
““We track our customers’ freight from door to door, coordinating every aspect of it,” explains Guy Sanderson, the company’s chief operating officer. “We do it by satellite and provide real-time updates to customers.”
The company’s innovative technology is what makes the load tracking possible, says Sanderson. “We invest heavily in technology and have a product development team dedicated to creating new capabilities to handle all the shipments we’re in charge of.”
One of the tracking capabilities the team developed is called “Border Advantage,” which is used for Canadian and Mexican shipments. “It simplifies the complex customs procedure for freight and enables our customers to check the status of their shipment at any time during the border-crossing process,” he explains.
Elizabeth and Ben Bauman established Bolt Express in 2001. The company, which started with four employees, has pursued an aggressive growth strategy. It built a new state-of-the-art headquarters in 2005 and expanded its services in 2007 to offer cross border and intra-Mexico shipping. Bolt Express now has 90 employees and was recently recognized by Inc. magazine as one of the fastest growing privately owned companies in America.
While the company doesn’t own any trucks itself, it works with some 300 truck owner/operators and also partners with air carrier networks. To maintain quality, Bolt Express mandates that all drivers who work for its partner owner/operators complete rigorous training provided by the company.
Regardless where a shipment originates or terminates in North America, if it’s being dispatched and tracked by Bolt Express, it’s in capable hands.
Source: Guy Sanderson, Bolt Express
Writer: Lynne Meyer