Mr. Ratnathicam: CNF is a management company of global supply chain services with businesses in ground transportation, airfreight and logistics. We specialize in providing premium, time-definite service in the heavy freight segment of the market. The company was founded in 1929 in Portland, Oregon as a trucking company. Today we have a best-in- class, less-than-truckload trucking company, Con-Way Transportation Services, which operates primarily in the United States, and which is probably the most profitable and highest quality service trucking company in the world. We have a global airfreight, forwarding and logistics operation called Emery Worldwide, which operates in almost every country in the world. Emery has a franchise that is 50-plus years old and is the leader in heavyweight airfreight and well-recognized for its ocean services, logistics and customs brokerage services. Despite a substantial domestic presence, Emery is probably better known outside the US. CNF also owns Menlo Logistics, the best third-party logistics operation ' certainly in the United States ' and we really haven't seen anything like it in any other part of the world, either. Menlo is a fast growing, high technology content, high-solutions-oriented logistics company, that specializes in providing complex logistics solutions for some of the largest companies in the world. We're based in Palo Alto, the heart of Silicon Valley. While our roots are in transportation, we are moving toward providing non-asset-based, technology-driven, global one-stop supply chain solutions for large customers, whether they're dealing with one of our companies or the whole group.
TWST: Do you think there will be increasing international activity for
the company?
Mr. Williford: For Menlo, international expansion is probably our
biggest growth opportunity. We provide solutions to large, complex
client assignments, and our clients are increasingly wanting our skills
to be applied to global solutions. Our business is to leverage
technology, engineering skills and operation skills and to be network-
neutral so that we can go out and manage the best transportation and
forwarding networks. While there are some very good companies that are
building worldwide forwarding or asset-based transportation networks,
there really aren't any companies like Menlo that are purely
capabilities-based and network-neutral that can offer global solutions.
So we think it's a huge opportunity for Menlo, and we're very focused on
building our systems so they work globally. We're building engineering
skills and putting operations people all around the world who have the
capability to manage the local pieces of a global solution.
Tickers included in this excerpt: CNF
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