Transportation Insight Founder and Chairman Paul Thompson is Business North Carolina's "Cultural Leader of the Year." He earns the publication's inaugural individual recognition as the global lead third-party logistics provider he founded entrenches its position as a company focused on improvement both internally and within the communities it calls home.
"I am humbled and honored to receive this recognition for our efforts to create within our company a culture of sustainability - just as we do for our customers," Thompson says. "Our business is built on a generational plan for success, not just focused on what we are doing this year, but how we create something that, 15 years from now, is going to be really great. We apply that same long-range commitment to excellence to the road map we craft for customers as we work alongside them to improve their business year after year."
Transportation Insight's founder and chairman received the recognition in the October edition of Business North Carolina which includes The Grant Thornton North Carolina 100, a ranking of the state's top privately held businesses. Transportation Insight's No. 4 position puts the company in the list's top revenue tier.
The Cultural Leader of the Year award "recognizes individuals who have intentionally cultivated and developed a collaborative, cultural change in the workplace that has inspired employees and enhanced the company's performance," according to Grant Thornton, LLP, which has compiled the North Carolina 100 since 1984.
Transportation Insight applies its service-minded culture to interactions with client partners as part of a co-managed approach in which the 3PL works alongside manufacturers, distributors and retailers to optimize their transportation strategies, drive waste out of their supply chains and implement business practices that positively affect their bottom line. These endeavors are fueled by Transportation Insight's overriding continuous improvement mindset focused on helping companies serve end customers both today and for the long term.
"Our goal is to create North America's largest and most reputable provider of value-based logistics services by Jan. 1, 2020. In an intensely competitive marketplace, achieving that goal relies on our ability to create a corporate culture that allows us to attract and retain the next generation of innovators and visionaries, thinkers and doers," Thompson says. "For our company to be successful for the long term, that means we need to attract not just millennials, but members of a changing society that want to live daily in a vibrant community where they have things to do every day."
Transportation Insight completed rehabilitation of the 1930s- era Lyerly Full Fashioned Mill to create a corporate campus situated in the center of downtown Hickory. The 11-acre site is home to the company's headquarters and its newly rebranded transactional freight division, BirdDog Logistics. The campus also includes an athletic field available for community use, and work is underway to create a gymnasium containing a full-size basketball court and fitness facilities for employees.
A strong proponent of exercise and a nationally recognized supporter of the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, Thompson understands the importance of maintaining a healthy well-being. Future plans for the company's campus help facilitate healthy lifestyle practices for Transportation Insight associates.
"We wanted to create something really cool here in Hickory and become the preferred place to work," Thompson says. "At the same time, Transportation Insight has a commitment to the city of Hickory to help in its revitalization and re-invention as we continue collaborating to support the development of greenspaces, sidewalks and other amenities critical to this becoming an eclectic, livable community."
Transportation Insight's culture mirrors Thompson's drive to create significance and a legacy of accomplishment outside the business' walls. He serves on the boards of the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce and Wine to Water, which uses the proceeds of wine sales to provide clean drinking water for people around the world. He was instrumental in the formation of Appalachian State University's Transportation Insight Center for Entrepreneurship, and both he and the company's associates are strong supporters of Samaritan's Feet. Thompson has personally sponsored more than a million pairs of shoes distributed worldwide. The company devotes financial and personal resources to Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Ten Thousand Homes.
Following the lead of Transportation Insight's founder and chairman, company employees initiated and operate a service organization, Service in Action (SIA), which aims to serve the critical, humanitarian and diverse needs of local and global communities. (see more online)
