Chattanooga, Tenn. — Mike O'Brien believes that in this freight environment — with truck capacity tightening and fuel costs rising — there's good reason for shippers to look seriously at rail when considering a reliable, lower-cost alternative to solo truck transit for certain types of freight.
O'Brien just joined freight brokerage firm Covenant Transport Solutions (Solutions), where he will act as director of intermodal service, but he is not new to the industry or intermodal. The Chattanooga native has spent the last 20 years in transportation and logistics, and the last 12 in intermodal service specifically.
A graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, O'Brien's career began on the operations floor at Covenant Transport — sister company of Solutions — nearly two decades ago, right out of college. In the years since, he has spent time at both Averitt Express and most recently, U.S. Xpress, where he acted as director of intermodal before joining Solutions in the same role.
He brings his experience to Solutions now as the third-party logistics provider grows its intermodal service and expands its overall service offering. O'Brien said the expansion of intermodal at Solutions is a win for both existing and potential customers.
"It's value added," he said. "It will allow the customer to choose the mode, giving them flexibility based on price and transit."
In addition to experience, O'Brien brings knowledge of freight lanes and networks, as well as relationships with key intermodal contacts.
"With more than a decade of experience, we have an excellent understanding of the rail networks at all the class one railroads," O'Brien said. "I've worked with these guys 12-plus years."
Paul Newbourne, executive vice president and COO at Solutions, said the expansion of intermodal service at Solutions is a natural next step for the third-party logistics provider.
"We felt that we needed to be able to provide an intermodal service option to enable our customers the benefits of a single-source mode optimization strategy," he said. "Our new intermodal service offering will further round out our multi-modal service offering, which includes truckload, less-than-truckload, air freight and transportation management."
Newbourne said O'Brien is a strong addition to the overall Solutions team and a will be a valuable leader and resource in expanding intermodal.
"Mike brings invaluable institutional knowledge to our team and a proven history of success in directing intermodal logistics," he said. "We're very excited about the future of Solutions, and believe our intermodal service, under Mike's leadership, will help us serve our customers better than ever."
For more information about Covenant Transport Solutions, visit www.covenant-solutions.com.
For more information about Covenant Transportation Group, visit www.ctgcompanies.com.
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About Covenant Transport Solutions
Covenant Transport Solutions specializes in providing third-party managed freight transportation and logistics services.. Solutions' service offerings include truckload; less-than-truckload; intermodal; and air freight transportation and logistics planning. Covenant Transport Solutions is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Covenant Transportation Group, Inc., holding company for several transportation providers which offer premium services for customers throughout the United States.
About Covenant Transportation Group
Covenant Transportation Group, Inc. is the holding company for several transportation providers which offer premium services for customers throughout the United States. The consolidated group includes operations from Covenant Transport and Covenant Transport Solutions of Chattanooga, Tenn.; Southern Refrigerated Transport of Texarkana, Ark.; and Star Transportation of Nashville, Tenn. The group operates one of the 15 largest truckload fleets in North America, as measured by revenue. The company's Class A common stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol CVTI.
