Trucker Tools Founder and CEO Prasad Gollapalli moving into strategic advisory role
In planned transition, Gollapalli to shift to role as strategic advisor and chief customer officer, remains on Board. Current COO Kary Jablonski to succeed Gollapalli as Trucker Tools president and CEO.
RESTON, VA – MARCH 31, 2022 – Trucker Tools the leading provider of trip planning, shipment visibility, predictive freight matching and automated booking solutions for the transportation industry announced today that Chief Executive Prasad Gollapalli, who founded the company in 2013, is moving to a new role as strategic advisor and chief customer officer. Kary Jablonski, currently Trucker Tools chief operating officer, will succeed Mr. Gollapalli as president and CEO. The changes become effective April 1.
Last June, Trucker Tools was acquired by ASG, a portfolio company of Alpine Investors. “Since then, we have worked closely with ASG to position Trucker Tools for continued growth and success,” Mr. Gollapalli noted. “Part of that has been a planned leadership succession. I feel the time is right for me to move into a strategic advisory role. I am extremely proud of the company we have built, and I want to thank our customers for their loyalty and encouragement. I’m confident that ASG will continue to profitably grow the company, develop our team, and expand Trucker Tools’ value proposition going forward.”
Commenting on his recognized industry leadership, Ms. Jablonski said, “Prasad has had incredible vision around how to build tools to solve major challenges for our customers, both brokers and carriers. I look forward to his ongoing counsel as strategic advisor and am grateful for his leadership and tenacity.”
Mr. Gollapalli began building what would eventually become Trucker Tools in 2009, launching design, development and testing of a new industry app designed specifically for truck drivers and the challenges they faced running a business while on the road. Starting with a user base of some 100,000 truckers and a handful of brokers, the smartphone-based app initially provided one of the first simple-to-implement, real-time visibility solutions for truckload shipments as well as other useful tools. Next came predictive freight matching, automated “one-click” booking, upgraded visibility and carrier support tools, building out a menu of 17 of the most sought-after tools truckers wanted for managing their business, and for brokers to dramatically improve engagement with carriers and efficient access to reliable capacity.
Trucker Tools was “bootstrapped” in its development, Mr. Gollapalli said, recalling early days when he sold property, cashed in his retirement, and maxed out numerous credit cards to keep the company going. “We never missed a payroll,” he said. “And we never went the venture capital route.” Later rounds of funding were secured from private sources, including friends, family and business associates who saw what the Trucker Tools vision could become, Mr. Gollapalli added.
Today, the Trucker Tools carrier engagement and management app has been downloaded by some 1.7 million truckers, has nearly 190,000 small-fleet truckload operators active on its carrier engagement platform, with over 90 percent of those running 10 trucks or less, as well as single-truck owner-operators. ‘Micro’ truckload fleets and independent owner operators are the backbone of the Trucker Tools carrier community, leveraging its digital freight matching, one-click simplified automated booking, automated load tracking and carrier relationship management software and services, Mr. Gollapalli said.
Nearly 375 freight brokers and 3PLs also use Trucker Tools to secure and manage truckload capacity and build better engagement and visibility compliance with thousands of truckers. The mobile driver app remains one of the transportation industry’s most-downloaded apps each month.
“Trucker Tools is built on a unique combination of cutting-edge technology and great customer and employee relationships. As CEO, my primary focus will be on our people and developing a team that believes deeply in our mission and taking Trucker Tools far beyond where we are today,” said Ms. Jablonski. “Our industry is the backbone of the nation’s economy, and it’s changing faster than ever. We will continue to build tools to help brokers and carriers find, book, and track freight seamlessly, while innovating to accelerate the digital transformation of freight.”
Ms. Jablonski joined Trucker Tools last year. She’d previously advanced through logistics, operational and strategic planning roles with Uber in the U.S. and internationally and worked as a consultant with Deloitte.
The Trucker Tools mobile app is available for both Android- and Apple-powered smartphones and is provided free of charge to independent truckers and small fleets.
About Trucker Tools: Trucker Tools, based in Reston, Va., is the leading provider of trip planning, shipment visibility, predictive freight matching and automated booking solutions for the transportation industry. Its ground-breaking Smart Capacity® platform uses accurate, real-time data and powerful algorithms to optimally match freight by predicting when and where capacity will become available, days in advance. The company’s popular driver smartphone app has been downloaded by over 1.7 million owner operators and small-carrier fleets to access information and services conveniently while on the road. Included in the smartphone app is Book It Now®, the industry’s first digital load booking app that automates and streamlines the load search and booking process for drivers and brokers, saving time and money. Trucker Tools load tracking solution is a robust feature in the app that connects drivers with carriers and freight brokers, automating the provision and collection of real-time shipment tracking and eliminating manual check calls. Visit Trucker Tools at www.truckertools.com or contact us directly at: sales@truckertools.com.
Media Contact: Gary Frantz, Trucker Tools, (925) 594-1434. gary@gnfcomms.com
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.