Anderson's Carter Express continues to expand

ANDERSON - Truck drivers make 160 decisions every mile.

And while he can't have his hands on every wheel or his foot on every clutch, Jim Stetnish puts drivers in the best position to make the safest decision.

As vice president of fleet operations, Stetnish oversees safety programs for Carter Express. It's a point of pride that the Anderson company has received the National Fleet Safety Award for Excellence in Service two years running.

"We're an anomaly in this industry, right now," Stetnish said. "When we talk to insurance companies, trucking companies are not their most desirable clients, but they want to work with us. (Our safety record) keeps us in a good light with the regulatory agencies, and it keeps us in a good light with the driving public."

In Carter Express can be found a rare ray of sunshine in oppressively cloudy economic times. Between its three divisions - Carter Express, Carter Logistics and Duke's Truck Center - the company employs more than 800 people and operates 550 trucks, and both numbers are growing.

"We're fortunate to have a good group of guys," said CEO John Paugh. "We've actually grown this year."

That's with total freight down 6 percent over the past 12 months, according to Paugh. The strength of Carter Express in the competitive world of trucking is making Anderson stronger.

"Having a company like Carter's ... is very important for our economy in terms of diversity," said Keith Pitcher of the Chamber of Commerce for Anderson and Madison County, referring to the long shadow cast by GM. "It's important not to be dependent on one or two companies.

"As the greater Indianapolis area expands up Interstate 69, it's going to be great for Anderson and Madison County."

Will Carter and Elizabeth Linville started metal maintenance company Carter Industries in 1974 and would later found Carter Express. Paugh's father, Myron "Duke" Paugh, opened a truck dealership in 1955. When the younger Paugh took over the family business, he brought the two together.

According to the city of Anderson and the Flagship Enterprise Center, Carter Express is Anderson's fifth-largest employer, trailing only Saint John's Health System, Anderson Community Schools, Community Hospital and the Anderson city government. The Chamber of Commerce lists it as Madison County's eighth-largest employer.

Paugh said Carter Express employs 600 people, most of them truckers, and also contracts with 60 owner-operators. Another 150 work at Carter Logistics and 50 others at Duke's Truck Center. A turnover rate of 100 percent is not uncommon in the trucking industry, Paugh said, but for Carter Express it's just 24 percent.

Paugh said Carter Express relies primarily on the automotive industry and even signed a contract related to Honda's new plant in Greensburg. That doesn't mean he isn't keeping an eye on the auto-industry bailout talks in Washington.

"In the long term, I think we'll be fine, either way," Paugh said. "It might change who, in the long term, the players are. But the American love for the automobile is not going away."

New ventures have given the company a range that spans the continent of North America. Carter Express was already operating in 17 states when it opened its Paragould, Ark., terminal in 2002. A Laredo, Texas, terminal was launched in 2004.

Both are designed to create better access to Mexico. Truckers cross the border just far enough to swap payloads with a Mexican driver through an interchange agencies. Carter Express even has an office on Queretaro, Mexico, and operates across the Canadian border.

Today, Paugh is preparing for new emission standards in 2010, part of a three-part rollout that also saw restrictions tighten in 2003 and 2007. The plan is for emissions to contain less nitrous oxide than intake.

"The air will actually come out cleaner," Paugh said.

Paugh has made other changes with fuel economy in mind. He said the maximum speed for Carter Express trucks has been lowered to 65 mph and tires are now inflated with nitrogen, which is a smaller molecule and can less easily bleed through the sidewalls of a tire. Carter Express has also switched to wide-base or super-single tires, wide models that can replace two tires off a double axle, cutting weight by 400 pounds per tire.

Paugh said Carter Express was riding a tax abatement agreed upon when it built its headquarters near the Flagship Enterprise Center in 2002. The company got a 100 percent abatement for the first two years, then 80 percent the next two years and so on.

It was the company's accident rate, a minuscule 0.228 preventable accidents per million miles, that earned Carter Express the National Fleet Safety Award for Excellence in Service in both 2007 and 2008. Paugh said the industry average was 1.5.

Stetnish said happy drivers are safe drivers.

"Because we run regionally, they're home a lot," Stetnish said. "I would say the vast majority of our drivers are home weekly, if not daily. When we bring them in off the road, they're able to have home time, family time."