Kim Richardson has been in the Transportation Industry for 34 years. Currently he is the President of Kim Richardson Transportation Specialists Inc. a family owned and operated business which has won multiple awards. Under the KRTS group of businesses is Transrep Inc. and The Rear View Mirror. Kim is currently on the board of directors for the Professional Truck Driver Institute (PTDI), on the board of directors with Private Motor Truck Council of Canada (PMTC), on the membership committee of the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA), on the advisory board of the Women’s Trucking federation of Canada (WTFC), and in the past, Chairman of the Board for the Truck Training Association of Ontario (TTSAO) and Chairman of the Board for the Allied Trade Division of the Ontario Trucking Association (OTA). Kim is a proud Husband, Dad, Grandpa and loves his community of Caledonia. He can be reached at krichardson@krway.com or phone 1-800-771-8171 ext. 201.

Columnists,Kim Richardson |
October 21, 2024
Recently the fine folks at Giant Tiger (GT) included me in to their fall meeting in Johnstown, Ontario at their state of the art distribution centre. The meeting was with some management and some of their professional drivers.
When a company asks me to come and speak to the audience they have choices of a number of topics or they may ask for a customized message to be delivered. GT requested a customized message, Winning and Leadership.
I have had the pleasure of being involved with GT meetings in the past and very rewarding and satisfying to be invited back. This team is best in class, an “elite fleet”. GT has some serious passionate people in their transportation division (who also like to have fun) combined with a team of “major league” professional drivers who remind me of the Labatt’s team back in the day when we working with them and they were the cream of the crop.
At GT the CVOR is incredibly low, the turover rate is 2ish% and the entire team just gets it. Notably in 2024 they won the PMTC/Aviva Safest Fleet in Canada Award in large fleet category in Canada.
Winning and leadership is what they wanted me to talk about a long with the importance of embracing technology as well as my opinion of where we are in the industry and where we are heading. Such fun! I love winning (who doesn’t) and I love being a leader so it was easy to talk about.
One of the fun exercises I enjoy to do with the audience if it is not to big is to go around the room and ask how many years each person has been in the transportation industry. Typically I hear everything from 6 months to 40 plus years and I have someone calculate the number as we go along. The goal is to share with the group how much knowledge is in the room by experience – I like to call it the IC (Intellectual Capital) and how we can share and all benefit from. It really gets the audiences juices flowing.
The reasons GT wanted me talk about winning and leadership is GT and their people are winners, the team are winners. Winners of many awards in many different areas. With winning and with being in “best in class” it comes with expectations. When you win, you and your company are viewed by others in the industry as an elite fleet and with this comes expectation of being a leader, setting examples of professionalism on a daily basis.
The challenge is what next? How to continuously raise the bar. I will not share with you the goals and expectations GT has in the future but I can assure you they are not going to sit around patting themselves on the back and resting on their past accomplishments.
It is not what winners do, it’s not what leaders do.
We are so fortunate to work with so many of the elite fleets, for-hire fleets and private fleets across the country. Thank you to all of you, from my team to yours – keep being incredible.
I want to leave you with this golden nugget that was shared with me by two of my industry friends and business colleagues on the east coast about recruiting and retaining people in our industry. Thank you Kelly and Katrina for sharing this.
“We need to earn people into this industry and then retain them”.
My friends had heard this from a speaker at a conference they had attended. What a profound statement.
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Kim Richardson has been in the Transportation Industry for 34 years. Currently he is the President of Kim Richardson Transportation Specialists Inc. a family owned and operated business which has won multiple awards. Under the KRTS group of businesses is Transrep Inc. and The Rear View Mirror. Kim is currently on the board of directors for the Professional Truck Driver Institute (PTDI), on the board of directors with Private Motor Truck Council of Canada (PMTC), on the membership committee of the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA), on the advisory board of the Women’s Trucking federation of Canada (WTFC), and in the past, Chairman of the Board for the Truck Training Association of Ontario (TTSAO) and Chairman of the Board for the Allied Trade Division of the Ontario Trucking Association (OTA). Kim is a proud Husband, Dad, Grandpa and loves his community of Caledonia. He can be reached at krichardson@krway.com or phone 1-800-771-8171 ext. 201.