The impact and history of Detroit cars, Motor City
Below are some facts about Detroit’s automotive industry.
- McKinley Archie and three business partners launched Lis LLC in February.
- Squirrel carried the first load on Ford’s expedition and F-Series trucks on April 22nd.
- Squirrel aims to sign a direct contract with Ford or General Motors to carry more vehicles.
Four months ago, McKinley Archie was blind to the reality that his six-figure job at the trucking company where he had been working for about 20 years was approaching a halt of a screeching.
Archie, 46, has been working for Jack Cooper, a now-defunct car hauler since 2004. He started there as a driver. He drove large rigs from the carmaker’s Louisville Assembly Plant and Kentucky Truck Plant with new Ford Motor Co. vehicles at dealers nationwide. He was working towards the stewards at the Jack Cooper facility, which served Louisville Assembly.
Life was good. Then, on January 2nd, Jack Cooper’s second-largest customer, after General Motors, gave Jack Cooper a 30-day notice that it had ended its decades-long business with carriers. Ford did not provide a reason. Archie and about 105 colleagues in Louisville suddenly knew they would lose what was their favorable job.
“It wasn’t McDonald’s wage jobs. They were good jobs,” Archie said.
Then, a month later, GM ended his relationship with Jack Cooper after failing to reach a new contract. This led to the nearly 100-year-old vehicle transport company going out of business, eliminating approximately 2,500 jobs nationwide. In Michigan, more than 350 jobs were terminated when Ford and GM cut off their contract with Jack Cooper.
Through it, Archie put on a brave face and hides his fears about how he will provide to his family.
“As a steward, my colleagues wanted me to be leadership and mentored, so I had to be strong for them on the outside, but internally, I didn’t know what I was trying to do either,” Archie said. “Then when I saw my mother, she said, ‘What’s wrong? Does your face look heavy?” I broke a few tears and said, “I don’t know if I’ll do my job.” She thought I was a child of God.
Drill into the seed cache
Archie said he began to listen to his mother’s advice, draw out his faith and reflect on his plans to survive this set-off.
He wasted no time as he knew that the Jack Cooper truck had to be empty on January 31st. In early February he gathered a lifelong band of “brothers from another mother” and proposed ideas.
“We’ve been in business for many years, but we sat down and had a roundtable discussion on how we could alleviate these losses,” Archie said. “We have decided to start car transport operations.”
The group has launched other business efforts, including in 2020 when it launched the bourbon maker Blackbread distillery in Louisville. They also run Knox Construction, a home renovation business in Atlanta.
In February, the group launched Squirrel LLC. The goal is to transport Ford vehicles from the Kentucky truck factory to dealers anywhere in the country. Archie is the company’s co-founder and chief compliance officer. The newly established carrier is based in Stone Mountain, Georgia, where some of the group lives.
The business group consists of Archie, two other men and one woman. The three men grew up together and knew each other “from the cradle,” Archie said. They went on their first date together, and Archie even taught one of them how to drive. They later met a woman through friends. She brings her logistics expertise, he said.
Archie describes this group as “multiplena.” In other words, you are trying to find opportunities in a variety of areas. His two male partners have a degree in finance, and one is a youth pastor with a master’s degree in divinity, Archie said.
They decided to call it Squirrel. “Because we’re all over the place, that’s our slogan,” Archie said.
But they knew that starting their own car transport business was not an easy feat. Archie said the plan was to buy a lightly used rig from Jack Cooper. However, each had a whopping $260,000 price tag. Second, rigs and employee insurance costs. He said they were able to start some tracks. So far, Squirrel has bought 10 trucks and plans to buy another 25 trucks, he said.
“So there was quite a lot of things we had to raise, and it’s a tough job for us,” Archie said. “We were going to the backyard and digging up all our savings. It’s hard to go to the bank and give us $3 million and start a dream. We’re actually running the car so we can go back to them and show them proof of concept.
I want to do my own business
Squirrel moved his first Ford vehicle from Kentucky to Texas on April 22nd. Since then, he has transported Ford Expedition SUV and F-Series super duty pickups from a truck factory in Kentucky to dealers in Texas, and nine loads to dealers in Michigan. Archie said it was about 120 vehicles.
“It’s a great start for us,” Archie said. “Of course we want to get to where we’re driving 36 loads a day. If we get our own inventory directly from (the car manufacturer), it’s going to get better.”
Ford spokeswoman Ursula Muller declined to comment on the hauling of squirrel carriers as the car manufacturer has a policy that does not comment on supplier contracts.
However, squirrels are currently transporting overflow operations from other haulers. Because under the Teamsters Union agreement, carriers must give other unionized carriers an overflow task, Archie said. Later last month, Squirrel employees voted to join Teamster, the union confirmed.
A week later, the second unit of the former Jack Cooper carrier has rejoined Teamsters Union. In a media release, Teamsters Local 964 in Ohio said the Avon Lake Car Hall group employed by Fleet Transport Corporation combined the local 964 with the union. The fleet shipment was launched last month and says it will fill the market gap left by Jack Cooper’s bankruptcy. Ford’s Ohio Assembly Plant on Lake Avon is building F-Series intermediate duty and super duty pickups.
Squirrel has six employees, more than the 10 former Jack Cooper drivers hired by former Jack Cooper drivers, Archie said.
“My goal is to get most of them (drivers) back to work. Cassen Transport took some of them,” Archie said.
“We’re Brock’s new kids,” Archie said. “These airlines were already there before Jack Cooper went out.”
Archie said Squirrel is about to negotiate a direct contract with the Detroit automaker. In the meantime, he said he was happy to be able to work again and hire others.
“It’s personally a great pride for me to help my fellow brothers get back to work,” Archie said. “Thank God that he put me in a position where he could do that. When it was happening and we were losing our job, I thought, ‘I thought it was okay because I started a car hauling company.’ Four months later, here we are actually running the vehicle. ”
Jamie L. Larrow is a senior Autos writer covering Ford Motor Company for the Detroit Free Press. Please contact Jamie at jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jarouan. Sign up for our car newsletter. Become a subscriber.
