Central Transport | Chris Keylon is a coward

runawaytrain

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Don't bother to explain why we are losing all this money. Don't bother to explain anything to your employees. The fact is you are a coward that has no answers. How can you lose all this money in all these quarters and not address that in a video? I suppose he has no answers and perhaps he's not a coward. He's just totally in over his head and hasn't a clue what he's doing.
 
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Don't bother to explain why we are losing all this money. Don't bother to explain anything to your employees. The fact is you are a coward that has no answers. How can you lose all this money in all these quarters and not address that in a video? I suppose he has no answers and perhaps he's not a coward. He's just totally in over his head and hasn't a clue what he's doing.

I met face to face with him, he gave a shift of us guys his card and said to call with any concerns, he was our regional VP with Fredex, then a couple weeks later he moved to the Atlanta region, go figure.
 
To leave us hanging with no explanation is unfair. We deserve to know if this is a part of the rebuilding process. His silence leads us to draw only one conclusion. I wont even try to guess if all these losses mean certain failure. I'm more determined now to ride this to the bitter end. I still find this so hard to believe its not some sort of plan. Its hard to believe they wouldn't fire this man unless they know something we don't. This can't be taken at face value. No one could screw up this bad on purpose in my opinion. It just smells fishy....It just may be a prelude to wage and benefit concessions but at this point it would only be a guess. But at this point something is not adding up except the losses.
 
Don't bother to explain why we are losing all this money. Don't bother to explain anything to your employees. The fact is you are a coward that has no answers. How can you lose all this money in all these quarters and not address that in a video? I suppose he has no answers and perhaps he's not a coward. He's just totally in over his head and hasn't a clue what he's doing.

He is a coward but he has no clue what to do. You heard DeLuce say on the call yesterday that the Board is involved in the daily operations of the company. Rest assured, Dave McClimon is now in charge but it is too little too late in my opinion. Keylon put all his eggs in his new linehaul plan taking care of things and it has failed for many reasons. Top reason is loss of top line revenue, down 17% from two years ago and then the loss of next day or 1 day lane business. Next day or 1 day transit business drives your density. It pulls the regional business which pulls the long haul business. We have no next day business because we could not give consistent next day delivery. Then we have the regional and long haul business priced incorrectly, this goes back to the Kosovec administration. The regional and long haul business is priced around 20% too cheap. But because we have been such a lousy service carrier we cannot go to the marketplace and demand higher rates.

And now the biggest single issue is sales. DeLuce lied like a rug yesterday when he said the 50% turnover was driven by corporate to upgrade the force. Those sales folks that left were the ones that had built the company from the ground up. Most of those that left had more than 10 years with the company. The current sales force is not capable of turning things around. So freight density is too light to make the hub and spoke profitable, rates are too low to be profitable and pricing cannot change because the market will not pay Vitran like it pays Conway , Old Dominion or others.
 
You ask...you shall receive..............


To: All Vitran Team Members
From: Chris Keylon
Yesterday, our 2nd quarter earnings were released and a subsequent conference call was held to discuss the earnings. Although everyone is disappointed with the results of the quarter, we have to keep things in perspective and focus, because there has been much done to improve this company.
I am going to detail for you our position, but first tell you the story. Vitran US has struggled for a minimum of 6 years. An argument could be made that it was actually longer than that. Vitran US is comprised of a lot of smaller companies. When each smaller company was brought into the Vitran family, very little was done to integrate those companies into the greater Vitran. As a result of this repetitive action, it created a situation where the company was fundamentally broken. Losses started to occur, and a leadership change was made in January 2012.
In January 2012, I came on board to lead Vitran. What I found early on was what I have previously mentioned. We had a company that was not put together and had no system wide foundation. We did not have leaders over the most important areas of our company such as: Operations, Sales, Maintenance, and Pricing. Without a singular leader over these functions, it was impossible to put the company together into one. I am speaking about things such as a common line haul network, consistent policies and procedures across the system, and the list goes on. So, putting in an organization structure was one of the first tasks I had to complete. If this was not done, we would not have accomplished one-tenth of the things we have done over the last 18 months.
We had to create a common line haul network, because this is what provides the service. The service we were providing was very poor. It was also dishonest. The corruption and dishonesty within this area was astonishing. No company in any business can survive built on lies and deception. So, the dishonesty was cleaned up. The line haul model was built, and today we provide much better service than in the past. It is still not where we want it to be, but it is significantly better than the past. This was the first area where we had to start. A service company is built on service. So, we had to build a model that provided the foundation for our existence. From there, we build.
There have also been literally hundreds of other things done to improve the company. Many of these items surround a huge increase in technology, which is essential to cost savings, efficiencies and better customer service. However, it does not stop there. There have been countless projects to continue to build the foundation in every part of our company. We are well on our way to having this completed.
Although we have done a lot to build or improve the foundation of our company, during the time this work was ongoing, we were losing business. There are many reasons why we lost business year over year. Let me detail some of these for you.
Service - While we were building the foundation, we struggled with service. This was expected when making wholesale changes. The issue is the customers have experienced less-than-desirable service for many years. Some customers had enough and moved on. Now, the good news is we are getting some of those customers back today.
Pricing - You may not be surprised, but we didn’t have a costing model in this company before June 2012. We have one now. This is the most crucial part of our business to be able to accurately charge prices for our service product. We had thousands of expired contracts to work through. This issue goes back to no leader in the past; therefore, nothing was being done. We have had to play catch up and clean up in working our expired contracts. This has been good for us for the long term to get customers current, but it also has cost us business. Because some customers were not excited about taking much needed increases when they have not for years, they left. Again, some are coming back.
Sales Team - There has been a tremendous amount of work done in sales (foundation-building work) that will help us grow business. Much, if not all, of this was non-existent. We are set today to take off in growth. In the short term, we have been hurt by roughly 50% of our sales people being new. When a new salesperson comes on board, they need time to cycle their territories, and understand the company and product so they can grow business. So, the good news is they all have tools now to help them do their jobs better. We just have a lot of new folks who will need a little bit of time to get up to speed. I do want to correct something that was said on the earnings call yesterday. Most of our former salespeople have left us for other opportunities, as opposed to the company firing salespeople. We have never had a corporate initiative to remove salespeople or anybody else for that matter. The fact is when there is a lot of change, the probability of people leaving is much higher. We have certainly seen this at Vitran in all areas.
In the past few months, we have had several visitors in our company validating our work. To the group and person, they have commented to us and the Board that the work done in the past 12-18 months is nothing short of phenomenal. Many have said they have never seen this much work done to fix a company in such a short period of time. For that, I am proud of all of you and the work that you have done over this time period to help turn our company around.
But the fact is, this company has been broken for a long time. It will be fixed, but it is not going to be fixed quickly. However, it will be fixed much quicker than otherwise possible, had all the work done the past 12-18 months not occurred. We are in a position today where we simply need to grow revenue and business. Everyone has this responsibility. You may not be the actual salesperson, but what you do everyday and how you do it is what our salespeople are selling. So, do your job to the best of your ability and with a positive attitude. If everyone does that, we will progress much faster.
In closing, as disappointed as we are in the 2nd quarter results, I am very thankful and proud of the work you have done over the past 12-18 months to turn the company around. We need to capitalize on this now, and start performing at a higher level. Stay focused. Take one day at a time, and do the best of your ability. If everyone does that, then we will be very successful.
Thank you!
 
How can you lose all this money in all these quarters and not address that in a video?

When you want to spend as little time as possible addressing the issues so you can get back to updating your resume.
 
You ask...you shall receive..............


To: All Vitran Team Members
From: Chris Keylon
Yesterday, our 2nd quarter earnings were released and a subsequent conference call was held to discuss the earnings. Although everyone is disappointed with the results of the quarter, we have to keep things in perspective and focus, because there has been much done to improve this company.
I am going to detail for you our position, but first tell you the story. Vitran US has struggled for a minimum of 6 years. An argument could be made that it was actually longer than that. Vitran US is comprised of a lot of smaller companies. When each smaller company was brought into the Vitran family, very little was done to integrate those companies into the greater Vitran. As a result of this repetitive action, it created a situation where the company was fundamentally broken. Losses started to occur, and a leadership change was made in January 2012.
In January 2012, I came on board to lead Vitran. What I found early on was what I have previously mentioned. We had a company that was not put together and had no system wide foundation. We did not have leaders over the most important areas of our company such as: Operations, Sales, Maintenance, and Pricing. Without a singular leader over these functions, it was impossible to put the company together into one. I am speaking about things such as a common line haul network, consistent policies and procedures across the system, and the list goes on. So, putting in an organization structure was one of the first tasks I had to complete. If this was not done, we would not have accomplished one-tenth of the things we have done over the last 18 months.
We had to create a common line haul network, because this is what provides the service. The service we were providing was very poor. It was also dishonest. The corruption and dishonesty within this area was astonishing. No company in any business can survive built on lies and deception. So, the dishonesty was cleaned up. The line haul model was built, and today we provide much better service than in the past. It is still not where we want it to be, but it is significantly better than the past. This was the first area where we had to start. A service company is built on service. So, we had to build a model that provided the foundation for our existence. From there, we build.
There have also been literally hundreds of other things done to improve the company. Many of these items surround a huge increase in technology, which is essential to cost savings, efficiencies and better customer service. However, it does not stop there. There have been countless projects to continue to build the foundation in every part of our company. We are well on our way to having this completed.
Although we have done a lot to build or improve the foundation of our company, during the time this work was ongoing, we were losing business. There are many reasons why we lost business year over year. Let me detail some of these for you.
Service - While we were building the foundation, we struggled with service. This was expected when making wholesale changes. The issue is the customers have experienced less-than-desirable service for many years. Some customers had enough and moved on. Now, the good news is we are getting some of those customers back today.
Pricing - You may not be surprised, but we didn’t have a costing model in this company before June 2012. We have one now. This is the most crucial part of our business to be able to accurately charge prices for our service product. We had thousands of expired contracts to work through. This issue goes back to no leader in the past; therefore, nothing was being done. We have had to play catch up and clean up in working our expired contracts. This has been good for us for the long term to get customers current, but it also has cost us business. Because some customers were not excited about taking much needed increases when they have not for years, they left. Again, some are coming back.
Sales Team - There has been a tremendous amount of work done in sales (foundation-building work) that will help us grow business. Much, if not all, of this was non-existent. We are set today to take off in growth. In the short term, we have been hurt by roughly 50% of our sales people being new. When a new salesperson comes on board, they need time to cycle their territories, and understand the company and product so they can grow business. So, the good news is they all have tools now to help them do their jobs better. We just have a lot of new folks who will need a little bit of time to get up to speed. I do want to correct something that was said on the earnings call yesterday. Most of our former salespeople have left us for other opportunities, as opposed to the company firing salespeople. We have never had a corporate initiative to remove salespeople or anybody else for that matter. The fact is when there is a lot of change, the probability of people leaving is much higher. We have certainly seen this at Vitran in all areas.
In the past few months, we have had several visitors in our company validating our work. To the group and person, they have commented to us and the Board that the work done in the past 12-18 months is nothing short of phenomenal. Many have said they have never seen this much work done to fix a company in such a short period of time. For that, I am proud of all of you and the work that you have done over this time period to help turn our company around.
But the fact is, this company has been broken for a long time. It will be fixed, but it is not going to be fixed quickly. However, it will be fixed much quicker than otherwise possible, had all the work done the past 12-18 months not occurred. We are in a position today where we simply need to grow revenue and business. Everyone has this responsibility. You may not be the actual salesperson, but what you do everyday and how you do it is what our salespeople are selling. So, do your job to the best of your ability and with a positive attitude. If everyone does that, we will progress much faster.
In closing, as disappointed as we are in the 2nd quarter results, I am very thankful and proud of the work you have done over the past 12-18 months to turn the company around. We need to capitalize on this now, and start performing at a higher level. Stay focused. Take one day at a time, and do the best of your ability. If everyone does that, then we will be very successful.
Thank you!
He must have heard through the grapevine the legendary Train called him a coward. Guys hold on awhile. Its the uncertainty that makes this job hard to stay at. If we just knew that things are getting better and we are not on the road to bankruptcy things would be so much better. This letter helps some, at least for me. I know there will remain skepticism. But if you have been here 10+ years it would be stupid to leave now. Don't let all the time you spent here be in vain. It is possible things could get better. I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid.......I'm just going to wait a little bit longer.
 
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You ask...you shall receive..............


To: All Vitran Team Members
From: Chris Keylon
Yesterday, our 2nd quarter earnings were released and a subsequent conference call was held to discuss the earnings. Although everyone is disappointed with the results of the quarter, we have to keep things in perspective and focus, because there has been much done to improve this company.
I am going to detail for you our position, but first tell you the story. Vitran US has struggled for a minimum of 6 years. An argument could be made that it was actually longer than that. Vitran US is comprised of a lot of smaller companies. When each smaller company was brought into the Vitran family, very little was done to integrate those companies into the greater Vitran. As a result of this repetitive action, it created a situation where the company was fundamentally broken. Losses started to occur, and a leadership change was made in January 2012.
In January 2012, I came on board to lead Vitran. What I found early on was what I have previously mentioned. We had a company that was not put together and had no system wide foundation. We did not have leaders over the most important areas of our company such as: Operations, Sales, Maintenance, and Pricing. Without a singular leader over these functions, it was impossible to put the company together into one. I am speaking about things such as a common line haul network, consistent policies and procedures across the system, and the list goes on. So, putting in an organization structure was one of the first tasks I had to complete. If this was not done, we would not have accomplished one-tenth of the things we have done over the last 18 months.
We had to create a common line haul network, because this is what provides the service. The service we were providing was very poor. It was also dishonest. The corruption and dishonesty within this area was astonishing. No company in any business can survive built on lies and deception. So, the dishonesty was cleaned up. The line haul model was built, and today we provide much better service than in the past. It is still not where we want it to be, but it is significantly better than the past. This was the first area where we had to start. A service company is built on service. So, we had to build a model that provided the foundation for our existence. From there, we build.
There have also been literally hundreds of other things done to improve the company. Many of these items surround a huge increase in technology, which is essential to cost savings, efficiencies and better customer service. However, it does not stop there. There have been countless projects to continue to build the foundation in every part of our company. We are well on our way to having this completed.
Although we have done a lot to build or improve the foundation of our company, during the time this work was ongoing, we were losing business. There are many reasons why we lost business year over year. Let me detail some of these for you.
Service - While we were building the foundation, we struggled with service. This was expected when making wholesale changes. The issue is the customers have experienced less-than-desirable service for many years. Some customers had enough and moved on. Now, the good news is we are getting some of those customers back today.
Pricing - You may not be surprised, but we didn’t have a costing model in this company before June 2012. We have one now. This is the most crucial part of our business to be able to accurately charge prices for our service product. We had thousands of expired contracts to work through. This issue goes back to no leader in the past; therefore, nothing was being done. We have had to play catch up and clean up in working our expired contracts. This has been good for us for the long term to get customers current, but it also has cost us business. Because some customers were not excited about taking much needed increases when they have not for years, they left. Again, some are coming back.
Sales Team - There has been a tremendous amount of work done in sales (foundation-building work) that will help us grow business. Much, if not all, of this was non-existent. We are set today to take off in growth. In the short term, we have been hurt by roughly 50% of our sales people being new. When a new salesperson comes on board, they need time to cycle their territories, and understand the company and product so they can grow business. So, the good news is they all have tools now to help them do their jobs better. We just have a lot of new folks who will need a little bit of time to get up to speed. I do want to correct something that was said on the earnings call yesterday. Most of our former salespeople have left us for other opportunities, as opposed to the company firing salespeople. We have never had a corporate initiative to remove salespeople or anybody else for that matter. The fact is when there is a lot of change, the probability of people leaving is much higher. We have certainly seen this at Vitran in all areas.
In the past few months, we have had several visitors in our company validating our work. To the group and person, they have commented to us and the Board that the work done in the past 12-18 months is nothing short of phenomenal. Many have said they have never seen this much work done to fix a company in such a short period of time. For that, I am proud of all of you and the work that you have done over this time period to help turn our company around.
But the fact is, this company has been broken for a long time. It will be fixed, but it is not going to be fixed quickly. However, it will be fixed much quicker than otherwise possible, had all the work done the past 12-18 months not occurred. We are in a position today where we simply need to grow revenue and business. Everyone has this responsibility. You may not be the actual salesperson, but what you do everyday and how you do it is what our salespeople are selling. So, do your job to the best of your ability and with a positive attitude. If everyone does that, we will progress much faster.
In closing, as disappointed as we are in the 2nd quarter results, I am very thankful and proud of the work you have done over the past 12-18 months to turn the company around. We need to capitalize on this now, and start performing at a higher level. Stay focused. Take one day at a time, and do the best of your ability. If everyone does that, then we will be very successful.
Thank you!

So this was all happened because the company did not have a "singular leader" over the past 6 years. Go ***** yourself Chris Keylon, you are *****ed brother. Dave MClimon had better sniff some smelling salts and realize you are a pathological liar and bull$hitter and you are driving this company into the ground. Regarding the Sales point above, you are so full of $hit your eyes and entire body are brown. I pray to God that these dumb@ss investors on the call yesterday come to truckingboards and read your bull$hit lies. Your sales are down 20% since you took over because your best reps have quit. The sales reps you have hired are an F'ing joke. Virtually your entire national account sales team is gone except for a few like MB in MSP and two others that will be leaving soon. 30 of your best local sales group are gone and moved on to much greener pastures. Dude, you are screwed, you know it as does Harris, Mott, Dougan, Frankie, Dennis etc. There is no hope for this company. Please Dave McClimon, fire this @SSHOLE right now, I know you cannot do this because he has 75 of his flunkies over here running this company. This idiot has lost more money in 6 quarters than Vitran lost in the previous 12 years. McClimon, you are a smart man, you ran Conway, you were making great changes at other companies as well. Don't let Keylon make you look like a complete fool, he has no experience in finance and book sense. Probably too late at this point but do realize the folks he has brought over from top to bottom are making things worse not better. Kosovec looks like a hero at this point.
 
So this was all happened because the company did not have a "singular leader" over the past 6 years. Go ***** yourself Chris Keylon, you are *****ed brother. Dave MClimon had better sniff some smelling salts and realize you are a pathological liar and bull$hitter and you are driving this company into the ground. Regarding the Sales point above, you are so full of $hit your eyes and entire body are brown. I pray to God that these dumb@ss investors on the call yesterday come to truckingboards and read your bull$hit lies. Your sales are down 20% since you took over because your best reps have quit. The sales reps you have hired are an F'ing joke. Virtually your entire national account sales team is gone except for a few like MB in MSP and two others that will be leaving soon. 30 of your best local sales group are gone and moved on to much greener pastures. Dude, you are screwed, you know it as does Harris, Mott, Dougan, Frankie, Dennis etc. There is no hope for this company. Please Dave McClimon, fire this @SSHOLE right now, I know you cannot do this because he has 75 of his flunkies over here running this company. This idiot has lost more money in 6 quarters than Vitran lost in the previous 12 years. McClimon, you are a smart man, you ran Conway, you were making great changes at other companies as well. Don't let Keylon make you look like a complete fool, he has no experience in finance and book sense. Probably too late at this point but do realize the folks he has brought over from top to bottom are making things worse not better. Kosovec looks like a hero at this point.
I understand your frustration Stunman but if you are topped out don't leave. Much of what you say is true. Wait and see what he does to the pay structure. Let that be the deciding factor. If he jacks with that he will see a mass exodus like none before. Take a deep breath brother.
 
It would be a lot better if some of the investers would show the same confidence in Keylon that he has in what he's doing. but 76 million in the hole. they only bury you six feet under.
 
we were told down south that some of us would get .25 and some would get maybe a.10 come sept. our pay was cut 16.75% by milan before the vitran purchase. we have all heard hang in their things are going to get better. when is what I want to Know? a little over a year ago we got .25 and the new hires that just walked in the door got a dollar. some of us only make .50 or less than a new hire.
 
I'm waiting to see the new wage tier that will be rolled out soon.....He better be careful with that one because to many guys are on the fence.....Like I said, if he screws that one up there will be massive turnover. And with new guys come new accidents and a learning curve that is very costly. He better think long and hard over this one. Because it is major.
 
I must give credit where credit is due. Chris did the right thing with this letter. Whether it does anything in the final analysis remains to be seen. At least he made some effort to explain Vitrans dilemma and for that I'm impressed. It's more than he's done for his employees in along time. And deserves at least some credit in my opinion. Communication goes along way in helping to change our perception of this company. To give us some hope that all our hard work is not in vain. Maybe he's trying to build bridges instead of walls. I will give him the benefit of the doubt for now.
 
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So this was all happened because the company did not have a "singular leader" over the past 6 years. Go ***** yourself Chris Keylon, you are *****ed brother. Dave MClimon had better sniff some smelling salts and realize you are a pathological liar and bull$hitter and you are driving this company into the ground. Regarding the Sales point above, you are so full of $hit your eyes and entire body are brown. I pray to God that these dumb@ss investors on the call yesterday come to truckingboards and read your bull$hit lies. Your sales are down 20% since you took over because your best reps have quit. The sales reps you have hired are an F'ing joke. Virtually your entire national account sales team is gone except for a few like MB in MSP and two others that will be leaving soon. 30 of your best local sales group are gone and moved on to much greener pastures. Dude, you are screwed, you know it as does Harris, Mott, Dougan, Frankie, Dennis etc. There is no hope for this company. Please Dave McClimon, fire this @SSHOLE right now, I know you cannot do this because he has 75 of his flunkies over here running this company. This idiot has lost more money in 6 quarters than Vitran lost in the previous 12 years. McClimon, you are a smart man, you ran Conway, you were making great changes at other companies as well. Don't let Keylon make you look like a complete fool, he has no experience in finance and book sense. Probably too late at this point but do realize the folks he has brought over from top to bottom are making things worse not better. Kosovec looks like a hero at this point.

These numbers don't lie! How does this guy expect everyone to just believe him. Vitran is profitable for YEARS under the same management with Kosovec and crew. This Jackhole comes in and him and his "team" lose more money in a year and a half than Vitran did the previous 12. In his tenure he has lost 10 times more money than the previous management!!! That supposedly had NO LEADERS!!! Anyone can go look at the financials online and see the numbers. Revenue was UP. Shipments were UP. Profit was UP. Operation Ratios were GOOD. That was all under no leaders. Now, with the supreme leaders, Revenue is DOWN. Shipments are DOWN. Profit is DOWN. And Operating Ratios are HORRIBLE. Well I guess the definition of a leader is completely different to AR folk. Maybe this good ole boy took 1 too many hits to the head in his football days cause he sure seems like he is living in Mr Rogers land of make believe!
 
I suppose you didn't read his letter. Just the integration of technology cost millions. I'm not defending the man, I'm only saying he inherited a mess from years of neglect. The integration of technology should have been done 10 years ago. It's not all his fault. Sure he's not perfect, and has probably made some mistakes he regrets. But who is perfect? Most certainly not me or you....Like I said....I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid however I will give him the benefit of the doubt and give it a little more time. I respect your opinion I just don't totally agree with it.
 
The biggest mistake he made in my opinion is not making a bigger effort to retain some of the fine sales reps we had. That was huge.
 
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