Don Daseke’s own family business is proudly owning agencies. Over the years, their ventures have protected the entirety from a small carryout eating place known as Bill’s Park-N-Eat in Crawfordsville, Ind., to a publicly-traded residential property organization. Daseke introduced the acquisition of his first trucking organization, Smokey Point Distributing, in December 2008 and finalized the purchase early in 2009. Over the decade, he has constructed an enterprise that now controls more than a dozen freight vendors and logistics companies specializing in flatbed and heavy specialized shipments.
A. By education, I’m a CPA. And I’m a serial entrepreneur. I spent eight years with IBM, and then I commenced an actual estate organization [in 1974]. Eventually, I took that organization public. I offered that corporation in 2000 and was searching out other investments. A longtime pal who’s a funding banker in Dallas said, “I’ve were given this specialized trucking corporation on the market. Are you fascinated? It’s north of Seattle. And I said, “Well, I don’t know something about trucking.” But considering he is a longtime personal buddy, I stated, “I’ll move up there and meet the human beings.
I went up and met the people at Smokey Point Distributing, and I liked [them]. Including the CEO, who has been there considering he becomes 19 years antique. After performing some look at the company, I advised him, “I’m going to buy this enterprise. My philosophy is to invest in human beings, and I’m investing in you.
A. Warren Buffett, because he buys organizations that are not for sale. Berkshire Hathaway was formed with the idea of adding groups with splendid control teams and was very worthwhile, providing them with capital to cause them to even larger and better.
A. The clean answer is staying power. Ultimately, we convince them that we’re special to different groups. I read one article stating that when non-public fairness companies buy businesses, 70% of the CEOs are gone within years because [the buyers] start changing the whole thing. And converting the entirety begins with casting off jobs — casting off humans to make the extra business green. We don’t take that technique.
Typically we’re dealing with families who have been in the business for a long time and feature loyal humans operating in all degrees. And they care about the one’s human beings. We tell these households that we care about your people, too, and we received’t cast off an unmarried process. And we say that your name is on the truck, and we received’t exchange that either. We simply celebrated the ninetieth anniversary for one in every one of our businesses, Hornady Transportation in Monroeville, Ala., which’s being run today via the founder’s grandson.
