Fenn Church: A Love for Trucking

ATA’s new Chairman has the passion to lead the trucking industry to great things.

By Ford Boswell • Photos By Cary Norton

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Alabama Trucking Association’s new Chairman of the Board, Fenn Church, is a self-made trucking executive who’s never been one to settle for average. Everything he’s accomplished in his 30 years of fleet management has been a means to an end for his business, customers, employees and the industry he loves.

A bit of a workaholic, Church is known to work long and hard for things he cares about. In high school, he was known for carefully plotting his course to achieve results. But he wasn’t stubborn about it. If a situation didn’t feel right, he remained flexible, adjusted, and revised the course. That’s what great leaders do, and that’s been his style for most of his adult life, and it’s exactly the type of leader the Alabama Trucking Association (ATA) needs in a very transitional year.

Background

A native of Dothan, Ala., Church, 52, grew up around transportation and logistics, working part time for the family business, Houston Paper Co., a paper products distributor serving small grocery stores in south Alabama’s Wiregrass Region and the Florida Panhandle. While in high school, he worked afternoons and summers for Coffman International Trucks, a local commercial truck and heavy equipment dealership, before enrolling at Auburn University in the mid-1980s. He says as a kid he always idolized truck drivers.

“When I was old enough, and not in school, I worked at the paper company as a helper on the trucks,” he said. “I just loved it. I had a child labor permit at 12, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven earning minimum wage (then about $2.65 an hour). I worked with two truck drivers, Roy Mills and Robert Knight, who probably shaped my views of the trucking industry, especially from a driver’s point of view. They showed me the value of an honest day’s work. They were both excellent drivers who always worked hard and excelled at delivering top customer service.”

Church was particularly close to Mills. “He made the job fun,” he says. “The only way he’d get any work out of me was to feed me. So we’d leave the warehouse each morning with a loaded truck, and then head straight to Barrentine Fish and Oyster Market (a Dothan landmark that’s still in business) to grab a couple of their famous chilidogs before starting our run for the day. We talked a lot while we were together. He taught me so much about dealing with people and just life in general. We’re still pretty close friends.

“Robert, on the other hand, had a military background. He was very sharp with an incredible work ethic – he could outwork anyone. I really had to try to keep up with his pace. The truth is, more than anyone, those men made me respect truck drivers and all the things they must do to keep a business going. They are probably the reason I am where I am today.”

After high school, Church’s father, Bill, pushed him to study engineering at Auburn. “Frankly, it was the only degree he’d pay for,” Fenn laughs. “I spent my freshman year on the engineering track, but I found out pretty Port of Mobile,” he explains. “My job was cutting big creosote pilings with a chainsaw. It was the hardest, most physical work I had ever done in my life, but I stuck with it the entire summer.”

A part of the job that particularly caught his attention was the process of moving the massive cranes and equipment by truck. Some of the larger cranes required up to 15 trucks to break down and move. He found himself chatting up the drivers of those trucks a lot. The process of loading and unloading them fascinated him. He was hooked; he knew then trucking held his future.

“I went home one weekend to tell my father that I wasn’t going to study engineering anymore, and that I was going to go back to college and enroll in the business school to study transportation and physical distribution,” Church says. “To my surprise, Dad said that he thought it was a great idea.”

Days later, Church contacted a former executive with AAA Cooper Transportation in quick that I was in way over my head with all the calculus and chemistry and physics. Eventually, my grades began to slip, and my father wasn’t really happy about it.”

The following summer, Church took a job in Mobile with Jordon Pyle Driving, Inc. working as a general laborer. It was hot, grueling work, but living expenses during the workweek were paid, and he enjoyed the quick pace and camaraderie with the other workers. Most importantly, he was around heavy mechanical equipment, which allowed him to determine if a career in engineering was a good fit. “They put me on a tugboat fitted with a 250-ton crane used in repairing the U.S. Steel dock at the Dothan to secure an internship the following summer. That move solidified his father’s approval of the new direction, Church says. “I think the fact that I had a plan impressed him, and it was probably the main reason he felt so good about my decision,” he says.

Church interned two summers with AAA, one at the company’s Jacksonville, Fla. terminal working as a dockhand, and the next in Atlanta shadowing external salesmen based from that location. While still enrolled at Auburn, on the recommendation of a friend, Church visited the University of Tennessee in Knoxville to learn about graduate opportunities in supply chain management. While he was extremely impressed with the program, he wanted a break from school and opted to go to work after college. The internships at AAA led to a full-time sales job, so Church spent a few years in Atlanta working in outside sales, developing contacts, building his skill set and developing a reputation as a hardworking, tenacious salesman. With a few years of experience under his belt, he was ready to head to Knoxville to pursue an MBA at the University of Tennessee. There, he studied with some of the most respected leaders in supply chain management and logistics. In fact, professors there had even written a few of his textbooks from his undergraduate studies at Auburn.

In his late 20s with an MBA in transportation and logistics and several years of experience in sales, Church began to establish himself as a talented fleet manager working with a few large and small carriers with stints in Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida and Georgia for Saia Motor Freight. It was during his time with Saia that Church really hit his stride as a manager. He opened a new terminal in Nashville, operating it for five years, then was selected to enroll in a two-year terminal efficiency training program for the company’s top performing managers. “That was a great experience,” he says. “All my living expenses were paid while I was in the program. I studied freight volume reports learning how to limit downtime and effectively staff the docks to handle peak volumes. We trained to determine which routes could be combined for better profitability. Plus, the whole time I was in the program, I was saving and investing my earnings.” It was also during this time that he met his wife, Susanne, an elementary school teacher living in Birmingham. After completing the training program, Saia officials offered a terminal manager position in Knoxville, but Church wasn’t sure it was the right move at the time. He was about to get married and a little burned out from working 75-hour weeks and living out of a suitcase.

Frankly, he was ready to settle down. So, in the spring of 1999, after seven years with Saia, Church stepped down from his job to concentrate on his next move.

“Susanne and I spent that whole summer together.” he says. “She has always been so supportive of me. It took me 34 years to realize that a Wiregrass person has to marry another Wiregrass person – and it’s certainly paid off for me. I appreciate her support and the time she allowed me to figure out what I was going to do. To this day, I still wonder how in the world her parents allowed their only daughter to marry an unemployed trucker.”

Building an Operation

Church took an extended vacation, living off savings. His long-term plan was to eventually start a trucking operation, but he needed to lie low for a while at a slightly slower pace while he devised a business plan. He spent a short time with a 75-truck refrigerated fleet hauling exempt commodities out of South Alabama. The plan was to help the owners reorganize operations and eventually buy them out when they retired. However, he found running refrigerated cargo was totally different than he expected. Frankly, it was a bad fit, and he resigned only after a year. There were too many variables in hauling exempt commodities, and he admits he wasn’t prepared to deal with it. “I helped the owners reorganize and cut operations to maximize existing profits, but I just didn’t have the sales contacts in exempt commodities to bring in enough new business to fix their revenue problems.”

Church then looked at other operations to purchase before deciding he should start making moves to build his own business. In the spring of 2000, he bought a single truck and hired Dennis Anderson, a driver whom he worked with at another carrier. Church signed his truck on as an owner-operator with a couple of operations. Anderson drove the truck and Church handled sales and logistics.

“We did that for a year, but the company we were working with went out of business,” he says. “I finally realized that once you buy your first truck, you might as well have 10, because one truck is going to give you the same headaches that 10 will. I figured once I started down this road there’s no backing up.”

Over the next several years, Church added trucks and drivers, slowly growing the business to meet demand. Meantime, he moved to Birmingham and took a consulting job with a non-profit public transportation service called Clastran that provides low-cost transportation for handicap and elderly individuals in Birmingham and the surrounding areas. “I wasn’t taking a salary from my trucking business yet, so I needed something to supplement my household income,” he explains. “I felt I could be of service to Clastran helping them streamline existing routes. I worked for Clastran during the day and then went home in the evening to prepare invoicing and payroll until midnight.”

By 2003, the operation had six trucks, had opened its first office on Finley Blvd., added additional drivers and trucks and had even hired a full-time dispatcher. By 2006, Church was able to quit his job with Clastran to go into trucking full time. “It’s still an organization that is near and dear to my heart,” he says.

Church Transportation and Logistics has grown steadily through the years. It moved to its current location which houses corporate offices and its maintenance facility in 2006. The company has also expanded services, adding dedicated transportation offerings, and a 30,000 sq. ft. warehousing/ cross-dock facility to go with its current mix of 70 tractors and 125 trailers. Annual revenue is $11 million. The management team includes General Manager Gene Sweeney; Controller James Taylor; Vice President of Sales Richard Ivey; and Director of Dispatch Operations John Majerik. These talented managers have allowed

The Church Tean, front row: James Taylor, Christy Bice, David Vernon, Laura Aitken, Chip Loftis, James St. John, Gene Sweeney, John Majerik, Fenn Church, Rich Ivey. Back row: Mike Epps, Mike Maxey, Trey Walters, and David Butler

Church to feel more confident in delegating things, and that’s allowed him to take time to relax occasionally with family and friends – something he hasn’t regularly done for himself in a long time. “I enjoy going down to the Cahaba River to just relax when I can. We have a cabin there, and one of my favorite things to do is to work out in the field cutting grass or spend the day by the river waving at canoers as they float by.”

After nearly 18 years in business, he’s finally comfortable where his operation is. The company’s mission is to offer consistent customer service through continued growth, but to also remember where it all started, and never lose sight of customers’ needs and expectations.

“I am satisfied with what we’ve accomplished,” he says. “Of course, I’d love to grow this to about 100, 200, maybe even 500 trucks. But I want to expand in a way that works best for us and our customers. For me, being successful in trucking is about producing a great product that your customers are willing to pay for. We still don’t haul certain exempt or low-value commodities just to keep trucks rolling. We want to move freight that requires top service and work for the type of customers who don’t mind paying for that extra service.”

Face of the Industry

According to ATA President and CEO Frank Filgo, Church brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the Association, and his presence will be felt immediately in furthering the Association’s mission of protecting and promoting the state’s trucking industry. “For more than a decade, Fenn has been among our most effective members, serving multiple leadership roles for Association events and membership programs,” Filgo said. “His experience and dedication are why our Board selected him chief elected officer. Major decisions will be addressed this year, and I am confident

Church Transportation prides itself on excellent equipment maintenance.

Fenn’s leadership will be a great asset.”

Church says the industry’s most pressing concern is the lack of adequate highway funding, and he pledges to work with Association leaders and state lawmakers to devise appropriate, substantive means for funding the state’s crumbling infrastructure.

“Alabama motor carriers have the responsibility of delivering more than 80 percent of the state’s manufactured goods and natural resources – the things we all need to sustain and provide for our families,” he says. “Unfortunately, due to road congestion and aging infrastructure, trucking is at a disadvantage in doing so efficiently. ATA will work with legislators and other business organizations to push for an increase in the state fuel tax to provide funding for better roads and bridges.”

The last time Alabama increased its fuel tax was 1992.

Meanwhile, Church identified additional goals for ATA to include developing a leadership advancement program that identifies and trains future leaders of Alabama’s trucking industry; and increase current Association membership participation in the Association’s events and overall mission.

“We need to bring more carriers of all types and sizes into the ranks to create a stronger, better focused industry,” he says. “I am proud to serve this industry and this Association. I am going to make sure that I lead us to better things for the future of our businesses, our employees, and the customers we serve.”