LASME's Oscar Hendrickson has pushed the firm's operational buttons in Seattle. The line hauler, sold this month to Chicago's National City Lines, operates from Vancouver, B.C. to Los Angeles, CA. Van equipment, which crosses the Oregon-California border as regularly as each half hour, runs heavily to Fruehauf Cubeliners.
FRONT RUNNER in equipment standards and profitability on the Pacific slope, efficiently and tightly run Los Angeles-Seattle Motor Express Inc. got a new owner this month--National City Lines Inc. of Chicago.
For $8,000,000--$6 million in cash and 74,074 shares of National City Lines-LASME and B.C. Seattle Transport, its division providing service between Seattle and Vancouver, joins others in a holding company family comprising motor bus and transit lines throughout the continent as well as subsidiaries which rent and lease trucks.
While other US trucking giants have mushroomed, management of Los Angeles-Seattle Motor Express have been content with concentration on its simple north-south operation from Vancouver (30 miles north of the US border) over Highway US 99 to the southern California metropolis. Quipped LASME's owner-president R. Stuart Moose long before signing on the dotted line with National City: "We're not trying to become the biggest trucking company in America ... in fact, we have no present intention of moving out of earshot of the Pacific surf. We'll be thoroughly happy if we can just continue to grow apace with the West Coast."
Management--This month, despite the transfer of cash and securities, it is unlikely LASME policy will change in the near future. Moore's partner in building LASME and its B.C. Seattle Transport division into one of the most profitable and ably run operations on the Pacific coast has been vice-president & general manager Oscar M. Hendrickson. With Moore in Oakland in an "advisory" capacity, cigar-chomping Hendrickson pushed the operational buttons in Seattle. This arrangement, Moore explains, kept him from "meddling" simply because "Oscar knows more about the ins and cuts of the operation than I'm ever likely to learn."
National City in this month's transaction actually bought United Motor Express. It owns all of LASME stock. LASME owns some 1,000 pieces of equipment. Consolidated gross income of LASME and its holding company parent in 1958 was $11,800,000 to return a consolidated net income of $740,000. This year, according to a spokesman for National City, gross will be some $14,000,000. Net for the first nine months of this year is placed at some $630,000.
Shareholders of National City will meet for a special meeting in Chicago November 19th to approve the purchase, said to be the firm's first major step in a diversification program. During 1958 National City had gross revenues of $24,516,115 for a net income of $7,415,832 or $5.49 a share.
Organization Men--Hendrickson has long been active in trucking association work. His firm was one of the original supporters of the Canadian Trucking Associations (through the ATA of B.C.). Last year he served as president of the Washington Motor Transport Association. LASME's Vancouver terminal manager Earl Knowles serves as a director of the Automotive Transport Association of B.C.; this month was re-elected chairman of the organization's International & Interprovincial Carriers division.
LASME's efficient maintenance terminal in Seattle reflects the early mechanic duty of the line's president Stuart Moore.
One of the original sparks behind Canadian government approval of "in bond" terminals for international highway operators, LASME has led in the development of the sufferance warehouse Phase of the motor transport industry. Built at a cost of some $500,000, its Vancouver terminal operated by affiliate United Terminals Ltd. is shared with competitive Sea-Van Express, a subsidiary of Consolidated Freightways.
First major sufferance warehouse built in Western Canada, it was opened in 1956; has a platform area of 30,000 square feet and facilities for some 40 Canadian customs officers on some ten acres of land close to Vancouver's manufacturing and industrial areas.
LASME's present north-south operation resulted from a marriage of Seattle's Hendrix Refrigerated Truck Lines (founded in 1932) and LA-Seattle Motor Express. From a staff of 10 in 1935, the organization today employs over 1000 people.
Moore, who purchased LASME in 1949, started in the motor transport business as a Greyhound mechanic in Chicago; within a year became maintenance manager for a Greyhound division before leaving to successfully manage (and later buy) a National City Lines bus company. Before leaving the continent-wide holding company, he was operational boss for 42 transit properties.
Hendrickson came to LASME in 1934 as an accountant to aid in unscrambling the firm's books. His temporary job continues.