While Washington University students were busy moving into their dorms or apartments in late August, a special guest paid a visit to the UTrucking storefront on the South 40. Mark Needle, a University alumnus, introduced himself as the original founder of UTrucking to the current student owners, senior Ben Schutzman and juniors Jordan Weinberg and J.D. Ross.

“We knew a student had founded [UTrucking], but we had no idea who it was,” said Ross, current chief financial officer for the student-run business.

Needle graduated from the Olin Business School in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration  and a degree in accounting. His son, Max, is a current freshman at the University.

During Needle’s four years at the University, he realized the extent of students’ needs to transport items from school back home at the end of the academic year.

In his senior year, Needle partnered with his roommate and lifelong friend Jon Laranch to pursue an unusual endeavor.

“Being someone who grew up in NYC, I knew that transporting stuff to and from school posed a major problem, particularly for upperclassmen,” Needle said. “There was a large enough market of students who came from the New York vicinity to fill at least two 26-foot Ryder trucks.”

But the task of shipping friends’ belongings took more than just renting out two trucks.

“We began advertising in Student Life and putting up flyers. We handled phone calls, bought maps—there was no Google at the time—plotted out a drop-off strategy and loaded the trucks accordingly,” Needle said.

The two young entrepreneurs knew they had to gain a competitive edge to outbid students’ shipping alternatives.

“We were willing to do it for less money than the competition—UPS. We had personal relationships with almost half the people that signed on,” Needle said. “People trusted us.”

In the end, the two 21-year-olds pulled off a drive halfway across the continent.

“[We had] a great night’s sleep and then went to work,” Needle said. “We drove the 1,000-mile trip—17 hours—straight through. I believe the drop-offs took five to six days. We worked from 6 a.m. to midnight every day.”

To ensure neither of them fell asleep during the ride, Needle and Laranch relied on professional technology.

“We purchased two Citizen-Band (CB) radios,” Needle said. “It was how truckers communicated with other truckers on the road. We used the CB radios to communicate and check up on each other.”

Today, those two Ryder trucks have evolved into 20 U-Haul trucks that ship items to and from the University, serving nearly the entire East Coast, from Boston down to Washington, D.C.

Services have also grown from summer move-out only to fall move-in, summer storage, study abroad shipping and appliance rentals as well. The limited liability company (LLC) now has 100 to 150 student employees and more than 1,400 customers every year.

Although Needle and Laranch had only broken a few plates in their transportation process, an insurance policy has been installed and updated, which has become a major source of pride for the business.

“We insure everything. We have a million-dollar insurance policy that we treat like gold,” Weinberg said.

Needle said he is also impressed with the student company’s evolution through time.

“It is amazing what UTrucking has become today,” he said.

When asked why he had waited so long to contact the current UTrucking members, Needle replied, “Mysteries sometimes need to remain mysteries. However, since my son Max decided to go to Wash. U. and I happened to see a UTrucking vehicle right outside his dorm on our first day on campus, I decided it would be fun to seek out the current owners. The timing seemed right.”

2 Comments

• 

  On October 7, 2009 at 12:51 pm Alex said

  I was also an owner of Utrucking while at Wash U (from 2003-2006). It was always a dream of ours to construct an owner tree going all the way back to 1977 but for some reason, we always got stuck about 4-5 generations back.

  Glad to hear the alumni are getting back in touch!

• 

  On October 19, 2009 at 9:54 pm Jennifer Wei said

  Hi Alex,

  The current student owners of UTrucking is currently looking for past owners for networking purposes. If you are interested in contacting them, you can shoot J.D. Ross an email at jd@utrucking.com. He is the current Chief Financial Officer. I’m sure they’ll be glad to hear from you!

  Jennifer Wei
  Contributing Reporter

 Print This Post

Tags: Gregg storefronts, UTrucking

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 3:43 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through this feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.