Building a heavy haul business with purpose

As chief financial officer for Advanced Freight Dynamics, (AFD), Alana Lyons wears a lot of hats. Like many small business owners, she and her husband Steven Lyons move from one challenge to the next, all in a day’s work.

For Lyons, a typical day involves her chief financial officer tasks that include tracking cash flow, working on the budget and finances and handling payroll. She’s also the company’s safety manager and manages compliance on supply chain risk management systems, as well as for individual customers. She assures insurance policies, employee data and safety policies are aligned with customer’s needs. She is also AFD’s human resources department, handling hiring, onboarding and training, and she manages the company’s marketing.

Alana Lyons, CFO, Advanced Freight Dynamics

And if that weren’t enough professionally, she sits on multiple safety committees, including SC&RA’s Transportation Safety, Education and Training Committee.

“I am always intrigued to hear what is happening in the industry and to see what I can bring back to apply to our company,” she explained. “We strive to be the best, and with that comes a lot of hard work.”

Growing the business

Advanced Freight Dynamics was started 31 years ago by Steven Lyons when he purchased his first box truck and began performing local distribution services for retail stores in the Houston area. He did that for 10 years, and then he met and married Alana. They started working together to grow the business. While working full-time with her husband, they raised four boys and she earned her bachelor’s degree from LeTourneau University.

“We started this company from a one truck box truck business, where we worked from our kitchen table, to a trucking company that has built its reputation on excellence in shipping and logistics from the smallest shipments to the most complex projects, with a constant focus on serving its customers’ cargo transportation needs,” she said. “The company is capable of managing every aspect of any transportation project, regardless of origin, destination or size of the shipment.”

To grow the company they purchased a second box truck. Then in 2005, they decided to venture out in the flatbed world, selling the box trucks and buying a F450 Super Duty and 40-foot Gooseneck trailer.

“We had to learn how to get our MC number, how to use a broker board, how to order permits (when we began pulling oversize loads),” she remembered. “We had to learn how to do everything ourselves. We didn’t have anyone showing us the ropes. I had to make the calls and do all the research to get this company off the ground.”

They quickly realized that there was not much profit in the hotshot market, so they purchased an 18-wheeler and flatbed trailer in 2006.

“Steven took off and started the cross-county venture,” she said. “He drove night and day to ensure we were successful and to ensure his family was taken care of. Steven started hauling oversize freight, and we quickly realized that is the direction we wanted to take our company.”

In 2007, they started to grow AFD by bringing on a few owner/operators, which led to the decision to start buying company trucks and trailers and hire employees. They also grew their brokerage company along the way.

“At this time, we only had flat and step-deck trailers,” she recalled. “With this abundance of work, we realized we needed to restructure our equipment. The question arose, ‘How can we haul our customers’ oversize and overweight freight most efficiently?’”

Advanced Freight Dynamics was started 31 years ago by Steven Lyons when he purchased his first box truck. Ten years later, he and his wife Alana started growing the business that today serves the heavy haul and logistics market throughout the United States.

The answer was to create certain configurations with trucks and trailers, which often led to custom ordering equipment, she said. Today, AFD has a range of multi-axle trucks and trailers. AFD’s largest trailer is 20 lines of dual lane.

“With all of these different set ups, we can haul an individual oil tool all the way up to massive components that weigh up to 440,000 pounds,” she said. “So here we are today, a family owned asset-based trucking company that we are beyond proud of, which is all we can ask for.”

Alana and Steven Lyons are an inspiring success story in a tough industry. Every day they apply themselves to the work at hand with a determination to succeed. I ran into Alana in the elevator at the SC&RA Specialized Transportation Symposium in Charlotte, NC in February. Seeing her engage in one of the committee meetings later that morning, it hit me – she’s a dynamo. She sets an amazing example.

What keeps you engaged in this industry?

When we started this company, everything to do with trucking was a challenge – finding the right customers, drivers, equipment and employees. As time went on, it became easier to gain customers with our reputation of excellent service, and we quickly moved into specialty freight. Once we made our footprint in that market, the challenges started again, and we had to adapt quickly to a new market.

The challenges of each and every move became greater with the size of the load at the time of movement. We came to realize that we enjoy the challenges that are put in front of us in this market to the point that we buy bigger and bigger trailers every year to endure greater challenges.

Strength doesn’t come from what we can do; it comes from overcoming the things we once thought we couldn’t do. From legal flatbed loads to 20-axle set ups that can haul up to 440,000-pound loads, we feel like the sky is the limit with our growth potential.

What distinguishes AFD in the markets it serves?

Advanced Freight Dynamics has built its reputation on excellence in shipping and logistics from the smallest shipments to the most complex projects, with a constant focus on serving customers’ cargo transportation needs. We are capable of managing every aspect of any transportation project, regardless of origin, destination or size of the shipment. Our customers rely on us to be their trucking company, freight broker and freight consultant.

You are based in the Houston area but it appears you do work all over the country. What are the major geographies that you serve?

We are based out of the Houston area, but yes, we do operate around the United States. We go anywhere our customers need our services, including paved to dirt roads from urban environment to the middle of the desert. We do not cross the borders, but we will assist with trans loading for cross-border situations.

What are the particular challenges that companies like AFD face?

The driver shortage is, I believe, the biggest obstacle all trucking companies are dealing with currently. Because we deal with specialty freight, there is only one percent of all drivers that can pull the trailers we have, which makes finding new drivers as hard as finding a needle in a haystack.

Another challenge that we face is pertaining to the cost for the transportation services we provide. The general public doesn’t understand how the cost of shipping goes up due to many environmental factors. Also, due to the labor shortages at the ports and all facilities where we go into to load and offload, the trucks are not able to load and unload as fast as they used to, which creates downtime charges. The cost of the trucking itself, including the trucks, trailers, every replacement part on a truck, all the way down to the tires, have increased in price to a point that are unfathomable.

Our insurance costs are constantly increasing every year, even for companies such as ours with a great safety rating.

Then, due to the current labor situation, drivers are making more money now. All of these growing costs lead to increased transportation costs, which lead back to the customer and all the way down to the general public.

Workforce development is a hot topic in our industry. What are your strategies for recruiting and retaining employees?

We have built our company around a family structure where we all work together to get the job done to the best of our abilities. We get calls from our customers praising how well our guys work together, and it brings a smile to our face knowing what our company has accomplished. Now, when we hire new drivers, we actually are looking to see if they can fit in with our company as a family. Otherwise, they will never make it working for our company.

What types of projects are strong suits for AFD?

Advanced Freight Dynamics is capable of managing every aspect of any transportation project, regardless of origin, destination or size of the shipment.

We can handle any type of full turnkey project. We handle a lot of energy and manufacturing projects, but we can handle any type and any size shipment or project. We do prefer to haul oversize and overweight shipments as they are more exciting.

How do you characterize the logistics and heavy haul market? Do you envision things getting better, worse or staying the same?

The logistics and heavy haul industry is over all a very tough market to be in, and it is getting worse year by year. It is hard to find the loyalty, but once you have it is very important to keep it, pertaining to your employees all the way to your customers. I see it honestly getting worse before it gets better. Keeping your drivers and employees happy is a big key to having a successful business.

We strive to have new and good operating equipment, which is very costly. Many years ago, we could purchase a truck for half of the cost of what it costs now. Equipment costs are consistently increasing.

Insurance costs are out of this world, and will never go down in the general market. But this has a lot to do with the general motoring public’s mindset while driving down the road next to any big truck, all the way to the trucking companies that don’t care and hire unqualified drivers. There are so many hands in the insurance cookie jar that trying to get rates lowered will never happen.

A lot of the good trucking companies are leaving the regular insurance carriers and moving to captive policies or to being self-insured to save money.

The oversize/overweight industry has a lot of challenges with the states, getting our permits back in a timely manner, trying to get the states to recognize the same truck and trailer configurations as neighboring states and assisting with routing. The list goes on and on.

At the end of the day, when customers call AFD to come out they expect a nice, new and clean truck and trailer to roll in to get loaded with a professional and experienced driver and team.

What do you do when you aren’t working?

When I’m not working I love cooking, off-shore fishing, hunting exotics and traveling.