Con-way Freight Announces Major Expansion in Fond du Lac

FOND DU LAC, Wis., May 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Con-way Freight, a less-than-truckload (LTL) trucking company and subsidiary of Con-way Inc. (NYSE: CNW), today announced a major investment in the Fond du Lac community with plans to build a new, state-of-the-art 96-door, 47,000-square-foot freight service center in the city.

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The new $8 million facility will serve as the local hub from which the company will provide daily freight pickup and delivery services, connecting the greater Fond du Lac metropolitan area with one-, two- and three-day service points in Con-way Freight's nationwide network, as well as Mexico and Canada.

The company has selected a 21-acre property in Fond du Lac's Fox Ridge Business Park for the new facility. According to Con-way Freight's Director of Operations, John McCutcheon, the site is well suited for the company's needs. A major factor is its convenient access to state Highways 41, 175 and 151, as well as proximity to commercial and industrial shippers in nearby business and industrial parks, the city's revitalized downtown area and its growing retail sector.

The expansion will replace an existing 25-door service center at 736 Morris Street where the company has been for 27 years. Once completed, the expanded facility is expected to provide additional capacity, operating efficiencies and flexibility as it will consolidate smaller service center operations in Fond du Lac, Sheboygan and Neenah into a larger, more cost-effective single facility. The expanded operation in Fond du Lac is expected to employ 100 workers in jobs such as driver sales representatives, operations support, sales, customer service and administration. Con-way Freight currently employs 45 at its existing Fond du Lac location.

"We are very excited that Con-way has selected Fond du Lac for its new freight operations center," stated Sam Meyer, president of the Fond du Lac City Council. "The Con-way facility will create some excellent jobs for our community while providing important transportation and logistics support services for the local and state economies."

"The Con-way project is a wonderful addition to our business community and will be a leading-edge freight facility," said to Steve Jenkins, president of the Fond du Lac County Economic Development Corporation (FCEDC). "The project is also an example of strong collaborations between FCEDC and other entities. In this case, a key partner was the City of Fond du Lac, with special thanks to Wayne Rollin for his tireless work."

Con-way Freight expects to close on the property next month. Following a ground-breaking ceremony, construction is planned to commence in June and be completed in March 2014.

Paul Lorensen, area vice president of operations for Con-way Freight said, "This is an important investment for our company. It provides us with a modern new facility and expanded capacity in a key location for our network, and gives us flexibility to grow with the Fond du Lac community. We thank the city of Fond du Lac and the County Economic Development Corporation for their support as we deepen our ties with this leading Wisconsin community and participate in its overall economic growth."

While the new center will open with 96 dock doors, it is designed to expand to 120 doors. The company currently handles more than 575,000 pounds of freight per day out of its existing facility. The new site provides the ability to expand those volumes to well over 1.6 million pounds per day. The facility also will have a 6,500-square-foot office and on-site fueling for its trucks.

Today, Con-way Freight operates a fleet of 18 commercial truck-tractors and 65 freight trailers from its current Fond du Lac facility.  The expanded operation will increase those numbers to 50 trucks and 160 trailers. Con-way Freight in Fond du Lac currently serves more than 1,500 businesses in the greater Fond du Lac metropolitan area and surrounding communities. Nationwide, the company operates a fleet of 9,600 truck-tractors and 25,000 freight trailers.

Con-way Freight provides some of the fastest service over the longest market lanes of any trucking company in the state. From Fond du Lac, next-day delivery is provided for all of Wisconsin, west to Sioux Falls, S.D. east to Cleveland, Ohio and south to Louisville, Ky. The company also provides direct service into Canada through the Windsor, Ontario border gateway. Second-day service extends west into Denver, Colo., east to Boston, Mass. and south to New Orleans, La.

The new Fond du Lac service center is also a Lean pilot site for Con-way Freight. Under this initiative, Fond du Lac employees are undergoing training and adoption of Lean processes and practices. Lean emphasizes respect for employees and empowering front-line workers to use continuous improvement tools and methods to eliminate waste and drive efficiencies and superior performance into all aspects of the business.

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Con-way equipment images are available at www.con-way.com/en/about_con_way/newsroom

About Con-way Freight

Con-way Freight is the industry's leading less-than-truckload (LTL) freight transportation company, providing guaranteed, day-definite regional and transcontinental service with exception-free delivery, on-time service performance and faster transit times through a single, unified network of 425 service centers in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico. Con-way Freight offers LTL freight transportation across North America and through Global LTL™ delivery in the United States from around the world. Global solutions include international less-than-container load (LCL) ocean shipments from Asia through its OceanGuaranteed^® service; direct service to more than 30 Bahamian and Caribbean ports through TropicalDirect^SM; and domestic offshore transportation to Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Based in Ann Arbor, Mich., Con-way Freight is a certified FAST highway carrier and is C-TPAT/PIP-, ACE- and CSA-certified.

Con-way Freight is a subsidiary of Con-way Inc. (NYSE: CNW), a $5.6 billion diversified freight transportation and logistics services company. For more information, visit www.con-way.com/en/freight.

SOURCE Con-way Freight