A postscript from your founder Dennis Firestone
Dear KKW Owners,
It’s been nearly a year since we departed on the journey of turning the company over to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan and what wild ride it has turned out to be. As you’ve heard me say on many occasions, “either lead or get out of the way” and after 53 years at the helm it was my time to pass the torch. What makes this transition so special is I had the opportunity to sell the company to those very same men and women that helped me build KKW Trucking, Inc into one of the finest trucking companies in the country. Now you all are owners and with team work can take the company to this company to the stars.
We had a successful launch a year ago on November 14, 2020 and we were off and running into our first year then out of the blue Covid-19 hits and initially it looked like the sky was falling. As our sales began to slide I was wondering to myself .. what have I done! That first couple of weeks was a nail-biter as our combined sales dropped by 25% in just 3 weeks’ time. With our industry flagged as “essential” and once our customers got their sea legs under them, our frontline heroes went to work keeping those shelves stocked and keeping our economy moving. In approximately, two months’ time our sales had returned back to the pre-Covid levels and it’s been strong and steady since then.
What a remarkable recovery this team has demonstrated under our new ESOP flag and at last count we are setting new records in almost every area of our operations. I can’t say how proud I am of the display of hard work and determination you all have given over that last 6 months.
Your very first ownership statement is in the mail which covers the short 1 ½ months of 2019 that KKW/FTS became an ESOP. I’m pleased to announce that we hit our targets for 2019 and you each have given me confidence that our ESOP team will continue to be successful in the coming years. So far in 2020 we are exceeding our forecasts and I will be very excited to see the 2020 ownership (ESOP) statements.
Keep up the good work,
Dennis Firestone