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 Attitude, incentives keep Mesilla Valley Transportation robust
May 30, 2009
EL PASO -- Royal Jones is a penny pincher on a mission. His mission is to keep his 28-year-old trucking company rolling through these tough economic times, when some trucking companies are biting the dust.
"We're in a very competitive environment, and those who operate most efficiently will win," Jones, 55, co-founder, CEO, president and majority owner of Mesilla Valley Transportation, one of the largest trucking companies in this region, said last week as he sat in an office in the company's ultramodern, 32-acre terminal in East El Paso.
He fingered his Blackberry, responding to one of about 200 e-mails he receives daily. Many of the e-mails are pricing questions, which Jones handles. He also gets regular reports on operational costs.
It now costs Mesilla Valley 4 cents a mile to maintain its trucks. Three years ago, it cost 12 cents a mile, Jones said. The company is now focused on reducing maintenance and fuel costs by tenths of a cent, he said. Jones and his partner Jimmy Ray are constantly looking for new technology to reduce fuel costs for the truck fleet.
Mesilla Valley has 1,000 trucks, 3,500 trailers and 1,120 employees, including 800 company drivers. It also has 200 contracted drivers. It has annual revenues of about $200 million.
JoJohn Vega, director of national operations for Mesilla Valley, said the focus on reducing costs is one of the company's keys to success.
"The only way to make money is reduce costs. The rat per mile (charged to customers) is down big time because a lot of companies are trying to save money and are asking for reduced prices," Vega said.
Joseph "Jody" Mullings, a senior vice president at Chase Bank in El Paso, where Mesilla Valley does its banking, said Jones is great at watching the pennies and coming up with innovative ways to save money.
"He's one of the most entrepreneurial guys I know. He understands truck drivers and that mentality, and that really makes him a success," Mullings said. "He's just a smart guy. He understands all the smart ways to make money."
Jones, an Anthony, Texas, native who started driving a tractor-trailer rig at age 18, founded Mesilla Valley in 1981 with Jimmy Ray, then a truck mechanic, and three trucks in Las Cruces. That's where its corporate offices remain, but the operational heart of the company is at its El Paso terminal, where dispatchers and fleet managers sit behind computer screens to guide the company's truck drivers across the nation, and where mechanics work in rows of service bays.
Jones, who doesn't like to sit still long, also owns a truck-driving school, Mesilla Valley Training Institute; Border International Trucks, a new and used truck dealership; Ideal Lease, a truck-leasing company; R Leasing, a trailer-leasing company; J.H. Rose Logistics, a transportation and warehousing brokerage; Royal Properties, a Las Cruces rental property company; and Grindell and Romero Insurance in Las Cruces; and he's part owner of Global Alternative Fuels, an El Paso biodiesel company. He's also part owner of El Paso Speedway Park and Southern New Mexico Speedway, which fuel his car-racing hobby.
"He's always been a driven person," said Royal "Bumper" Jones III, one of Jones' three children, who is the company's operations manager. "He wants to be the best and Number 1 at everything he does. ... Sometimes I wonder why he doesn't retire. But I don't think that is in his vocabulary. He likes the competition and challenge of it."
And once you get trucking in your blood, "it's like a drug, it doesn't go away," said Bumper Jones, who grew up riding in the cab of his father's truck.
Jones and his family spend most weekends driving race cars in El Paso, Las Cruces or other cities. And just as in racing, Jones has made a competition out of cutting costs at Mesilla Valley with cash incentives awarded to managers and departments for hitting various benchmarks.
Zeke Rodarte, maintenance service manager, compiles reports comparing current costs to the previous year and e-mails the reports to all employees. They've become popular reading, he said.
Each quarter, Mesilla Valley gives a Harley-Davidson motorcycle to a driver with the best fuel mileage, and each year it gives $25,000 to the driver who maintained the best gas mileage for an entire year. It also awards $500 quarterly bonuses to drivers at the top of the fuel-efficiency charts.
Fuel is one of the company's biggest costs. It buys about 1.5 million gallons of diesel per month. It monitors gas stations nationwide and guides drivers to stations with the lowest prices. It also is almost constantly replacing old trucks with newer, more efficient models. Seven hundred of the company's trucks are model years 2008 or newer, Jones said.
Jones and Ray are constantly searching for new technologies to reduce trucks' fuel consumption. Ray does much of the company's research and development on fuel-saving devices. One of the latest is aluminum skirts for the bottom sides of truck trailers to improve a trailer's aerodynamics. That's improved fuel mileage on trucks by four-tenths of a mile per gallon, Jones reported as he drove a golf cart around the service bays of the mammoth El Paso terminal.
Improving gas mileage by only one tenth of a mile per gallon translates into a savings of 15,000 gallons of diesel per month for Mesilla's truck fleet, Jones said.
Besides the relentless attack on costs, Jones said, the company's success also revolves around its loyal work force. Jones can't stand to hear "It's not my job," and he makes sure everyone understands that kind of attitude isn't accepted at the company.
"I never hear anyone here say, 'That's not my job.' Us keeping in business is everyone's job. You could be called to do anything," Jones said.
Rodarte, the company's service manager, said employees are dedicated to the company because "we see the owners dedicating their time and life to this company and making it better." Jones greets employees and takes time to talk to them, which makes a difference, he said.
Vega, the operations director, said much of the company's success is due to the "Never say no" attitude of its owners, managers and other employees.
"We never say no," Vega said. "We always figure out how to do things."
Vic Kolenc may be reached at vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; 546-6421.
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