Carrier Profiles

Honest Pay for Honest Work at C&M Transport

C&M Transport Inc. literally started as a family-owned, home-based business in 1991 founded by Calvin and Melody Pettrey.  Twenty years later, the Ohio-based company is still family-owned and has experienced continual growth ever since.  Most importantly, C&M has maintained a solid reputation of meeting or exceeding customer expectations.

Another contributing factor of C&M’s success is its ability to network well with others in the expediting community.  Mike Pettrey, the company’s Vice President, said C&M provides service throughout the continental United States and takes pride in the fact that they are able to keep their drivers happy with loads coming from all points from East to West. “That’s really our strong suit: being able to go pretty much anywhere,” Pettrey said.

C&M is a part of the Sylectus network and has a working partnership with The Expedite Association of North America (T.E.A.N.A), which is an advocate for the expediting community.  Pettrey explained that these two organizations help the company do business all over the country.  

“We do this with the help of C&M’s software and our well-trained, experienced dispatchers, along with our customers who have multiple locations throughout the country,” Pettrey states. “If we end up with a vehicle in the Northwest, our customers know we’re out there, so it helps in the way that it gets our vehicles back to the regular freight lanes.”

C&M’s owner-operators range from cargo vans all the way to tractor-trailers. Pettrey said the company is looking for quality owner-operators, with an emphasis on straight-truck teams.

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“We’re really focusing on straight-truck teams,” he said. “We do a lot of work that requires the use of the truck having a team in it, since our average load is usually around the 600-650 mile range for solos and with our teams averaging 800-1000 miles per load,  we end up burning through our team equipment relatively fast, so we end up brokering out a lot of our freight to our partner carriers.  That’s the nice thing about the network (Sylectus) that we’re in.  Just because we don’t have a truck there, we have a lot of great partner carriers that we work with, and working with them is just like using one of our own trucks. We can definitely keep the team straight trucks busy.”
 
C&M is currently offering sign on bonuses for straight trucks with teams as well as straight trucks with solo owner-operators.  In addition, we offer competitive pay for all other equipment.  “We typically pay quite a bit more than a lot of the other carriers for straight trucks,” said Pettrey.  “Our deadhead for our entire fleet is typically under 10 percent.”

Perhaps most important, C&M treats its owner-operators fairly and with respect. “The biggest thing I hear from our owner-operators is “honesty” Pettrey said. “I’ve never worked for another expediter, but it seems like a lot of these drivers come over here and once they start getting paid, they say, ‘Thank you for actually paying me what you said you were going to pay me.’”  Furthermore, C&M pays their owner-operators the same rate no matter who the customer may be.  Pettrey stated, “There are times when we may have to lower C&M’s rate with a customer to get a particular load, but that doesn’t mean we lower the rate with the owner-operator.  We’ll take the hit, not the owner-operator.”  The individual who is responsible for driver pay is Melody Pettrey, co-owner and Chief Financial Officer of C&M, who is committed to paying the drivers on time and accurately.  

C&M’s owner-operators also benefit from the company’s size where there is no danger of getting lost in the shuffle at C&M.  “We believe in quality not quantity when it comes to our owner-operators, you’re not just a number here,” Pettrey said. “When you call here, we know who you are, typically just by hearing your voice.”  We take a personal interest in working with our owner-operators, ensuring them that we will work to make each other successful together as a team.

For more information about C&M, see the company’s website at www.cmtransport.com or call 1-800-953-0802 or (440) 350-0802