Heavy Duty Trucking, May 2018
HDT MAY 2018 52 WWW TRUCKINGINFO COM Andreea Crisan grew up alongside Andy Transport which was launched by her father Ilie Crisan 11 years ago She took on her current top leadership position in the family owned company three years ago after having earned a law degree In her executive role working side byside with her father Crisan is currently engaged on several fronts to help accelerate the companys growth including opening the carriers own driving school and taking in maintenance work for other fleets The company runs truckload across Canada and into the U S and also provides logistics services including via a European office The fleet currently fields 300 tractors and 700 trailers Last year Canadas Womens Executive Network named her one of the countrys Top 100 Most Powerful Women for having distinguished herself early in her career and for showing tremendous potential to keep making her mark in the years ahead Thats not surprising given the growth the company has enjoyed in the past few years Andy Transport was ranked in the Profit 500 list of Canadas Fastest Growing Companies in 2014 2015 2016 and 2017 The company roots run back to 2001 when her father an immigrant from Romania bought a truck to put his driving experience in Europe to work to support his family In 2006 he attained operating authority and started up Andy Transport as a truckload carrier At the time Andreea was still in her teens Indeed she spent her teenaged summers accompanying her father as he delivered freight across North America Andy Transport grew quickly to be a 16 tractor fleet employing 32 drivers My father started with a used Volvo It was painted burgundy and thats still the color of our brand says Crisan Then the Great Recession hit and a key piece of business was lost leading the family to go into survival mode she recalls I was at home then so I handled the banking and payroll and my father handled local hauls and worked with our drivers Crisan says We had no master plan It was bankruptcy or survival We parked most of our trucks and let most drivers go with the promise to rehire them and rotated the work we still had among those remaining She says from the lowest point it took Andy Transport about two years to get back to where we were before From there growth followed The recession turned out to be a good thing she explains as it made us look for the first time at customers who were in different freight segments She says the struggle to survive also led her father to work very closely with our drivers as a team Even today while we dont know all our drivers personally we understand their point of view and needs she says And because we are now growing steadily new operations are opening and people here are getting promoted rapidly The carrier works out of three terminals Learning how to grow from survival Born into trucking Andreea Crisan knows firsthand what it takes to keep a fleet moving forward SPONSORED BY
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