A Steinbach trucking company has merged with a large American firm based in Dallas, Texas. Gary Coleman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Big Freight, says they have merged with Daseke, a large publicly-traded transportation group.

"They went public about two months ago and they've been in the transportation industry for about six, seven years now, merging carriers in the U.S. that focus on a specialized part of the transportation sector, similar to what we do, in terms of flatbeds and specialized van operations."

Big Freight is the first Canadian-based company to join Daseke. Coleman notes there are a number of big benefits to the deal.

"Firstly in terms of buying power with trucks, trailers, and fuel, risk mitigation through insurance. And then, from a business development perspective, they currently operate ten U.S.-based transportation companies, all of which have clients that ship into or out of Canada and, being the Canadian base for them now, we see that as a great opportunity for us to expand the service offerings for those clients in an out of Canada, many of which we aren't currently doing business with."

Coleman says another nice part of the deal is that Big Freight will keep its autonomy.

"That was one of the real positive things about the merger is that our culture, our business philosophies, our business plans, the leadership of the company, the frontline team members all remain the same. They (Daseke) really are focused on a collaborative effort which is very similar to what and how we operate. That's really where a lot of the excitement comes from is that we get to continue to do what we're doing today, we just have a lot more horsepower to get it done in a more efficient and quicker fashion."

Furthermore, Coleman says all team members at Big Freight will be able to own stock in the company.

"They've got stock option plans and stock granting plans that are getting rolled out and we will be rolling that out to our team members within the Big Freight system over the next number of months. That's really unheard of in the transportation industry. I think it can be a real positive game-changer for our team members, that they not only are going to be earning good, competitive wages but have the opportunity for economic wins as well, subject to the overall company doing well, obviously. But that's part of being a shareholder."

Coleman believes this aspect will make a difference in terms of driver recruitment and driver retention as in hiring and keeping other team members. Big Freight currently runs 150 trucks and owns close to 350 trailers.