The latest casualty of high fuel prices is New Jersey-based Jevic Transportation, a 27-year-old less-than-truckload company known for its innovative approach to the LTL business.


In a letter posted on the Jevic web site, David Gorman, president and CEO, blamed high fuel costs, the economic downturn, increasing insurance costs and tightening credit markets. Effective Monday, May 19, Jevic stopped providing pickup service, but said they would continue operating to deliver all freight already in the system.

Jevic was founded right after deregulation, in 1981, by owner-operator Harry Muhlschlegel, who re-invented the LTL model. He combined elements of the truckload and less-than-truckload models in a regional company he and his wife named after their children: New Jersey-based Jevic.

Yellow Corp. bought Jevic for $200 million in 1999, and Muhlschlegel went on to start New Century Transportation in 2000. In 2002, Yellow announced it would spin off SCS Transportation, the holding company for Yellow's regional operating companies, Saia and Jevic. In 2006, SCS Transportation sold Jevic to an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners for $40 million in cash, with SCS officials at the time noting that Jevic had "not achieved acceptable levels of profitability for several years."