Major Truck Transporter Has New Owner

JHT Holdings, parent company of Active Transportation, Dallas Mavis and Automotive Carrier Services, has a new owner.

Dennis Troha of Kenosha, Wis., has bought a majority stake in the company, the country's leading hauler of medium and heavy-duty trucks. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Troha bought out three former partners, acquiring 71.6 percent of the company in a cash deal.
Because JHT hauls an estimated 65 percent of the medium and heavy duty trucks in the country, it has been hit hard by the slump in truck sales and production, as well as by the overall economic slowdown. The company has cut employment by about 1,200 over the past two years, according to the paper.
JHT Holdings was the result of a strategic relationship between Johnson Houston Transportation Co. and Jupiter Corp. Transportation System, of which Troha was president. In the late '80s, the two companies formed Active Transportation Co. to transport primarily new automobiles. Johnson Houston had begun operations in 1982 as a local cartage company serving Ford's Louisville, Ky., plant. Jupiter was a transporter of medium and heavy trucks via driveaway and lowboy, as well as automobiles, boats and other specialized loads.
With Charlie Johnson and Wade and Alice Houston holding controlling shares, JHT's operating units were one of the largest minority-owned enterprises in the country, reports the Milwaukee paper. With Troha's purchase, that will no longer be the case.
Under the previous ownership, JHT was based in Louisville. It will now be based in Kenosha, where the company already has about 250 employees and where Troha has worked as president, according to the paper.