Ohio-based Kenan Advantage Group has acquired Carbon Express Inc., a Wharton, New Jersey- based company that transports liquid bulk products throughout North America.
The entire Carbon Express team will join KAG, North America’s largest tank truck transporter and logistics provider, within its Specialty Products division, including approximately 65 professional drivers/independent contractors.
Carbon Express Executive Chairman and founder Steve Rush will remain with the company throughout the transition and President Sean McAllister will continue to manage the daily operations. McAllister will also look to capitalize on growth opportunities with the additional assets and resources KAG can provide.
"I believe in picking KAG as the buyer we have picked the right company, especially for our drivers," Rush told HDT. "KAG recognizes, as we always have, that without the driver you cannot succeed in trucking. Taking care of the customer and the driver as equals has always been our motto and KAG feels the same way."
Rush, a 2015 HDT Truck Fleet Innovator, has made a name for himself in the industry by doing things differently, including being an early adopter of electronic logs and putting drivers up in hotels overnight. The company he founded after a career as a driver and owner-operator transports chemicals, transformer oil, motor oil, lubricants and water treatment chemicals.
KAG this year also bought 25-year-old K-Limited and Louisiana-based American PetroLog.
Karen Rizzuto, KAG’s SVP of Operations, Specialty Products, called the Carbon Express acquisition “a great strategic fit to our expansion in the specialty products market. Their operating region and customer base complements our footprint today, but also provides additional expansion opportunities in the Northeastern U.S.
“Along with a tremendous attention to customer service, the leadership team focuses on an employee-centric model with a strong emphasis on safety," she added. "This commitment is important to all of us.”
Drivers are a major focus at Carbon Express, where founder Steve Rush believes that “paying drivers by the hour and billing customers by the hour is the way out of this mess we are all in.”
Photo: Carbon Express
The Kenan Advantage Group operates through its six operating groups consisting of KAG Energy, KAG Specialty Products, KAG Food Products, KAG Merchant Gas, KAG Canada and KAG Logistics.
Updated 9:40 am 9/7/2022 to add comment from Steve Rush.
