In the spring and summer of 1983, Con-way Freight opened its doors as the newest entrant into the recently deregulated U.S. trucking market.

Employing a union-free business model that empowered employees to deliver next-day service, two regional less-than-truckload start-up carriers were founded: Con-way Western Express, with 11 service centers and 120 employees in California, Arizona and Nevada; and Con-way Central Express, with 68 employees across 11 service centers in seven states of the Midwest.

A 30-year journey included the founding of two other regional LTL carriers, Con-way Southern Express in 1987 and Con-way Southwest Express in 1989, dozens of expansions, and the creation of thousands of jobs in hundreds of communities.

Today, Con-way Freight, the largest subsidiary of Con-way Inc., is a $3.4 billion company with a North American network of some 425 service locations, a fleet of 9,600 trucks and tractors and 26,700 trailers, and 21,000 employees, including more than 15,000 professional driver sales representatives.

In its daily operations, Con-way Freight employees pull up to nearly 200,000 customer docks, and log over three million miles each workday, safely and efficiently moving the nation's goods and providing America's businesses with the industry's fastest, most reliable transit times, measured against its most stringent service standards.