Fourth-Generation Freight, and a Broker Who Won’t Cross Her Fingers

“I’m Still Here”

Cori Eckley-Ritchards, now NATCO Transport’s VP, had originally planned to leave the family business. She was finishing grad school, working for her dad in the meantime, and looking for a job elsewhere. Then her father died unexpectedly, and she stayed to help her mom, who owned an asset-based truck line.

“Fast forward 23 years, I’m still here,” she told host Chris Jolly on his recent Freight Coach podcast. “So, I didn’t go very far.” She calls that detour “a blessing in disguise.”

“If It Fits in a Box, I Don’t Know What to Do With It”
Cori is fourth-generation transportation, raised on the flatbed and heavy haul mentality. It shows. “There’s a running joke in my office,” she says. “If it fits in a box or it fits in a dry van, I don’t know what to do with it.”

Hand her something wide, tall, or strange, though, and she lights up. “If you give me something 14-foot wide, obscure, tall, all the constraints and challenges, I’m on it. I love it.”

Shippers Are Asking Harder Questions
Cori and Chris spend much of the conversation on the pressure facing brokers, from court cases like Montgomery (see how we covered it in The Middle of the Road Just Got Narrower) to fly-by-night operators who make honest ones look bad. Both are TIA members, and they talk about why that logo matters to shippers.

Customers have noticed the risk, and they are vetting. “In my 23 years, I’ve never been asked that question until recently,” Cori says. Trucking has become dinnertime conversation.

She sees an opening for smaller, more hands-on shops. Shippers may stop choosing a broker because it has “2,000 people working for them,” and Cori hopes they do. “I hope that mentality goes out the door.”

How NATCO Answers
Her answer starts with technology, then leans on repeat carriers and drivers who know the work. “We’re familiar with them, so we’re not questioning what kind of service we’re going to get.” Some carriers call before NATCO has posted the details: “Hey, do you have any information yet? Where do I need to be?”

Transparency is the other half. “See something, hear something, say something is our rule of thumb.” You can see how that plays out on our trucking network page.

The Truth Beats the Fast Truck
Cori would rather deliver an honest update than a hopeful one. “I would rather tell a customer that we’re still working on an order that’s complicated, oversized, whatever the constraints are, versus saying I have a truck and be crossing my fingers.”

She sells the way she likes to be sold, aiming for “more of a consultant type relationship versus quickest, fastest truck, cheapest truck.”

One story sums it up. Years into her business, Cori spotted a customer’s name on a stranger’s shirt at dinner. She introduced herself as a vendor, and the man looked at her and said, “Oh my gosh, you’re Natco.” Her name and her company’s had become one and the same.

Watch the Full Conversation
Catch the entire Freight Coach episode:

• On Apple Podcasts
• On Spotify