Category: General

KTG companies Icon Logistics Transportation Inc., Kriska Holdings Limited, Mill Creek Motor Freight, and Trailwood Transport have been named 2021 Smartway High Performers by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The Smartway program provides carriers with guidance and standards to help reduce fuel consumption and increase efficiency. The result is lower carbon emissions and better utilization of our fleets.

Of all the carriers participating in the SmartWay program, fewer than 10% make the High Performer list for carbon emissions. We are proud that Icon, Kriska, Mill Creek and Trailwood consume thousands of gallons of fuel than their competitors.

KTG companies are committed to our stewardship of the environment. Our fleet consists of modern fuel-efficient trucks and trailers with low resistance tires and side skirts. Our drivers operate at limited speeds on routes carefully selected to use less fuel and when they are parked, idle their truck minimally.

From maintenance to drivers and dispatchers, KTG continues to innovate as one of the environmental leaders in the North American transportation industry.

The trailer fleet at KTG companies consists of nearly 2000 strong, but none are as noticeable as the She The North trailer that celebrates the historic Grand Slam win by Canadian tennis player Bianca Andreescu.

This June, the trailer design won the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada’s (PMTC) 3m Graphic Award in the Special Events/Promotions Category. The stunning trailer features images of Andreescu and graphic elements representing the dynamism of tennis was designed by Turbo Studio.

Based in Mississauga, ON, Turbo Studio is the sister company of longtime KTG vendor Turbo Images. They are a design-forward branding and marketing agency that provides boutique-style customer service and care.

The She The North trailer was the first of three projects that Turbo Studio has designed for various KTG companies. After the success of both the image and the quality wrap, we relied on them to develop creative ideas for another trailer and an office mural. 

Turbo Studio’s second design was an update for Kriska’s ageing community events trailer. Community groups in Eastern Ontario use the 36′ refrigerated trailer at events such as Ribfest, Canada Day and others. Kriska requested that the wrap reflect the heritage of the area and the company’s place within it. The resulting design showcases local landmarks and a Kriska truck with a map of the region in the background. As on the She The North trailer, the bright red of the Kriska logo was strategically used throughout.

Recently, the company completed a mural installed to celebrate Champion Express’s 30th anniversary. This project was more of a conceptual challenge than the others. Champion’s design brief described a 16′ x 9′ mural that illustrated the company’s reach across Canada and needed to include road and rail transportation as well as famous Canadian locations. Turbo Studio’s talented designers worked with the company to produce multiple versions to get to the final design and are delighted with the result.

For the 21st consecutive year the Kriska Transportation Company (KTG) has been recognized for overall business performance and sustained growth with the prestigious Canada’s Best Managed Companies designation. The 2021 Best Managed program award winners are amongst the best-in-class of Canadian-owned and managed companies with revenues over $25 million demonstrating leadership in the areas of strategy, capabilities and innovation, culture and commitment, and financials to achieve sustainable growth.
KTG has continued to grow this past year despite the challenges of the global pandemic. Our operating companies continue to provide award-winning service and remain some of the safest carriers in Canada. Our dedication to constant improvement and investment in people, technology, and the acquisition of proven companies continues to be a winning strategy.
“The past year has posed numerous challenges for Canadian businesses and has touched everyone in some form or another—including this year’s Best Managed winners,” Kari Lockhart, Partner, Deloitte Private and Co-Leader, Canada’s Best Managed Companies program. “They should be extremely proud of this designation and use it as a catalyst to continue the work they do each day. Their unwavering commitment to their people and their adaptability amid a year of turmoil has led them to this achievement, and it mustn’t go unnoticed.”
Applicants are evaluated by an independent judging panel comprised of representatives from program sponsors in addition to special guest judges. 2021 Best Managed companies share commonalities that include (but are not limited to) enabling a remote workforce, making employee health a top priority, acting with an increased sense of purpose and social responsibility and a significantly heightened focus on cash flow.
“It’s with great pleasure that we accept this award for the 21st year.” said KTG, CFO, Pierre Carrier “This award reminds us every day that we need to keep innovating and growing our business, for our employees and our community. We wish to thank all our employees for the effort that they make to keep us one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies.”

Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT), an international non-profit working with the trucking, bus and energy industries to fight human trafficking as part of their everyday jobs, announces the appointment of Heather Mewhinney, Director of Human Resources at the Kriska Transportation Group, as the first chair of the newly formed TAT Canada Committee (TCC). Caroline Blais, Recruiting Manager, Kriska will co-chair the committee.

The TCC will expand TAT Canada’s reach and implementation by activating its volunteer members’ networks, resources, and expertise. Integral to the success of TAT are partnerships with the industry leaders, carriers, government transportation entities and crucial anti-trafficking voices in Canada that comprise the committee membership.

TCC members will commit to training and implementing additional TAT Canada action steps within their organizations. They will encourage TAT partnerships as speakers at conferences and events and within their professional networks. TAT Canada will also promote that provinces and law enforcement adopt the Canadian Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Model (Canadian CVE) to utilize entry points into the trucking and bus industries to spread the TAT anti-trafficking message.

“The goal of the TCC is to be a growth accelerator for TAT Canada across the nation so that every CDL holder understands the role they can play in discovering and disrupting human trafficking networks,” said Kendis Paris, TAT executive director. “We relied on our partners at the TTSAO to select the chair and co-chair, as they could identify who has strong relationships

with industry members across Canada and natural leadership qualities, Heather and Caroline are excellent choices, and we’re extremely pleased to have them lead the group.”

TAT has been expanding into Canada since 2019 when it hosted a Coalition Build event in Toronto and has researched the Canadian transportation industry and law enforcement. The organization has relied on existing partnerships with UPS, Pilot and Bridgestone to introduce their Canadian affiliates. Key initiatives include working with the Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario (TTSAO) to educate commercial truck driving students to recognize the signs of human trafficking and with the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada (PMTC) to promote TAT Canada to their membership.

Currently, fifteen Canadian companies have provided TAT training and certification to all their employees. An additional twenty-four have committed to implement training in 2021.

The Kriska Transportation Group has acquired Round the Lakes Motor Express Inc (RTL) and Ready To Load Logistics Inc. (RTLL), both of London, ON.

Each company will continue to be managed by its current leadership team to maintain operational excellence, growth and customer relationships. Brad Berfelz will remain as RTL General Manager and Travis Haines in his current Operations Management role. Dean Henry will continue as RTLL General Manager.

“Round The Lakes and Ready To Load are great strategic fits with the Kriska Transportation Group,” said KTG CEO, Mark Seymour.” We believe RTL expertise in cross border LTL, aligns well with our company, TransPro Freight Systems, and will bring operational synergies and best practices. Ready To Load adds brokerage to our growing logistics services and further diversifies our revenue streams”. 

“We are extremely proud of what we have accomplished since our inception in 2003.  Moving forward, we are excited to be part of KTG as we see a great fit for our staff and customers. It’s clear to us that the culture of the two companies are very likeminded.” said Berfelz, “Ready To Load will benefit from KTG’s larger brokerage footprint and sales structure by helping our team enhance growth and operational capabilities”, added Henry.  

Round The Lakes Motor Express Inc. offers domestic and cross-border less than truckload services, specializing in the Midwest regions.

Ready To Load Logistics is a Third Party Provider of surface transportation solutions to customers operating across North America.

Mill Creek Motor Freight has lots to celebrate this year. Not only is this the company’s 40th anniversary, but they have also placed first in the Truckload Carriers Association’s (TCA) Fleet Safety Award.

The 1st place award is in Division 2 (5-14.99 Million Miles) in TCA’s 45th Annual Fleet Safety Awards. A carrier’s annual accident ratio and a safety audit determine the rankings.

Mill Creek’s focus on safety has resulted not only in this award; the company recently achieved its lowest CVOR score in years. These milestones are the results of deep attention to detail to keeping drivers, freight and the public safe on the roads. The Mill Creek Safety department has built a comprehensive program that includes training, maintenance, supervision and monitoring above industry standards.

“We all share this award,” says Krista Murray, Safety and Compliance Manager, “drivers, mechanics and the operations team are all safety-minded. It’s always our first consideration.”

The award will be presented at the TCA Annual Convention in April 2021. Mill Creek is a finalist for the grand prize, also announced at the Convention.

The people who work with us are transportation professionals dedicated to providing a reliable and safe service and our greatest asset. It is an honour that Trucking HR Canada has awarded Kriska Holdings Ltd., Mill Creek Motor Freight and TransPro Freight Systems as Top Fleet Employers for 2020.

The award acknowledges trucking companies that provide an exceptional workplace and participate in human resources best practices.
This is Mill Creek’s first Top Fleet Employer award and the seventh consecutive award for Kriska and TransPro.

For the second year, KTG has awarded a scholarship to ten students entering post-secondary education.
We value education beyond high school and believe that students like these will become the innovators and leaders in the evolving transportation industry. Transportation, logistics and supply-chains employ graduates from many disciplines, including engineering, finance, human resources, and trades.

The KTG scholarship was founded in 2019 to support children of employees in their pursuit of post-secondary education. Applicants submit an essay about the Transportation industry’s impact on their lives and reflect on how to recruit young people. To date, KTG is proud to have awarded $50,000.

We are honoured to announce this year’s list of recipients. They are:

Conor Barratt – TransPro
Daniella Ceccacci – TransPro
Laura Cook – Trailwood Transport
Emily De Silva – Service Freight Systems
Davis Moore – Mill Creek
Stephanie Noecker – Mill Creek
Kassandra Silver – Mill Creek
Alex Trimble- Mill Creek
Kyle Whiteman – Kriska
Betty Zaharieva – TransPro

Congratulations to all. We wish these and all students the best of luck in their studies in this unusual school year.

When Mike Frolick TransPro‘s Director of Safety & Compliance talks about commercial vehicle safety, his eyes light up. He is excited that this July, TransPro achieved its best-ever safety rating.

In Ontario, all commercial vehicle operators are assigned a rating based on roadside inspection results, the number of tickets and accidents. The lower the rating, the better and any rating below 20% is classified as “Excellent.” For the first time in its history, TransPro earned a rating of under 10%.

TransPro’s excellent rating is the result of an effort between our Safety, Operations and Maintenance departments to support drivers to be successful during roadside inspections and ongoing driver training.

Safe trucks and trailers start in the shop where increased standards and frequency of inspections help identify defects and repair them before going on the road. Our mechanics received training to have a critical eye during maintenance inspections by former commercial vehicle inspection officers. Recently, we invited drivers to bring their truck for an inspection and for our mechanics to share their knowledge with drivers who can now find potential issues before they become a problem. All drivers participated and are welcome to have their truck inspected anytime without a reservation.

As equipment ages, it requires more time and effort to keep it safe. We removed a number of trailers, which decreased the average age of our trailers by 25% while ensuring enough capacity to service our customers. To ensure we keep to our maintenance schedule, we introduced preventative maintenance stickers on all trailers.

Safe drivers drive safe trucks and trailers. TransPro keeps its drivers up to date with regular training sessions and safety bonuses.

We’ve integrated the steps we’ve taken to earn our safest ever rating into our daily routines. Drivers and mechanics and the entire team share in the pride of this accomplishment. For TransPro, our customer’s freight and the motoring public, the road ahead is a safe one.

KTG drivers provide an essential service during the current health crisis and always. Their ability to stay safe and healthy is critical to the supply chain of food, medical supplies and raw materials used in manufacturing. KTG Director of Safety and Compliance, Eugenia Churilov recognized that we needed a tool to quickly and easily assess driver health daily and set about to build one.

After consulting with the IT department, Safety and Driver Services, she decided on an app-based questionnaire that drivers would answer and submit on their in-truck tablets from Isaac Instruments.

The team developed the questionnaire based on a list of COVID-19 symptoms from Health Canada. The questions are all yes/no and are in less than a minute. They’re available in English and French.

The KTG Driver Healthcheck app asks the following questions:

In the last 48 hours have you had any of the following symptoms:

1. Fever

2. Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing

3. Cough

4. Sore throat

5. Prolonged headache

6. Stuffy or runny nose

7. Feeling sick (weak, fatigued, achy, tired and drained)

8. Loss of smell or taste, or a change in taste

From concept to deployment, the app was developed and tested in three working days. The Safety and IT departments worked closely with Isaac to ensure that it was stable and records and reports the data accurately.

KTG Safety and Security constantly monitor driver entries to the Healthcheck app. Should a driver answer “yes” to any question, an alert and email are generated and sent to the Safety Manager who contacts the driver immediately. The driver and Safety Manager then decide on the course of action that is best for the driver’s health.

In the past several weeks, the KTG Driver Healthcheck app has accessed thousands of times, providing a real-time view of the safety of our fleet. It’s a valuable tool to ensure driver health and business continuity . We’re thankful to Isaac Instruments and our IT and Safety teams for their swift work