As a project manager at Jetco, Mike Patterson is a driving force in building revenue for our team. He has been in the heavy haul trucking industry for the past 10 years and a member of the Jetco family for the past three. Mike has a broad range of responsibilities, including business development, quoting projects and managing the operations of the business he wins.
He tells me that an average day for him consists of constantly quoting projects. “If we don’t have availability for the heavy loads, I’ll go ahead and broker those special jobs to third-party carriers,” he said. Simultaneously, Mike is multi-tasking – checking emails, updating clients on the status of their freight, making sales calls and project managing heavy haul jobs.
In addition, Mike meets face-to-face with clients, building relationships with new customers and nurturing partnerships to retain current ones. He takes clients to lunch to discuss new brokerage opportunities, visits customer locations to present more information about Jetco and the industry, and prospects for new customers.
“For example, we recently met with one of our longstanding clients,” Mike said. “We took them out to lunch to discuss new brokerage opportunities, get a better feel for their current business needs and the market from their perspective, introduce ourselves to new team members at the company and overall expand our reach.” At the surface, these meetings may seem like traditional lunch and learns, but the work Mike puts in to acquire and retain these relationships is extensive.
“What brings me back every day is the challenge of running a big project and having everything done on time in a safe manner to execute the job within budget. I love the fact that everyday is different,” Mike said.
It’s clear that Mike loves what he does. The many relationships he’s built in the field and in the office provide him with the resources he needs to operate at the high level he does on a daily basis. When asked what the most stressful part of his job is, he said, “Running projects that have a tight deadline or running into capacity issues.”
Of course, even when faced with adversity, Mike has an immediate solution since he is well-seasoned in the industry. He described a community called “Load Boards,” where he can post loads that Jetco assets don’t have the capacity to move and third-party carriers can bid on and potentially earn the work. Jetco will broker the loads to third-party carriers that we have pre-screened, and Mike will communicate with both the client and third-party carrier throughout the process.
Mike loves staying busy, exceeding client expectations and achieving his goals in the most efficient way possible. He describes his job as, “Selling Jetco services, our competitive advantage of safety and providing turnkey solutions for a long list of trucking services.” We’re so glad knowing that Mike, who is often clients’ first impressions of Jetco, has our number one, non-negotiable core value of safety ingrained into him, the way he works and the way he communicates with clients, drivers and third-party carriers.