A. Duie Pyle celebrates 100 years of growth

‘Pyle People’ are key to the Chester County company’s success, CEO Peter Latta said.

WEST GOSHEN — From one man’s dream in 1924, A. Duie Pyle has grown to become an award-winning interstate transportation company servicing clients for generations across America.

2024 marks A. Duie Pyle’s 100th anniversary. The company’s 2023 revenue reached $775 million.

“When my grandfather, A. Duie Pyle, purchased a used 1918 International Harvester truck from his neighbor in Coatesville on April 1, 1924, the number of employees totaled just one — himself,” said Peter Latta, chairman and chief executive officer of A. Duie Pyle.

“On second thought, maybe there were actually two if you count his boss, my grandmother, who kept the books.”

Her name was Mary Ellen Pyle. She married A. Duie in 1920.

The business’ first bill of sale took place on April 1, 1924.

Today, the company employs more than 4,300 employees.

“The key to our success has been the Pyle People, who have over the years risen to and overcome the multitude of challenges any business, particularly a family-owned business, faces over the course of 10 decades,” Latta said.

Transit niche

The headquarters of this family run and operated business is at 650 Westtown Road.

Focused on transportation and distribution, A. Duie Pyle delivers solutions for LTL, dedicated contract services, port services, truckload warehousing and integrated solutions. Industries served include agriculture, automotive, building and construction, chemical, food and beverage, healthcare, manufacturing, and retail.

LTL is an acronym for “less than truckload” which is a type of freight that doesn’t need the space of a full truck when shipped out. Pyle employs 2,000 LTL drivers, and this division of the parent company spans locations across the Northeast — from Maine to Ohio and from West Virginia to New York and beyond.

Even so, the company continues to grow.

When the motor carrier industry began to deregulate 44 years ago, the company was able to expand from a 50-mile radius around West Chester, to an area “today that stretches from the Canadian and Maine border south to the North Carolina and Virginia line and west to include West Virginia and eastern Ohio, with service to and from all points in between,” Latta recalled.

The business has grown its warehousing services to include more than 4 million square feet of Pyle owned-and-operated distribution centers in New England and Mid-Atlantic states, Latta stated.

A. Duie Pyle also has partnerships with southern, midwestern and West Coast businesses for shipments with final destinations beyond the Northeast.

“In 2013, we started a dedicated transportation services business that today includes over 600 Pyle drivers,” Latta said. “We also provide truckload transportation management services for our customers, in addition to operating our legacy flatbed steel hauling business where we still serve our very first customer when the business started in 1924, Lukens Steel in Coatesville.”

Recent challenges

A. Duie Pyle survived the 2020 COVID shutdown and was deemed an essential business, allowing for operations to continue.

However, Latta said that in the span of four weeks at the start of the pandemic, the company’s daily shipment-count in its LTL operation plummeted more than 40%.

“It was only through the grit and determination of our Pyle People that we were able to endure the depths of the pandemic and emerge an even stronger company,” he said.

After schools and non-essential businesses began to reopen fully, costs for supplies skyrocketed across industries worldwide in 2021.

“Inflation and escalating costs have certainly presented challenges,” Latta added.

The disruption of the country’s supply chain that carried over from the pandemic compounded the challenges, he noted.

“Until recently, for example, our fleet equipment and parts suppliers had customers on order allocations so we could not procure all the rolling stock desired, and this was further exacerbated by long order lead times and delays on promised delivery dates.”

In February 2022, the company implemented a plan that provided a weekly payment to employees to help defray the impact of gasoline prices and employees’ escalated commuting cost.

Humble beginnings, local love

Latta grew up in Chester County.

Across the years, four generations of the Pyle-Latta family have run the business.

“My mother’s family lived on a farm near Valley Forge and was displaced during Washington’s encampment in the winter 1777-78, relocating to Mifflin County before returning to live in Chester County,” Latta said. Her father, Latta’s grandfather, was A. Duie Pyle.

Latta’s paternal ancestors emigrated from Ireland in 1737 and settled in Elkton, Md., before establishing a family farm north of Parkesburg, Latta said.

Technology empowers

Latta called technology a real game changer for A. Duie Pyle.

He said the business comprises a lot of small transactions and managing all the information and logistics associated with any of the 13,000 LTL shipments handled daily is essential to supplying the reliable on-time delivery and damage-free service that the customers of A. Duie Pyle expect.

“Whether it be on-board data communications in our trucks that allows electronic delivery signature capture and real-time visibility shipment tracking in our trucks and across our docks and warehouses, technology is a great enabler of both operating efficiency and enhanced customer service performance,” Latta said.

All the Pyle trucks now have road facing forward cameras, he added. And side and backup cameras are currently being installed across the entire fleet.

Sincere thanks

“I have learned many lessons as a leader. At the top of the list is the value and importance of earning the trust of the people you lead, your customers and the suppliers who help us deliver on our customer promises,” Latta said.

“Another important lesson has been that in a family-owned business — there are two businesses that both require attention: the business-of-the-business and the business-of-the-family.”

Both have mutual dependencies, he said, and neglect of either will derail both.

This spring, the company surprised Latta with a 1951 Autocar, with hundreds of employees coming together to share the moment in celebration of A. Duie Pyle’s 100th anniversary.

During a celebration on April 1 at the company headquarters in West Goshen, John Luciani, chief operating officer of LTL Solutions, presented a centennial plaque to Latta, in addition to unveiling the restored 1951 Autocar.

While there are endless factors in a business’s ability to achieve centennial success, the Latta-Pyle family today consistently praised one consistent factor above all else.

“The key is people,” said Jim Latta.

Jim Latta is Peter Latta’s brother. He retired from the family business in 2015. Both brothers attended the celebration.

“It was really special,” Latta said, who became chief executive officer in 1992. In 1995, he became chairman following the death of his father.

After the unveiling of the antique Autocar, Peter Latta expressed his thanks to everyone and paid tribute to both his grandfather, A. Duie, and his father, Jim.

“We’re a people-oriented company,” he said. “As a family-owned business, we don’t make financial quarterly decisions — we make lifetime decisions.”

Inspiration and legacy

“The Pyle People inspire me,” said Latta.

With every challenge that has come up through the company’s history, “the Pyle People have always embraced and overcome the challenge at hand and grew stronger and even more resilient,” Latta said.