Peter Latta of A. Duie Pyle On 5 Things You Need to Run a Highly Successful Family Business

Earn the Trust of the People You Lead and the Co-Owners

The story I will share is of the dark days during the depths of the Covid Pandemic. No playbook existed, and nobody knew when the last chapter of this ugly story would be written, nor what it would entail. As we managed through this crisis and its vicissitudes, it was the trust of the Pyle People in the company’s leadership that got us through the dark tunnel that was Covid and enabled us to absorb many gut punches along the way, allowing us to emerge as an even stronger company.

Asa part of our series about 5 Things You Need To Run A Highly Successful Family Business, I had the pleasure of interviewing Peter Latta.

Peter Latta, Chairman & CEO of A. Duie Pyle, Inc., has played a pivotal role in guiding the company’s growth over 38 years, transitioning it from a $10M Philadelphia area LTL Common Carrier to a $775M Northeast leading asset-based supply chain services provider by 2023. He actively collaborates with Pyle’s independent board to maintain its status as a privately owned family business, ensuring a successful transition to the next generation of ownership. Beyond his professional endeavors, Peter serves on the board of directors of CRST Transportation, and his interests include gardening, raising cattle and hunting with his German Shorthair Pointers.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your family business and your role in it?

Our family business was founded on April 1st, 1924, by my grandfather, A. Duie Pyle, with his purchase of a 1918 International Harvester Model K used truck from his neighbor in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. Starting with just one man and one truck as a for-hire motor carrier, today we’ve evolved into a comprehensive supply chain services provider operating across the Northeastern U.S. Our services include Less-than-Truckload (LTL) transportation, operating from 34 service centers covering a footprint that stretches from the Canadian-Maine border south to the Virginia-North Carolina line and west to include West Virginia and Eastern Ohio, with service to all towns and cities in this 14-state footprint. Our LTL service extends nationally through partnerships among four family-owned LTL carriers, including Pyle. We also operate a dedicated transportation services business that we started in 2013 and have grown organically to over 600 drivers. We supply warehousing & distribution services from 4.5M square feet of owned distribution centers located in New England and the Middle Atlantic States. Pyle also provides our customers with 48 state-managed full truckload services through our brokerage business. Finally, we operate our legacy flatbed steel hauling business, where today, we still serve my grandfather’s very first customer when he started the business 100 years ago. We closed out 2023 with consolidated revenues of $775M and 4,300 Pyle People on our team. I am honored to have served as Chairman & CEO of A. Duie Pyle, Inc. for the last 30+ years.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this career?

In November 1994, I received a handwritten envelope in the mail. I opened and read the letter. It was obviously from an older man who shared that he had once owned a business that used our company’s services. He said his business had fallen on hard times in the early 1980s for reasons beyond his control, and when the bank foreclosed on the company, he could not pay all his debts. He said he vowed then that if providence allowed, he would make good on his debts. Enclosed with his letter was a check for $104.93. I replied with a nice note thanking him for his integrity but advised him that we would not be cashing his check.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I am the youngest of five in our family, and when I was 12 years old, I started working in our family trucking business. My first “job” was getting in the way at our truck repair garage, which was a repurposed WW2 metal Quonset hut building my grandfather and father had purchased in the early 1950s to start our LTL business. On my first day, the man in charge of the shop, Mr. Pete Reeser, pointed to our fuel dispenser area where a truck was parked and told me to fill it up. There were two fuel dispensers, so I grabbed the nozzle from one and filled up the truck. When I was finishing the imposing, the intimidating Mr. Reeser, who seemed 10 feet tall to me, strolled out of the shop and walked over to me. He looked at me; he looked at the dispensers, and then to the truck with the dispenser nozzle still in the fuel tank and asked me if I knew the difference between gasoline and diesel fuel, which of course, I did not. You guessed it, I had filled the diesel truck with gasoline; welcome to trucking! As my parents taught me, “Sometimes you win, and sometimes you learn.”

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

The Pyle People. Most of those outside our industry think about it regarding trucks, trailers, facilities and technology. As hammers and saws are to carpenters, so are truck tools of our trade. Ours is a service business, and while it’s pretty hard to be a motor carrier without trucks, the people using the equipment determine the service’s quality and dependability. The linkage between our Pyle core values and culture has allowed us to be a best-in-class supply chain services provider. Our six core values, with our centerpiece core value being to treat others as you wish to be treated, sustain a robust Pyle culture that, in turn, earns the mutual trust that brings forward the discretionary effort of the Pyle People. In the service business that is our world, having a composite discretionary effort of our Pyle People that is superior to the competition has been the source of our 100 years of success and profitable growth.

Here is one of the many accolades we often receive from our customers. “I was on a conference call when your driver rang my doorbell. He asked me to open my garage so that he could move the pallet inside because it was raining. He was slightly out of breath, so I asked if he needed anything.” He replied, ‘No, I am fine, thanks.’ “I carried on with my conference call and looked out the window to see his truck parked at the bottom of my 300’+ long, winding and steep driveway. I didn’t think anything of it until I realized what your driver did: He pulled the 250lb load up my driveway with a pallet jack in the rain. In today’s world, where it seems like many people are only willing to do the bare minimum, I was absolutely shocked that the driver went above and beyond the call of duty and completed this delivery in a way that few, if anyone, would. His actions were unnecessary but very much appreciated and respected. Being a business owner who uses freight carriers daily, I found this experience to be as good as it gets. My team will be looking into using A. Duie Pyle, as a result.”

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

We are underway with a multimillion-dollar investment, equipping every truck and trailer in our fleet with side view and backup cameras. We already have forward road-facing cameras that support driver training and, in today’s litigious society, help exonerate us from meritless accident and injury claims. The side-view cameras will be tremendous tools for our drivers to avoid lane change accidents, and the rear-facing cameras eliminate the blind area for our fleet equipment when our drivers are in tight quarters and backing up to make pickups and deliveries. Utilizing technology to improve road safety not only protects our professional drivers but also benefits the millions of motorists with whom we share America’s highways.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My mother and father. They taught me and practiced consistently the values that have been my guiding principles in my personal and business life. My parents were members of that Greatest Generation, who lived through the depths of The Great Depression, the fear and sacrifices that came with WW2 and the rapid development of technology that transformed how we live. My Dad was a WW2 veteran, and he lost three of his closest boyhood friends in the war. I remember him taking me along on a few of the trips he made to visit the mothers of his deceased friends every Mother’s Day. He would bring them flowers and a gift in remembrance of their sons and the ultimate sacrifice they made for our country. He did this annually without fail until the last of the three mothers passed away.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I believe our family business’ success has made the lives of the thousands of Pyle People over the last 100 years better and more financially secure for the benefit of themselves and their families. We have shared our success by providing very secure jobs with excellent compensation and benefits, including profit sharing. Our company’s core values, authored by my grandparents and parents, are good values for humanity to live by. I truly believe we have been able to transcend and reinforce these values to the Pyle People not only in their occupational lives but in their personal lives as well. How could the world not be a better place if people treated others as they wish to be treated, which is Pyle ‘s#1 core value?

Ok thank you for that. Let’s now pivot to the main parts of our interview. How do you define a family business? How is a family business different from a regular business?

A family-owned business is very different from publicly traded and private equity or hedge fund-owned businesses. First, the time horizon vantage is very different, as a family business legacy perspective is that of multigenerational lifetime decisions in contrast to publicly traded companies’ intense focus on quarterly financial results and the PE focus on the period between the bookends of the purchase and sale of their financial investment. This decisional timeline perspective in a family legacy business is the basis for another of our Pyle core values, “Do the right thing for the long term even though it may be more painful in the near term.” Another difference is that in a family business, there are two businesses that must be effectively managed: the business of the business and the business of the family. Both have mutual dependencies, and neglect of either will derail both.

In your opinion or experience, what are the unique advantages that family-owned businesses have?

The ability to advocate and lead with the foundational core values that become the cornerstone fabric of the business. The core values are the constant that instills confidence in our Pyle People of how decisions will be approached and made, thereby earning their all-important trust. These core values are our North Star compass setting. In our centennial perspective as a company, the linkage between our core values sustains our unique culture, which in turn earns the mutual trust that brings forward the discretionary effort to create best-in-class service. The result is the engagement of the Pyle People, which remains our single greatest strategic competitive advantage.

What are the unique drawbacks or blind spots that family-owned businesses have?

This takes me back to the business of the family side of the equation. Family emotions that may drive poor behavior or bad decisions create blind spots that only become more pronounced when prudent family-related choices that should be made for the health of the business are either deferred or avoided altogether.

What are some of the common mistakes you have seen family businesses make? What would you recommend to avoid those errors?

Family businesses often lack written family business-related policies that establish the process and ground rules for making decisions, thereby leaving decision-making on potentially emotionally laden matters to be determined by historical precedent versus written policies that have been purposefully thought out and proactively communicated to the affected parties in advance. Family employment-related decisions are a great example. Without a written family employment policy delineating candidate qualification criteria and the process of family employment decisions, it is easy to find your way onto the slippery slope of making decisions based on past precedent.

One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned, especially during the generational transition process, is the power of shared values among the next generation of owners. When there’s a strong alignment in values, it can foster a sense of unity and shared purpose, which is crucial for the sustainability of the family business. As Abraham Lincoln wisely said, ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ This underscores the importance of a shared vision and values for the future success of your family business.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders of family businesses to help their employees to thrive?

For a CEO or founder, creating an environment and culture based on trust and respect is critical. To receive trust and respect, you must extend it, starting with the CEO and business leaders. I heard my dad say many times, “Two things must be present for a company to be successful. First, the company must be profitable, and second, the people must be happy. Without both, you will have neither.” The employees in a company where the culture is grounded on trust and respect will be happy, and the company will be profitable. Trust and loyalty are powerful forces.

How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean with a story or example?

I define a successful leader as a person who can produce strong results by their team (safety, quality, efficiency and profitability) while doing so in a manner that they earn the trust and respect of the people they lead. When our leader in the New York — North Jersey Metro, Brian Devlin, retired and we gathered the team together, several drivers gave unsolicited testimonials about Brian. I will never forget one anecdote in particular from a gentleman who broke down in tears when he shared how Brian had taken him off the street and given him a chance to turn his life around.

What are the “5 Things You Need To Run A Highly Successful Family Business”?

Earn the Trust of the People You Lead and the Co-Owners

The story I will share is of the dark days during the depths of the Covid Pandemic. No playbook existed, and nobody knew when the last chapter of this ugly story would be written, nor what it would entail. As we managed through this crisis and its vicissitudes, it was the trust of the Pyle People in the company’s leadership that got us through the dark tunnel that was Covid and enabled us to absorb many gut punches along the way, allowing us to emerge as an even stronger company.

Be Willing to Make the Tough Family Decisions Needed to Protect the Business from the Family

As I mentioned earlier, the importance of aligning the value sets of the emerging next-generation owners cannot be overstated. As the leader of our third-generation family business, I was tasked with designing and executing the details of our family business generational succession planning. It became clear that one family group’s value set was centered around entitlement, with a focus on the benefits of ownership rather than the stewardship priority centered on the responsibilities of ownership that had always been our family business hallmark. The strident legal counsel they saw fit to retain interjected baseless and incendiary allegations, at their clients’ behest, which, while personally insulting and polarizing, did not deter the other owners’ resolve to protect the business from the family.

An Engaged Board of Directors with Strong Independent Directors

An engaged board is particularly important to a family-owned business for several reasons. One of the contributions an independent board offers is helping the business as it grows to transition from a family-managed business to a professionally managed one while retaining the family-influenced tenets of the family-owned business. The independent board also helps temper the emotions inherent in a family business that could otherwise lead to misdirected decisions. Lastly, among the many benefits I will mention is that with an independent board comprised of engaged directors with distinguished careers and experience, the board becomes an important governance cornerstone of the family business, engendering the confidence of the non-owner leadership of the business.

Make What You Can Sell, Don’t Sell What You Can Make

With regard to the business itself, it is important for the family-owned business to adapt to the rapidly changing world around it. Until 1980, the motor carrier industry was regulated much like a public utility. Difficulty in obtaining required geographical certificates of operating authority, coupled with permitted collective rate-making exempt from the reach of antitrust laws, had a chilling effect on competition. As a single-service center LTL motor carrier serving a 50-mile radius from our location, we were artificially protected by government regulation, and we could sell what we could produce.

When the walls of protection were dismantled by The Motor Carrier Act of 1980, which began the process of deregulating the motor industry, we could no longer simply sell what we could produce. Instead, we had to transition to producing what we could sell. This led to our geographic expansion to become a regional LTL carrier, transitioning from serving no complete state to serving every city and town in 14 states.

Endurance, Patience & Faith

Executing a business plan is one thing, responding to an unexpected crisis is a whole different ballgame. In 2019, we awoke on a Saturday morning to a ransomware cyberattack that seized control of our operating systems, email and phone communication systems. We did not pay the ransom extortion but fighting back by rebuilding one system at a time as we continued to operate the business, was a long and exhausting ordeal that tested our Pyle Team’s collective physical and emotional endurance.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 😊

The person I would love to have a conversation with would be Abraham Lincoln. As one of our greatest, if not the greatest, presidents, who led our country through arguably our darkest times when embittered differences were manifested in the worst of human ways, I would treasure the opportunity to understand his insights on leadership, not to mention endurance and faith, during this most trying of times.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I will go back to our Pyle #1 Core Value, which is taken from The Golden Rule from the Good Book: “Treat Others as You Wish to be Treated.” Our country, and our world, would be a much better place if this tenet were embraced and practiced by more human beings.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Our website, www.aduiepyle.com, is a great source of information. In the “Newsroom” section you will find the latest news, press releases, blogs, videos and more. We are also active on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.