Heartland Express: Operating Model & Trucking Growth Challenges

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I have a couple of speculative questions to get your thoughts on a few things. If you were still at Heartland today, are there certain things you would be most concerned about for the future? Considering Heartland compared to peers like Knight-Swift, which has diversified more of their freight offerings, while Heartland remains a truckload trucker, what concerns would you have for Heartland's future?

I think at some point, Heartland will need to be willing to do things a bit differently. They will have to diversify. Maintaining the mentality of doing one thing and nothing else could hurt them in the long run. If they don't develop some flexibility, they might start to decline. In the short term, they will likely pull out of the Smith CFI acquisition. My instinct tells me they are probably evaluating various divisions within those companies to decide what to keep and what to scrap. That's what they did at Gordon Trucking and Interstate, and my instinct tells me they're doing something similar now. If there's a particular regional fleet in one of those companies not performing to Heartland's expectations, I believe they will gradually phase them out. I don't think they will do it as quickly as they did at Gordon Trucking and Interstate, as they want to retain some of the growth from those acquisitions. However, if they don't become more flexible and open, I think they will begin to decline in the long term.

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