Liquid Transport Corp at Tuscola, IL, is a single source service provider for the Equistar plant in Tuscola and has been on-site for 6 years. LTC has an onsite person, Amy Jo Gower, who is the liaison between the LTC Tuscola terminal and Equistar customer service in Houston, TX. Amy has been praised by many of the Equistar customer service representatives for providing excellent communication that allows Equistar to better serve their customers. Don Hart and Gary Bates line up all the trailers to be loaded based on previous contents and ensure that all Equistar alcohols are loaded within the customer’s requirements. Because of the teamwork of the TUIL terminal, 10,500 shipments have been delivered without a contamination. Equistar products are dedicated/food grade type products so TUIL has to handle peaks and valleys in the Equistar shipping patterns without much system help. The fact that they are more or less a dedicated fleet presents challenges that this terminal has been able to overcome and while still providing excellent service. The Equistar corporate customer service team always has very high praise for the excellent job that TUIL provides which allows them to provide outstanding service to their alcohol customers at this very important plant for Equistar.

TUIL also provides service for other accounts. Jones Hamilton business requires our drivers to handle hydrochloric acid. It is an entirely different product line requiring the drivers to be prepared to handle a variety of unloading situations. It requires the drivers to be prepared to pressure offload as well as to pump unload. In February of this year, TUIL was awarded the Jones Hamilton Carrier Service award for 2004. Last year, TUIL handled 1,500 loads for them with a service level of 99.8%. Congratulations, Dawn, Amy, Denise and drivers Doug Stoerger, Olin VanHoutin, Dale Ewing, Duane Coslet, Rob Carlberg, John Murray, Steve Bowman, and Rodney Farris! A representative from Jones Hamilton will attend a safety meeting soon to present a plaque to the team.

Rohm & Haas is a new piece of business for Tuscola. Last year they did an outstanding job servicing this account and were awarded the business for a second year. GoJo Industries is a very high volume account. Dawn works very closely with GoJo production management at this large plant coordinating the inbound shipments. Due to her excellent work on the inbound, LTC was awarded additional new outbound business from the GoJo plant that is a new stream of very profitable revenue for LTC.

So, now that you know a little about the business side of TUIL, let’s meet the people who make it happen.

Dawn Meredith: Dawn is Terminal Manager for the Tuscola, IL, terminal. She started with LTC on 10/18/90 as Clerk and later became a dispatcher, eventually working her way up to Terminal Manager. She has two BS degrees, one in Marketing and one in Personnel Management from Eastern Illinois University. She also has earned an AS in Accounting from Parkland College. She is a newlywed, only being married to Jason for seven months. She has twin sons, Tucker and Tanner, who are nine years old. The boys keep them very busy with Boy Scouts, soccer, baseball and basketball. Her hobbies include reading and cross stitch. She has three pet cats, Meika, Flubber, and Tater.

Denise Thomas: Denise started with Liquid Transport Corp on 6/30/03 as our Dispatcher. Before starting with us, she worked for Firestone in their shipping department. She stays busy raising her eight-year-old grand daughter. She has three children and six grandchildren. She also has a pet cat and dog.

Amy Jo Gower: Amy is celebrating her fourth anniversary with LTC. She is the Terminal Clerk for the Tuscola terminal. She graduated in 1991 from Atwood-Hammond High School. She’s been married to Scott for eight years. They have a four-year-old son, Lukas. For hobbies, she enjoys walking, bike riding and reading.