A small refrigerated trucking company has announced it is laying off 111 employees, including around 85 truck drivers, and plans to wind down operations at its facility in Brandon, South Dakota.
Geno Cannon, president of AA Temperature Controlled, doing business as A&A Express, notified drivers and office personnel via email that the facility was shuttering operations on Friday and would be routing drivers to the yard and then home after they deliver their loads.
In an email to drivers, which was obtained by FreightWaves, Cannon stated that the company was not filing for bankruptcy, “so we have funds to finish our loads and route drivers in and all drivers will be paid, accordingly.”
Cannon also filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notice on Aug. 9 with the South Dakota Department of Labor and Regulation of its plans to close the Brandon facility, eliminating 111 jobs.
“The company has been in the process of seeking capital or a sale, which if obtained, would have enabled it to avoid or postpone a closure and continue operations,” Cannon wrote in the notice. “Unfortunately, the company could not obtain additional working capital from its lenders and the same process has not been successful.”
The company also worked with approximately 140 independent contractors.
In August 2020, private equity firm Laurel Oak Capital Partners of Boston announced the acquisition of RRTC Holdings Inc., which included Roadrunner Temperature Controlled and A&A Express. Roadrunner Temperature Controlled later was renamed AA Temperature Controlled, with headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska.
However, it’s unclear if the company’s main headquarters in Omaha, which has 303 drivers and the same number of power units, will remain open. An employee who answered the phone at the Omaha office said that Cannon and Dan Lathrop, vice president of operations at A&A Express, were in a meeting and were the only ones who could speak about the current situation at the refrigerated company.
A public information specialist with the Nebraska Department of Labor told FreightWaves that as of publication time Thursday that a WARN notice had not been filed in the state.
Under the WARN Act, employers with more than 100 workers at a location must give authorities 60-day advance notice of a planned closure and job layoffs.
“The outcome was not reasonably foreseeable, but due to these unexpected circumstances, the company can no longer sustain the operations,” Cannon said about the South Dakota facility.
As of publication, neither Cannon nor Lathrop had responded to FreightWaves’ repeated requests for comment.
Laurel Oak Capital also did not return phone calls about the Brandon facility closure.
In 1945, Vince Anderson founded the former family-owned livestock hauling company, Anderson Trucking of Walnut Grove, Minnesota, before it became A&A Express. The carrier was acquired as a subsidiary of Roadrunner in November 2012.
A&A Express hauled meat and produce throughout the U.S. with its fleet of refrigerated trailers.
One A&A Express driver, who goes by the username Bayou_Swamp_Rat shared the news of the company’s closure on TikTok on Aug. 9.
The driver said he was in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and had delivered at a Target distribution center when he heard the news of the closure. He planned to deadhead about 295 miles to the yard in Brandon to turn in his truck.
“It’s the first time at any company that I’ve ever been to where you actually feel like a person and not a number,” said Bayou_Swamp_Rat on TikTok. “You don’t have to give them a driver number or a truck number when you call in. I enjoyed driving again. Now, I’m going to go be a number somewhere.”
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