Hello, Toronto!

Last year, we opened our first international station in Amsterdam, and promised that there would be more to come. True to that promise, this month we have officially opened our first Canadian station, in Toronto.

Because of its status as the U.S.'s largest trading partner, Canada has been extremely important for us over the years. We will continue to work with Concord Transportation, our Canadian partner -- but having our own physical location in the Toronto will allow us to provide more hands-on customer service to our customers shipping into and out of the region. Additionally, because Toronto is one of the largest import/export hubs in North America, we'll be opening up additional options to our U.S. customers who would benefit from exporting their shipments via this city.

We've tapped Andy Harris, who has over twenty years of experience in the freight forwarding industry, to manage the station. Heading up customer service/operations is JoAnne Stoddart, a new addition to the Pilot team, whose strong background in international shipping will be a great asset. More staff will be added in the coming weeks to support Andy and JoAnne.

Congratulations to everyone involved in getting the Toronto station off the ground!

Pilot's momentum continues into 2012

A year ago, I announced that 2010 was the year that Pilot broke all of its personal revenue and volume records. After a year like that, most companies would expect -- and be content -- to level off. Not Pilot. The numbers are in, and we have once again blown away our old records with $491 million in revenue for the year, up 16 percent from 2010. 

That number would have been impossible without every single one of our business segments marking significant gains for the year. Congratulations are in order for everyone for making this growth possible, and a special recognition goes to Larry Wenrich and the government group, which grew its revenue by an unbelievable 65 percent over the previous year. The work that they've done with both existing and new customers to serve U.S. interests at home and abroad clearly has not gone unnoticed.

As if these numbers weren't exciting enough on their own, I'm even more impressed by the fact that while we handled more volume in 2011 than ever before, we did so while achieving our best ever performance numbers. So not only did Pilot continue to grow, we also continued to deliver the excellent service our customers have come to expect. And that deserves a big round of applause all around.

After a year like that, where do we go from here? Nowhere but up.