By comparison, six new locations opened in all of last year, according to the company.
Already, the freight broker’s growth propelled Clermont County-based TQL — which has sales offices in Centerville and West Chester Twp. — to the top of the list of largest privately-held companies in the Cincinnati Tristate region based on 2013 sales of $1.6 billion. Last year, sales surpassed $2 billion and more than 3,000 people are employed nationwide.
“Our strategy to expand our national footprint is based on a drive to find talent,” President Kerry Byrne said.
Total Quality doesn’t necessarily have a list mapping out its five-year plan for growth and number of offices, Byrne said. It’s safe to say more than 10 offices will open over the next two years, he said. But the destinations depend on his company’s employees.
Through a leadership development program at the company, employees have a chance to fine-tune their skills. But the program is also a way to groom leaders interested in opening an office for TQL in a new market. When Total Quality opens a new sales office, three team members relocate to start it and hire trainees to grow the location, Byrne said.
Most of the leadership program participants are trained in Southwest Ohio, but all are trained at an existing Total Quality office, he said.
Total Quality acts as a middle man in the transportation industry. Its staff negotiates truck loads, rates and destinations between the companies that need products hauled and the truck carriers that deliver goods.
Las Vegas joins previous announcements made so far this year for new sales offices in Knoxville, Tenn.; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Dallas, Texas; and the first west coast location in Portland, Ore. Plans are also to open later this year in Richmond, Va., said spokesman Mark Motz. The move into Virginia will expand TQL operations to states No. 19, Motz said.
The Knoxville site doesn’t open until July, he said.
Another Ohio office location is brewing, as the Ohio Tax Credit Authority approved in December tax breaks for the project, although a final location has yet to be named.
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