CALEDONIA, Ont. – Kim Richardson Transportation Specialists (KRTS) announced its preferred partners, carriers and suppliers for 2015 today.

As part of the decade-old program, the selected partners, carriers and suppliers get preferential treatment with all KRTS clients. Preferred partners are carriers who contribute equipment to the KRTS driving programs, they get the first opportunity to hire KRTS graduates. Preferred carriers have an above-average entry-level training program at its organizations and, are participants in the Ontario Voluntary Apprenticeship Program. Preferred suppliers provide products and services to KRTS to help with success of their training programs.

The most recent preferred partner of KRTS is Challenger Motor Freight.

“We are excited to be expanding our relationship with KRTS,” said Geoff Topping, director of recruiting and retention at Challenger Motor Freight. “At Challenger we are committed to our people and believe in building the next generation of drivers for our company and ultimately our industry.”

Caravan Group of Companies is one of the preferred carriers of KRTS as it made a strong commitment to the company for 2015.

“In an era of substandard training schools and looming driver shortage, it has become increasingly difficult to secure properly trained, safe truck driver graduates,” said Ola Iwaniura, project manager at Caravan. “Working alongside a reputable accredited school like KRTS gives us the opportunity to recruit just the right kind of entry level drivers for our company”.

Kim Richardson, president of KRTS also commented: “We have always taken a different approach to how we do business. Our success is relationship-driven. At KRTS we refer to it as the Law of Gravitation – our clients receive an excellent education and experience at KRTS. Their in-truck training is delivered on late model, state of the art equipment. They are able to do this because of companies who commit equipment to our facility – without companies like C.A.T. Inc., Challenger Motor Freight Inc. and Trimac Transportation, our program would be very ‘vanilla,’ very ordinary.

“Our clients are educated by great instructors on great equipment, they go to work for great companies with great reputations who treat their people properly and they receive great compensation. Our entire team at KRTS is so thankful for our Preferred Partners, Preferred Carriers and Preferred Suppliers. They are a key ingredient in our recipe to for success.”

Here is the official list of the preferred partners, carriers and suppliers for 2015:

Preferred Partners:

• C.A.T. Inc.
• Challenger Motor Freight Inc.
• Trimac Transportation

Preferred Carriers:

• Bison Transport
• Caravan Group of Companies
• Erb Group of Companies
• Gordon Food Service Canada LTD; Ontario Division (GFS)
• Kriska Transport
• MacKinnon Transport Inc.
• Schneider
• Scotlynn Commodities
• S.G.T. 2000 Inc.
• Spring Creek Carriers Inc.
• White Oak Transport Ltd.
• Wiersma Trucking (Ed Wiersma Trucking Inc.)

Preferred Suppliers:

• Old Republic Insurance Company of Canada
• Verduyn Tarps