114 Business View - May 2015
SUPPLY CHAIN / LOGISTICS
“We like to have a balance of space that we own and
space that we lease, to be a little bit more flexible for
our customers. More than half of the total space –
which is a million to a million-and-a-half square feet
– is leased, with the balance of 400 or 500 thousand
square feet that’s owned by us.”
Hodge said TM Logistics has established itself as the
biggest revenue-producer of the group – with an annu-
al income of $35 million – thanks to a customer base
that’s made of manufacturing sector clients ranging
from small local operations all the way to Fortune 50
giants. Hodge Material Handling comes second at
about $10 million, while the development and records
management arms are smaller.
The logistics business had been a distant second to
the forklift dealership in the early days, he said, before
opportunities in the marketplace allowed for signifi-
cant growth in that endeavor and prompted a sharp-
ening of the entire operation’s mindset toward serving
its clients.
“We’ve always gone on the philosophy that we deal
in the small things. We do sweat the small details,”
Hodge said. “In today’s world, you cannot possibly sur-
vive without being technologically savvy. But we still
like to have face-to-face conversations, handshakes
and some handwritten notes with our customers. For
many years, we were a small family company of 20
or 30 employees, and we knew, intimately, all of our
customers. As we’ve gotten bigger, we try to maintain
that smallness.”
And the approach, as cliché as he admits it sounds,
has clearly resonated.
“I think it’s served us quite well with some of our larger
customers who maybe deal with other suppliers that
are like-sized to them, so there’s a little bit of imper-
sonality to it,” Hodge said. “We try to keep the small
business, even though we’re approaching medium-
sized. We do get positive feedback from our big and
our small customers, who say that it’s a nice change
that we haven’t gone completely a-personal. In our
business, you have to be there.”
