ONE CUTTING-EDGE CARRIER FROM HEADING SOUTH - BY ALLISON HATFIELD
express
President Carlos Duron and Vice President of Sales Mike Gamel seem like
opposites. From the cars they drive — Duron has a Mercury Sable; Gamel, a
Jaguar — to the ties they wear — Duron prefers traditional blue with
stripes; Gamel chooses those that celebrate the season — the differences
are striking. But opposites attract, and the flamboyant, excitable Gamel
balances Duron’s conservative, deliberate nature.This unlikely team is just one of a pair of complementary partnerships that form Mexpress Transportation, a Santa Clarita, California-based carrier that has transported freight quickly and easily to Mexico’s interior since 1997 despite stringent regulations.
Gamel and Duron met seven years ago. At the time, Duron worked in management at Roadway and CFI. Gamel, who calls himself “the first American trucker in Mexico,” started at Yellow Freight Systems and built California-based Industrial Freight Systems to a $60 million company before starting Mexpress. Via a partnership with Hermosillo, Mexico-based Transportes Pitic and Pacific Coast Express in western Canada, Mexpress provides truckload and LTL service from Canada and California into Mexico.
TRUE BELIEVERS
“No one provides a service like we do,” Gamel says. Due to strong relationships with Mexican customs brokers, Mexpress can move freight across the border at the Nogales, Arizona, port and to the consignee in two to three days. Service is guaranteed,
Mexpress advertises 48-hour transit from Los Angeles to Guadalajara and 60 hours to Mexico City. On both routes, though, “We normally are beating it,” Duron says. But “it’s not just about being fast. It’s about being able to provide a complete package to the customer.”
One of those customers is the Inglewood, California, branch of Kintetsu World Express, an international freight
| At the U.S.-Mexico border, an agent with the Mexican customs broker Gamas inspects each Mexpress shipment and verifies paperwork. Then a Transportes Pitic driver takes the load to its final destination. |
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“The toughest part is getting the customer to believe we can do it,” Gamel says. “I say, ‘Give us one shot.’ Then the floodgates open.”
Now Jimenez tells his clients about Mexpress. “In the beginning, our customers cannot believe it,” he says. “They say, ‘Forty-eight hours? How can you do it?’ But once they’ve seen it, they are very excited. They want door-to-door service.”
FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET
Door-to-door service is about to become even better, according to Duron. “We are in the process of becoming a bonded carrier in Mexico,”
And, Gamel says, “We get air freight prices.” Before, he explains, Mexpress made the run but could collect only ground rates.
“The role Mexpress plays in our business is substantial,” says an air export manager at Panalpina, another freight forwarder and a Mexpress customer. “There’s a lot of traffic — oversize and truckloads — that very few airlines can move.”
Gamel spends his time growing his company’s customer base, and although freight forwarding companies have been difficult to win, they are coming around, he says. “[They] are starting to realize if they can present a seamless transit from the Orient to Mexico, they can increase revenue.” Mexpress lets them do that, he says.
Using the gateway in Nogales rather than the one in Laredo, Texas, as most U.S. carriers are set up to do, saves Mexpress time and hassles. For most U.S. carriers, it takes eight or nine days to move freight from the United States to Mexico’s interior “when you are lucky,” Gamel says.
Freight often gets held up at the border due to pedimentos (paperwork), he explains. And except in cases of trailer interchanges, which represent about 10 percent of shipments, freight has to be reloaded onto a Mexico-approved trailer. Because the customs broker typically collects duties from the shipper before releasing a load, shipments often are stalled, Duron says.
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"THE TOUGHEST PART IS GETTING THE CUSTOMER TO BELIEVE WE CAN DO IT. I SAY |
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| Mexpress uses Mexican worry dolls as a marketing tool. A slip of paper in each bag of dolls reads, "Mexpress Transportation will take your worries away." | 'GIVE US ONE SHOT.' THEN THE FLOODGATES OPEN." - Mike Gamel, Mexpress Transportation |
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NEW TIMES FOR OLD MEXICO
Mexpress has worked closely with Gamas, a Mexican customs agent, since its inception, but in January the company set up its own brokerage in Los Angeles. “All the functions that a Mexican broker would do at the border are now being performed in L.A.,” Duron says. “We are in the process of converting customers that presently clear at the border to Los Angeles.”
If a load clears at the U.S.-Mexico border, Mexpress allows it six hours. But the U.S.-based Mexican customs broker enables a load to cross the border in minutes. “All the paperwork will happen right here,” Gamel explains. “By the time the goods get to the border, the government has been paid, and Mexican customs can decide whether to look at it or release it.”
“This sets a new standard in the industry,” says William Velasquez, regional sales manager for All Points Transportation of Redondo Beach, California. “It’s not something that’s ever happened before. Business has always been controlled at the border. This is going to create flexibility. Now the manufacturer can calculate when the product will be in Mexico. Before, with the problems of getting something inspected and cleared at the border, the manufacturer could only guess when something would be delivered.”
“What this does,” Gamel says, “is move the border from Mexico to L.A.”
After a load clears customs, the equivalent of a yard truck shuttles the trailer from the border to Pitic. There, it is attached to a Qualcomm-equipped Volvo — a truck as rare in Mexico as Taco Bell franchises. Again, this is where Mexpress differs from the other U.S.-based carriers that do business in Mexico, Gamel says. At the border, “most U.S. companies wash their hands of the freight,” he says, mystified by the disregard for Mexican customers. “Why not track and protect [their freight] like you do every other shipment?”
Alejandro Cons, director of Pitic’s truckload division and owner of a Volvo truck dealership in Hermosillo, says his father founded Pitic in 1973. The company has since grown to 11 terminals and grossed about $21 million last year, making it a medium-size carrier by Mexican standards.
Trucking in Mexico bears little resemblance to trucking in the United States. The perilous country is devoid of U.S.-style Interstates and our ever-present highway patrol. In Mexico, there are no log books or hours-of-service rules. Roadside equipment and driver inspections are exchanged for drug searches. Mexican truck drivers fear an encounter with the stone-faced, fatigue-clad policia federal, who tightly grip M16 rifles, far more than U.S. drivers dread a Department of Transportation inspector with an ax to grind. The nicest highway in the country is a four-lane toll road. Cons says Pitic pays as much in tolls each month as it does for fuel.
Even with the tolls, Pitic is a profitable company. Until 1994, Pitic handled only LTL freight; then it began offering truckload service to the Pacific Coast on a just-in-time basis, Cons says. Since Pitic went into partnership with Duron and Gamel in ’97, international revenue has risen 40 to 50 percent, he says. Overall company revenue doubled in 1999.
Mexpress charges a premium for 48-hour service to Guadalajara and has high profit margins, Gamel says. Mexpress made a profit its first month in business. “Our goal this year,” he says, “is to double our revenue.”
