Huffman Trucking Goes Global

Huffman Trucking Goes Global

BUS415 – Business Law

03-01-08

History of Huffman Trucking

K. Huffman founded Huffman Trucking in Cleveland Ohio in 1936 with just a single truck and trailer. A decade later the demand for transportation from the Midwest to the East Coast increased significantly, and Huffman Trucking grew to 16 trucks and 36 trailers. Over the past 70 years, Huffman Trucking has grown from a small office in Cleveland Ohio into a two story corporate headquarters in Cleveland and transportation facilities in Los Angeles, CA, St. Louis, MO, and Bayonne, NJ. Huffman Trucking currently employs over one thousand employees, and has more than three thousand pieces of transportation equipment.

Huffman Trucking’s mission statement “to be a profitable, growing, adaptive company in an intensively competitive logistical services business environment” (Huffman) has allowed the company to prosper while other logistic companies have struggled with the cost of staying competitive. Although Huffman was recognized by the trucking industry as the first large transporter to outsource all information system needs, the company decided in 2004, to begin a new chapter in an old company. The Bayonne, NJ facility has become the location of Huffman’s newest venture into the e-business world. During an internal visionary meeting in 2004, Huffman’s leadership team announced their decision to begin an e-business company called E-Huffman Broker Service. E-Huffman began as a vision and through the hard work of many had grown into a successful e-business border service company.

E-Huffman Broker Service provides automated boarder-crossing services from the United States into Canada. Huffman Trucking’s East Coast customer base has allowed E-Huffman to provide existing customers seamless border crossing into Canada. In 2006, E-Huffman Broker Service became the preferred border service provider for the Champlain Quebec crossing from New York. E-Huffman Broker Service allows logistic customers to transfer shipping manifest information to them for processing; thus reducing the need for employees to process complicated border-crossing documents. E-Huffman offers a premiere package that provides customers with a turnkey solution to shipping into Canada.

The E-Huffman Broker Service is liable for ensuring that the customers they choose to partner with are legitimate customers who are shipping legal goods into Canada. E-Huffman is responsible for training their customers on the importance of properly disclosing the actual value of the goods to be transported for tax and duties into Canada. E-Huffman is also responsible for auditing their customers shipping manifest to ensure that the proper freight class codes are assigned to goods entering Canada. E-Huffman could become penalized by customs if their customers do not properly identify freight to ensure permits, certificates of origin, and inspection are documented during the electronic border crossing certification process. E-Huffman could face fines or suspension of their crossing licenses by the Canadian Border Patrol if they are found negligent in the boarder crossing process.

One of Huffman Trucking’s largest US importers is Schevo, an automotive parts supplier for the Ford Company. Schevo has selected E-Huffman to provide export border processing from Canada into the United States via the Champlain crossing in Quebec. E-Huffman’s import business has grown and the company has become one of the largest automotive parts importers from Canada into the United States. The United Sates Customer and Border Protection Act can assess penalties and examination charges to E-Huffman if the imported goods are selected for examination. If the U.S. Customs and