Horizon Transport Begins 2023 as an Employee-Owned Firm

Marion Schrock, president and CEO of Horizon Transport, addresses employees regarding a new employee ownership plan. (Photos: Horizon Transport)

Schrock is shown signing during the ESOP celebration.

Wakarusa, Ind.-based Horizon Transport has been generating plenty of positive news lately following the mid-December acquisitions of two Goshen, Ind.-based RV transportation firms, Dynamic Transportation Inc. and RV Transport Inc., both of which are being absorbed into Horizon’s Elkhart County operations, according to Horizon President & CEO Marion Schrock.

As a result, says Schrock, Dynamic owner Jay Mohamed is now serving as Horizon’s vice president of business development and RV Transport’s Martha Glick is a Horizon consultant.

Also making headlines is the fact that Horizon has invested in two new state-of-the art driver simulators to help bolster the safety-related readiness of its 2,500-3,000 independent drivers, a story posted Tuesday (Jan. 3) on RVBusiness.com.

And now, the Northern Indiana firm has announced that Horizon and its Goshen-based Wave Express affiliate have introduced an Employee Stock Ownership program for their 95 employees– an ESOP finalized at the end of 2022.

“We announced it (the ESOP) to our employees back on the 15th of December when we had our Christmas party, but the official paperwork was effective at midnight, Saturday (Dec. 31), the last day of 2022,” reports Schrock. “And we did a signing ceremony on Friday, the day before New Year’s Eve. All the employees were there with cake and balloons and we got

The ESOP party was an especially memorable one for Schrock, whose parents, Melvin and Ruth Ann Schrock, started Horizon 38 years ago. He’d been with the family-owned company, a full-service RV transporter focusing on drive away, single tow-away, flatbed and multi-haul deliveries, since 1986, and had owned it himself since 2004.

Horizon Transport specializes in RV OEM deliveries while its independently operating sister firm, Wave Express, works directly with dealers. “Fully 98% of our business is RV-related,” said Schrock. “We do very little of the non-RV stuff.”

As a result of the ESOP, Schrock added, Horizon is now 100% employee-owned, a fortunate turn of events in his view for everyone involved.

“Yeah, as an owner, you’re always trying to figure out later in life — I’m now 55 – how you’re going to land this airplane, so to speak,” he said. “I’ve thought about selling to private equity or even to a competitor, and it just didn’t seem right or to fit right. And I got some legitimate offers, but the thing that just fit us best – with all the stars aligned — was to sell the company to the employees. And it allows us to reward long term employees who have been with me in some cases for over 30 years and have helped me build the company into what it is today.

“So, it just felt really, really good to be able to reward these employees with stock,” he added, “and then when they retire, they can cash out for their retirement.”

Schrock says he also learned that employee-owned companies tend to be stable, long-term players. “As employees retire and attrition out,” he asserted, “you’ve got new ones coming in and they become owners. For example, I spoke to five different trucking companies around the country that have done ESOPs and there’s obviously a huge upside as far as employee retention, morale and vision. And they take another level of care and loyalty because, in theory, everything they don’t do affects their retirement fund.

“Now not everyone will buy in (to the ESOP),” he said, “but the core that does buy in will weed out those that don’t. So, it was a great fit for us. The stars were aligned. And I am ever so excited about the future, even though 2023 appears to be an adjustment year. I’ll say it that way. But we’ve got incredible energy right now and with the other things that we’ve got going on, we’re being a little aggressive. And if you get the employees behind it, it’s a whole different ballgame.”

Source: https://rvbusiness.com/horizon-transport-begins-2023-as-an-employee-owned-firm/