Inside Fuel: March 22, 2017
Welcome to the world of Fuel
By: Fuel Transport

To understand Fuel Transport today, it’s important to know a little about me and why I’ve spent the last 13 years shaping Fuel into a different kind of logistics company.

My name is Rob Piccioni. I started in the industry with a Montreal freight broker when I was 19. I was promoted to operations manager by 22 and was made a junior partner one year later. The business was doing well and by the time I was 30 I was making a very good living.

And then, in 2003, I realized I had to start over.

In the 10-plus years I was in that first job, I learned all I needed to move freight, but the most valuable lessons were about how I could do things differently. How I could do things better.

I believed passionately that I could build something of my own—something with a grander vision that myself and my employees could feel proud of every day. That goal—a different, better kind of logistics company—has driven us for 13 years but we haven’t said much about it. Until now.

Starting today, Fuel is going be to a lot more vocal about the industry and ourselves—our ideas and vision for how things can be better.

We are not changing how we think or what we do; we just want to share it with everyone. The core of the Fuel philosophy is the belief that we should make human decisions before business decisions. That we should treat each other—our colleagues, coworkers and clients—exactly as we treat our friends and family.

When we do that, the people on our team are more engaged, dedicated and committed to their work, their performance soars and so does customer satisfaction. Fuel has a “never say no” mantra, not because myself or human resources made it a policy but because employees care enough to make it a reality.

But this is about more than just creating a happier workplace. It’s about better business results for our clients. One of the fundamental problems with the industry today is short-term thinking and the transactional nature of the business.

We believe in a different approach that favors long-term commitments leading to more sustainable models, increased efficiencies and better results—for everyone. Those long-term commitments will only come if we treat our clients with respect, if we are honest and transparent with them, and we earn their trust.

In the weeks ahead in other posts, we’ll provide a more detailed picture of how and why that different vision for the industry would work, we’ll share stories about Fuel successes so far, what it’s like to be part of the Fuel team and how technology is improving all aspects of what we do.

But in this first post I just wanted to provide an introduction to Fuel and myself. To explain why, rather than profit, revenue or growth, I prefer to use words like accountability, sustainability and transparency when describing how Fuel can be different and, in being different, set new benchmarks for the industry.

It’s why I started Fuel 13 years ago, and it’s what drives everyone on my team to get better and better every day.