A message of reflection and vision to the employees of Bonded Logistics from Scott Carr, President and Co-owner.
How humbling it was to be able to celebrate 50 years in business in 2022! Barbara and I would like to Honor our parents, Jim and Robin Carr, for their taking that start-up risk and to persevere, especially in those early years.
Jim, our father, began this journey in 1972 as he arranged to purchase an existing warehousing business, Terminal Bonded Warehouse, that operated a two-story refrigerated facility totaling 30K sq ft. Shortly after opening Bonded, Dad realized he needed help, and that’s when Robin, our Mom, came along side Dad. She had little to no training at the time, but excelled and helped him build, operate, and grow Bonded over many years, pushing the operation with a can-do attitude to properly service each and every client.
Most of our family members have had the opportunity to work in the business over these many years, at one time or another. We want to remember Mom and Dad for their vision and hard work, but we also want to remember our brother Jim and sister Kathy, who are also no longer with us. They both left a positive mark with contributions to the success of Bonded in the beginning and over the years. We miss them all greatly.
We are blessed, and it is through God’s grace and the dedication of so many, that we were able to even celebrate 50 years in business. It truly is a testimony to the hard work of all the fantastic people and team members we’ve been able to work with. It has been with their help that we have hopefully created a family environment to work in along the way.
Through a lot of trials and difficulties, Bonded has persevered and weathered many storms. It would not have been possible without the sacrifice and dedication of many team members and what they have done over these many years. They have truly become our Bonded family. They helped us to not only get through the challenging times, but to grow and thrive.
My hope and prayer is that we continue to carry this legacy as we plan to grow in the future. But before we discuss that, let’s briefly look back at 2022.
The year was very busy with change at all facilities and divisions. We saw quite a few long-term team members retire, but have been blessed to hire a lot of very capable and talented folks to continue the growth for many years to come.
Bonded had a better year financially as we have grown with business in each of our business units. With warehousing, most of the buildings are full and busy, including our two newest in Concord and Greer (SC). Our contract packaging division, Bonded Pac, worked to create new opportunities for growth with bundling and registered film, and now a new cartoning machine. Our transportation team, BTS, has worked extremely hard to grow their business with existing as well as new clients.
For 2023 and beyond, we have set some lofty goals but feel the team we have will be able to service our existing clients as well as handle the growth opportunities we see ahead.
The logistics and distribution industries seem to be ramping up for quite a bit of growth for the foreseeable future. Bonded should be able to take advantage of these opportunities to grow. During this time, I have asked our team to stay focused on the following five objectives…
- Stay true to our Core Values
- Focus on our clients’ needs on a daily basis
- Teach, train and mentor our staff
- Keep innovation at the forefront
- Embrace a One Bonded approach, where we make improvements every day by communicating and cooperating with each other
We are looking forward to the New Year and depending on every team member to contribute to our success. Thank you so much for the hard work and dedication throughout this past year. Let’s all do what we can to make 2023 our best year yet!