Business profile: AM-PM Express

Founded in Columbus in 1992 by Leroy Swanson, AM/PM Express, Inc., has offered top-notch long and short-haul freight shipping across the United States. Not too long after Swanson opened the business his son, Doyle, began working for him. It wasn’t too long before Doyle and his wife, Erika, purchased the business in 1999.

In an effort to shorten his drive time to and from the office, Doyle moved the business to its current location in the industrial complex at 230 Raymond Street in 2000.

For more than 20 years, AM/PM Express has offered consistent, reliable delivery for a range of items from the mundane to the truly unique. Doyle recently talked about the company and what it offers, some of the more memorable requests and deliveries that have been made, as well as what he enjoys about being a part of the Hope business community.

Q: For those who aren’t familiar with AM/PM Express, would you briefly explain what your company does?
A: The majority of what we do is time critical shipments. So a customer may call us up and say, ‘I have one skid of automotive parts that needs delivered to our customer in Detroit. It needs to pick up and deliver now because we will have an assembly line down if we don’t get those parts there now.’ And that would range from an envelope to a full truckload. It is a wide variety. We’ve taken many an envelope to the airport and taken it to a desk and had it put on a plane. We’ve done a little bit of everything. And, then, we also handle regular what we call milk routes, which are full truckload stuff or just anything that has a regular shipment or schedule to it.

Q: Are these contracts with local businesses? Or businesses elsewhere?
A: Some local and some on the other end maybe thanks to our customer here.

Q: What types of delivery vehicles do you have in your fleet?
A: We have a little bit of everything. We have everything from what we call a sprinter van to a straight truck and then our tractor trailers. I believe we are at 12 all together. We are a small company.

Q: How many drivers do you normally work with to keep things moving?
A: Around 15.

Q: What are your hours of operation?
A: Normally someone is on the premises from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and then we have someone answering calls and dispatching through the night and we do that remotely.

Q: What would you say are the benefits of having your business in Hope?
A: Well, the great thing about our location is we are so close to Columbus and Indy. We can manage freight within one hundred miles of us. We can get there pretty quick to get stuff picked up and delivered on. The great thing about being in Hope is its location just because there are so many great industry type areas close to us.

Q: What has been the most unique request you have gotten so far?
A: Easy answer. We delivered a bed to Atlanta, GA., to an engineer. The bed was being engineered to fit Christopher Reeves, [the actor who played ‘Superman’ and was later paralyzed in a horse riding accident]. They engineered that bed to fit his body. I always remember that one. It was in the mid-1990s, I believe.
We also took two chairs to either a Democratic or Republic convention up in Chicago. Just two chairs. I have no idea what the meaning of the two chairs or why those chairs.
I also took a baby bassinette right to the maternity ward in a hospital in Putnam, Conn. I had to deliver it to the maternity floor.
So, certainly some odd things you wouldn’t think are time critical. We’ve been all over the United States with as little of an envelope and as full as a truckload.

Q: What has been the best trip you have taken so far that you enjoyed and would do again?
A: The longest one I have taken is Bakersfield, Calif., and that was just because I was with a good friend of mine and we got to see a lot of things I hadn’t seen before. It was a good time.

Q: What has been the greatest challenge you have encountered since taking over the business?
A: Right now the biggest thing is finding drivers. With the type of freight we have, I can’t tell you what your schedule is going to be today let alone for the week. Therefore, most people want to know their schedule. That is the worst thing about this business is there is no schedule because just as soon as you think you have it figured out, it changes.

Q: What do you enjoy most about your work?
A: The challenge of covering. It just happened a little bit ago: a customer calls and says ‘I have this particular load that needs to be covered every 4 hours for the next two days.’ And we have to work the puzzle and put our pieces together along with our brokerage division and try to get 20 loads covered for two days and still do the other things we had scheduled. That is probably what I love the most is that challenge of taking care of a customer with whatever their need might be.

Q: How has the COVID recovery been for your business? And has it changed anything?
A: Actually, it has been good. We did run during the pandemic. And we have been extremely busy since things opened back up, so if we had more drivers we could be busier. It hasn’t changed anything, we are just business as usual.

Q: Is there anything we haven’t talked about that you would like the readers to know?
A: We have warehousing here on site at our facility. We have drop trailers so, in other words, if someone wants us to load something but they want it on their lot so they know where it is, we have trailers that we take to the customer and load and leave it there. So they basically rent a trailer from us.