A Founding Director of Operations For US Market Entry of a 100+ Year Old Canadian Heavy Haul Carrier

Few niches in North American transportation require the technical precision and entrepreneurial nerve that heavy haul and over-dimensional freight demand. For over 100 years, this family-owned Canadian carrier has operated at that intersection, earning a reputation as one of North America’s most capable specialists in moving what others can’t. The organization has developed its identity around solving the problems that define the upper limit of the industry, from standard oversize loads to superload projects that require custom engineering, multi-state permitting, and coordination with infrastructure agencies. 

The carrier has taken a big strategic step recently, setting up a separate US affiliate to pursue American business on its own, rather than routing work through its Canadian parent. The ambition was clear. What it needed was someone to get it moving.

Developing a transport operation from scratch is not a challenge for management. It’s a founder’s challenge. The incoming Director of Operations would not be taking over a team of people, a facility, or an existing customer base. They would select the site, acquire the property, hire the people, and build the systems that would define the character and commercial direction of the US entity from the beginning.

The search had an unusual constraint. Over the course of its 100-year history, the organization had fostered strong relationships across the North American specialty carrier community. With those relationships came commitments: about a dozen peer carriers had been personally assured that their employees would not be solicited. That exclusion was significant in an already small, highly specialized field. What remained was a talent pool of genuine rarity: people who had the technical depth in multi-state DOT permitting, load engineering, over-dimensional project execution, fleet management, and large-scale operational accountability that the role required, and the temperament to build without infrastructure, without a playbook, and without an inherited team.

Keller Executive Search’s approach focused on one insight: the candidate this search was looking for was almost certainly not on the market. There aren’t many professionals with the unique combination of heavy haul technical depth, operational leadership experience, and disposition to build from nothing. Moreover, they often work in tough environments that keep them on the ground and off job boards. The search team mapped the entire talent pool in the US heavy haul and specialized transport market, identifying and engaging passive candidates with track records that matched the full scope of the mandate. In addition to the technical credentials, each candidate was evaluated on the entrepreneurial character needed for the founding role.

Keller Executive Search placed a Director of Operations whose career was defined by building, not inheriting. The new hire had developed commercial transportation operations from the ground up to large scale, increasing fleets and staff across multiple sites and managing multi-state operational budgets during periods of uniform growth. They had an equally impressive track record in specialized, over-dimensional freight: expanding a dedicated operation, maintaining an exemplary safety record with steady improvements in CSA scores at multiple terminals, and demonstrating the kind of detailed regulatory and engineering knowledge that heavy haul demands. This wasn’t a manager who had been handed something to run. Their history of building things was tangible, verifiable, and directly relevant to the role.