Traditionally, Russell Transport has been a general haulage and heavy haulage business, with their iconic ‘tan and white’ fleet.
That had always been the backbone of the company, but it has continued to expand into other areas.
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The diversification of the business has included a liquor business which involves the delivery of palletised goods to the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast.
Russell Transport has also dipped into third party logistics, delivering products under the banner of other companies around Brisbane.
Continuing to expand the business in this way means that it is ever-evolving, allowing for a diverse portfolio under the Russell name.
“We have different eggs across different baskets,” Julie Russell says.
“It’s not all the same type of cartage that we do for everything. When one industry’s up, another one might be down.
“We’ve got a balance to be able to spread our workforce around depending on the ebbs and flows of those industries. That’s where I’ve seen the change in our profile.”
This looks fairly different to how Russell Transport was operating 25 to 30 years ago, with the general freight haulage work built from Roy’s early days founding the business.
It has a separation of the business into different areas, hence the need for expansion to closer to 300 employees, the biggest Russell Transport has ever been.
The 1990s and 2000s saw the start of that change, as Phil and Ken identified the need for growth.
“Grandad had a history with fuel and wool, and typical cartage. Dad had a history with fuel, heavy haulage and general cartage, and he got us into our first contract distribution role,” Ken Russell says.
“In the late ‘90s and early 2000s was the paradigm shift in the business. There were some good decisions made, with the purchase of Caloundra General Transport and leveraging some of that business’ skills to get like-minded contracts.”
With that purchase came the splitting of the business into two, and eventually three, sections.
Now it operates as Russell Transport, Metro-Lift Cranes and Caloundra General Transport, all fulfilling different jobs.
This allows for synergies. Having Russell Transport’s heavy haulage division and Metro-Lift Cranes means the two companies are often working together to facilitate the loading and unloading of over-dimensional and over-mass freight.
Contract distribution has been one of the big sources of continuous growth for the businesses. From beverages, alcohol, groceries and even to steel, it all pulls from the same knowledge and experience in their operations.
“Our main history still sits in our industrial resource services,” Ken says.
“But the business has been able to diversify and offer external services that are complementary to transport services.
“We have the base fleet, the freight terminal, our specialised transport, our heavy haulage, our container services, our lift and shift. There’s the crane hire business, the lifting operation.
“But then we still say we’re a small business! It’s a big operation, but we’re very diverse. That enables us to put together end-to-end solutions and show our customers we have the capability to either deliver a single package or move your entire manufacturing facility.
“We’ve been taking the opportunities that make sense to the core ethics of the business.”
