Company Tackles Logistics Challenges for Range of Clients
Some big names top the third-party logistics sector: C.H. Robinson. XPO Logistics. UPS Supply Chain Solutions.
But there’s opportunity for smaller companies to carve a successful path in the rapidly growing industry, too.
Multi-Mode Logistics, based in Windsor Locks, is doing just that.
John J. Kumpa, a UConn graduate with prior background in trucking, started the business in 2000 with his wife, Leigh, soon after the birth of the first of their three children. They began with a two-person office, a small warehouse, a group of owner-operator tractor-trailer truck drivers, and the hope of clients needing delivery and warehouse services.
MML matches trucks, trailer types and drivers with business customers who need merchandise picked up or delivered anywhere in the country. The business also provides warehouse space, racking, forklifting and many pick-and-pack options.
After its founding, the company expanded very quickly as the internet took off, Kumpa says. “We grew 25% or more per year for 10 years.”
Multi-Mode Logistics now has 14 full-time employees and schedules at least 100 trailers per week, including flatbeds, box trucks, dry vans and step decks.
Leigh Kumpa owns 49% of the business and is vital to making it work. “She runs the finance and accounting arm of MML,” her husband says.
Over the years, they have purchased three Windsor Locks industrial warehouse buildings with nearly 180,000 square feet total – at 80 King Spring Road, 3 Choice Road and 495 North St., each in proximity to Bradley International Airport.
One of MML’s neighbors is competitor UPS Supply Chain Solutions.
Clients who don’t want the hassle of warehousing and distribution themselves rely on MML’s warehouse capacity and its ability to handle many of the challenges facing its clients.
Its customers have ranged from a Northeast regional mattress manufacturer to a national final-mile network of critical spare computer parts.
Kumpa says about 80% of Multi-Mode Logistics’ revenue is generated within a few hundred miles of its home base, which is two hours from New York City and 90 minutes from Boston.
The U.S. third-party logistics sector generated an estimated $260.2 billion in revenue last year, up from $213.5 billion in 2018, according to industry data from Statista.
MML has a well-established niche handling unique types of freight, Kumpa says, such as steel coil, bedding, curtain wall, solar panels, hot tubs, spas and saunas.
For example, a Multi-Mode Logistics customer in the Hartford area purchases steel coil from India. When the container arrives to the U.S. port of NY-NJ, MML picks it up, offloads and inventories the cargo at its warehouse and then ships it to the customer’s client base, he says.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, MML never closed, and the whole team worked in person, “business as usual.” Within a few weeks, business was back to normal – and rapidly increasing as the global supply chain strained for capacity.
Looking ahead, MML – like other third-party logistics businesses – will be dealing with such challenges as a shrinking pool of truck drivers, hit hard by attrition, and a scarcity of high-bay industrial warehouse space.
But challenges come with the territory. What sets the company apart is “always thinking five years out or longer” and being aware of how its daily decisions affect others, he says. Multi-Mode Logistics succeeds, Kumpa says, by putting its clients, vendors, carriers, owner-operators and employees first.
