Coyote Logistics to add 400 jobs in Chicago, help City Colleges
by fran spielman City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com January 10, 2012 9:54AM
Mayor Rahm Emanuel at a press conference at Coyote Logistics where CEO Jeff Silver made an announcement about Coyote hiring 400 more workers in the Chicago area. | Al Podgorswki~Chicago Sun-Times
Updated: February 12, 2012 8:08AM
Coyote Logistics — a fast-growing technology start-up company that moves freight across North America — is adding 400 new jobs and playing a key role in Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s makeover of the Chicago City Colleges. The 400 jobs in sales, operations and technology will bring to 1,000 the workforce headquartered at the Green Exchange, 2565 W. Diversey, an Avondale building rehabilitated with help from a $10 million tax-increment-financing (TIF) subsidy. Formerly headquartered in Lake Forest, Coyote moved to Chicago last summer and has been growing its young workforce ever since. Coyote adds to the list of 12,000 private sector jobs created since Emanuel took office, but that’s not the only political benefit for the mayor. Emanuel and company founder and CEO Jeff Silver announced that 71 Coyote employees have volunteered to develop the new transportation, distribution and logistics curriculum for Olive Harvey College and potentially serve as “guest teachers.” It’s part of the mayor’s ambitious plan to partner with private industry to help prepare students for jobs in growth industries. “While there are 400 jobs today, Coyote’s future workforce will include the graduates of Olive Harvey,” Emanuel said. “We’ve never had an educational system linked up at this level with the job opportunities of tomorrow.” The mayor noted that two of Coyote’s top clients — Annheuser Busch and U.S. Foods — have also agreed to participate in the Olive Harvey makeover. “Chicago has always been and always will be a transportation, distribution and logistics center. The challenge for us is, are we gonna have a workforce so a Coyote … can have a reliable workforce to depend on and grow?” the mayor said. With no trucks of its own, Coyote boasts of becoming, what it calls the “leading North American supply chain solution for shippers” in such key sectors as food and beverage, forest products, metals, plastics, consumer products and government services. The company specializes in, what’s known as “fleet backhaul.” That means it uses a network of customers — including Wal-Mart and other big-box stores — to transport goods and services from other customers on what would otherwise have been dead-head trips with empty trucks. “Everything that you see in this room except for the people got here on a truck or a train or a plane or a barge. It’s vast. It’s everywhere. And it’s critical in everybody’s business,” Silver said in a room full of controllers who effectively act as air traffic employees of ground transportation. On Tuesday, Emanuel toured Coyote headquarters and interviewed the company’s first new class of 2012 trainees. Some of them were communications majors. Others majored in finance and engineering. None specialized in transportation, distribution or logistics. “It’s the culture. It’s the atmosphere,” Silver said, when asked how he attracts college graduates from across the Midwest. “We were about a $300 million company in 2010 and $550 million in 2011. That type of growth opportunity is unbelievable. They get to interact with … our customers across the board all over North America. It’s just a fun job.”
