Employee Spotlight: Kirk Juergens, Transportation Manager

Tennant Company was a great fit for Kirk Juergens when, in 2007, he was hired as Tennant’s Transportation Manager. And Kirk Juergens was a great fit for Tennant. One big reason was that Tennant and Kirk shared a similar trait – a commitment to good community stewardship.

For the past 11 years, Kirk has continued the company’s long tradition of being accountable to colleagues, customers and the community, and in doing so creating new ideas to keep Tennant ahead of the crowd. Kirk inherited a department that already was creating new and better ways of serving its customers. But, through his leadership, the Transportation team is continuing to lead the way in improving environmentally-friendly business practices. An important element to the team’s innovation was the transition to Logix, a subsidiary of Berger Transfer located in Roseville, back in 2001.

“When I joined the company, we were already using Logix to deliver many of our machines in the U.S., in the lower 48 (states),” he explained. “But what I've done since 2007 is continue to evolve and improve that service. We have been able to greatly increase the number of machines shipped via Logix over the past ten years while requiring less footprint to do so.

The partnership with Logix has allowed Tennant to build upon a vision and tradition that provides for the best customer service possible while acting as a responsible steward of the environment. As a result of the partnership, Tennant was able to diverge from the common practice of crating its machines with packaging material, delivered on wooden pallets. Not only does the program reduce excess consumption of crating supplies at Tennant, the ideal goal for the waste hierarchy, but the program also means little to no waste for Tennant’s customers. The machines are ready for installation and operation, directly off the truck, with little to no additional assembly required.

Rather than use crating materials, Tennant protects machines in transit with reusable pads and straps, saving the company, and the environment, over 19 million pounds of crating materials in just the past eight years alone.

“(The trucks) have lift gates on their trailers. Logix brings the loading dock with them,” Kirk explained. “Aside from a couple of our largest machine models, Logix can unload right to the ground level at the customer site. We don’t have to worry about site conditions that aren’t what we expect them to be.”

Thanks to a close partnership that fosters continuous improvement and innovation, Tennant and Logix have created a unique approach to product shipping that not only reflects a dedication to good community stewardship but creates efficiencies that put Tennant well ahead of other companies.

“Nobody else really does what we do,” Kirk said. “So through a very close partnership … with Logix, (we) give our customers something special on the delivery side.”