Devine Intermodal widens its sights with new facility

Bennie Gamble, the vice president in Nevada for Devine Intermodal, moved the company's Reno-area operations into a new 21,000-square-foot facility at 1775 Deming Way in Sparks.

Now what?

That's a good question for Gamble, whose entrepreneurial instincts are leading Devine Intermodal far beyond its old role as a trucker who hauled freight containers to and from the Union Pacific yards at Sparks.

Already, he says, Devine is handling some light assembly at the new Sparks facility for one of its longstanding clients. It's struck a deal to lease some short-term warehouse space to another client. It's doing consolidation of shipments for another.

At the same time, Gamble is looking to expand Devine's presence in the traditional markets it's developed since it first opened a truck terminal on Fourth Street three years ago. Its trucks shuttle trailers from manufacturers to logistics companies' warehouses along with their work in the rail yards.

And Gambles' boss at the company based in West Sacramento, President Dick Coyle, says Devine Intermodal also wants to play a greater role in international trade in northern Nevada.

While the company's northern Nevada operations have centered on intermodal trucking, Devine is best known in California for its work in international shipping.

Working at the ports of Long Beach and Oakland, the 75-year-old company knows how to run interference for importers and exporters through the complex red tape put up by agencies ranging from Customers Service to the Department of Agriculture.

"We really understand the intricacies of international ocean freight," says Coyle.

That skill with regulatory requirements is bumping into a more commonplace challenge, however, as the company looks for expansion opportunities in northern Nevada.

Truck drivers account for the lion's share of Devine's staff of 25 in northern Nevada it runs 20 trucks from the Sparks facility and finding more to support the company's growth isn't easy.

It's all the more difficult, Coyle says, because Devine's drivers can count on spending a fair amount of their time running loads over Donner Summit in all sorts of weather.

"If you're going to do it, you've got to do it year-round," he says.

And Gamble says it's not easy, either, to find good warehouse or light-assembly help in the region's tight labor market.

Still, the northern Nevada vice president says the company will continue to pursue growth opportunities many of them defined by its customers' growth needs in the region.

And while Coyle wants to be careful that Devine Intermodal doesn't expand so quickly that it's unable to deliver on the promises it makes to its customers, he's cheering on Gamble's efforts to take the company in new directions.

"The key," he says, "is to select the right people and get out of their way while they do their jobs."