Legacy Supply Chain Services is doubling – even tripling – down on its Northern Nevada operations in a continued push to shift its third-party logistics operations away from Southern California. The company, headquartered at Franklin, Ind., already has ramped up its headcount from 40 to 115 over the past year, Legacy President and Chief Executive Officer Mike Glodziak told the NNBW. It’s 260,000-square-foot facility at Capital Court in Reno will become Legacy’s western region operations hub.
“Costs in California are going through the roof, whether it’s for a building or labor,” Glodziak said. “We are typical of many companies coming to Reno – it’s a great spot to operate from.
“We have been there for quite a while, but we are doubling and tripling down and enjoying the favorable market conditions that Reno offers.”
Legacy has operated in the Reno-Sparks market for decades through a former company. It expanded its Northern Nevada operations in 2011 after acquiring Griffin Global Logistics. Its most recent push to ramp up operations in Northern Nevada, however, stems from the explosion in online commerce over the past two years.
Mike Glodziak
Legacy Supply Chain Solutions provides logistics services to many well-known national companies, said Mike Glover, vice president of e-commerce fulfillment. The location of warehouse and distribution facilities is crucial to best meet clients’ needs, he added — and Reno is well-known for its strategic shipping advantage of being able to reach 11 western states with one-day trucking.
“One of the keys to being a 3PL is having a good location,” Glover said. “If we get outside of favorable shipping zones, it has a significant impact on our customer base. We looked at what’s the best area to service our West Coast region that gave us the resources, size and structure we needed, and Reno works for us.
“The shipping works out really well for our customer base and keeps that shipping zone tight for direct-to-consumer shipments,” he added. “If you get outside that zone, the cost differential is significant.”
Legacy Supply Chain Services operates more than 35 locations nationwide and in Canada and has more than 3,500 employees. Glodziak said all signs point to continued upward movement across the ecommerce sector, but California, especially Southern California, offered little opportunity to effectively grow its western region operations.
“Reno is an important node for us,” Glodziak said. “We still have operations in Southern California, but we are reading the economic signals, and growing your footprint (there) is very difficult – buildings just aren’t available even if you wanted to grow, and the price increases are significant in the last 12 months.
Kyle Krug
“Reno is the answer for us.”
The push to consolidate western region operations in Northern Nevada brings additional investments in technology, processes, automation, conveyance systems and re-engineering the building to increase throughput capacity within the existing footprint, said Kyle Krug, Legacy’s director of marketing and strategy.
Additionally, Glodziak noted, Legacy shifted some key employees from other locations to Reno-Sparks — a much easier sell, he added, than moving to California.
“We see Reno as a place where people want to be,” he said. “It is an exciting area and it's growing.” Legacy also has persuaded many of its clients to make the jump as well.
“We are convincing many notable clients to come with us and move their business out of Southern California and distribute their products from the Reno market,” Glodziak said. “It is really a compounding effect of more capacity in the Reno market.”
The shift affects operations along the entire supply chain, he added. Incoming shipping containers from Asian manufacturers will now enter the U.S. at the Port of Oakland rather than in Southern California, which brings additional inbound truck traffic and warehouse employees to process those goods.
“Just about everything we handle comes from Asia – that’s just the nature of the products we are in,” Glodziak said. “Those products will land further north on the West Coast and move up through the market that way. It drives trucking jobs, activity at the port and at our warehouse in Reno. It brings these customers into the Reno market – there is a large compounding effect, and it helps serve the customer base for small-parcel transportation.”
The move also helps eliminate shipping bottlenecks in Southern California that are common during peak shipping times, such as the Christmas holiday, Glodziak added.
“We have all heard the stories around peak season where products simply do not get moved out of warehouses because the larger small-parcel carriers are saturated because it’s such a big distribution point,” he said. “There’s more opportunity for our clients to get those pickups done efficiently and on time.
“We can put all the product we want into our building, but if we can’t get small parcel carriers to roll up to our docks and take that product and get it where it belongs, it's all for naught,” he added.
Krug said that the Reno operations center complements similar regional fulfillment facilities in Franklin, Memphis and Toronto.
“We are creating a true network where our customers can service the entire U.S. and Canada through one provider,” he said. “It’s a truly integrated network that gets our customers closer to their consumers.”
Mike Glodziak
Kyle Krug