FULL SERVICE COURIER OFFERS LIFECYCLE SUPPORT

Twenty-eight years ago when we started in this business, courier delivery was synonymous with document delivery. Attorneys, accountants, and engineers drove our business. As time passed, we acquired a wide array of customers, many with deliveries of a time-sensitive and time-critical nature. We were discovering that the service needs of our clients changed daily making the same-day delivery business truly unique.

Today, the term courier is more frequently associated with medical deliveries, including lab specimens and human organs and has pretty much become the backbone of our business. Now, with the predominance of medical work, we’ve noticed another aspect of our business that is particularly striking: the human element involved in our daily work. At the end of each day, as we evaluate our operations, we see the lives we’ve affected while doing our jobs, the people we’ve helped in ordinary and extraordinary ways. Those are the jobs most rewarding and of the greatest import to us and are exemplified in the following examples of jobs we did in a single day:

• Driver is dispatched in the early morning to pick up prenatal medications for an expectant mother on bed rest in her final trimester, helping to safeguard her from a premature delivery.

• Driver transports cord blood from a new mother donating it to a regional community cord blood bank, a future benefit for a needy recipient needing the cord blood to save their life. The delivery is performed via a flexible route pre-established to our clients evolving needs in the tri-state area of Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The route services multiple hospitals and a centralized storage facility.

• A college-bound student studying abroad depends on an American Expediting driver to get his personal belongings to a local Freight Forwarder for loading onto an ocean container ensuring the necessities of his life will be waiting for him upon his arrival.

• Reputed for their conscientious animal transport services, American Expediting receives requests from empty-nesters relocating across the country to move their special pets to their new residences. We handle hundreds of pet deliveries every year, offering door-to-door service and safe delivery for anxious pet owners.

• Out for a night on the town that includes a movie? You can bet that one of our drivers picked up the film reel at the airport then hand delivered it to the theatre. We assist the movie studios to ensure that their new releases are protected and not replicated without their permission.

• Diabetic patients in need of continuous insulin flow can receive it at home thanks to technological advancements in medicine. The insulin pumps and bags required for the process are stored and delivered around the country by American Expediting, a preferred courier of national pharmaceutical companies.

As you can see, our couriers touch many aspects of life each day and yet so many people still believe that couriers only deliver legal documents. We take real pride in knowing that we are helping others live their lives as safe and secure as possible.

Please send in a comment to our blog with your unique experience with a courier.


This blog is dedicated to the memory of Jennifer Blakely, a valued employee of American Expediting Company who managed our office in Toledo, OH.

It's A Family Affair in the Courier Delivery Business

How long have you been working for your current employer?

Online statistics show that the average worker stays on the same job for 4.5 years. This is a far cry from the days when our parents and grandparents retired from the company that hired them right out of school.

My company currently looking for qualified candidates (SAMEDAY COURIER SALES POSITION) in the courier industry, and it is disappointing to review resumes that show applicants change jobs every year or two. I ask myself if I really want to hire someone, train them, and watch them leave the company just at the moment we are breaking even on our investment in them?

Here’s another sentence ending in a question mark! Would you want your son or daughter coming to work with you at your current job? Be honest. They hear you complain about your job at the dinner table and they see you arriving home exhausted, oftentimes frustrated, from a hard day at the office.

Now, let me tell you about a secret gem of a company based in Philadelphia. It is in the same- day delivery business and has been for 26 years.

Much like those start-up computer companies of recent vintage, American Expediting Company began in the family garage with owner Vic Finnegan running the entire operation along with his small family. As demand for his services grew, his nuclear family couldn’t match the need for manpower. It was time to begin a company family. Enter Ray Keough. Ray was hired to handle the expedited delivery services. Shortly thereafter his daughter, Karen, came aboard to manage the accounting processes. She, in turn, hired her daughter Nadine to augment her growing department.

With the addition and growth of the company’s multiple vertical markets, i.e. Medical Delivery, Facilities Management Services, Legal Courier Deliveries, etc., there was additional need for Operations people. Enter Mike Murphy, an experienced dispatcher, a former corporate banker, and now the Operations Manager for the Philadelphia office. Joining him each day at the office are his kids: Lauren, Mike Jr., and Sean all experts in Customer Service and Dispatch functions.

These are just the blood relatives among the staff of people in the Philadelphia office who have been with the company 5, 10, and even 20 years. There is a family here, not just the blood families but a real company family and for me, in this society, that is incredible.

But, let’s look at the other American Expediting offices; the American Expediting service in Pittsburgh includes the Sanner Family (husband, wife, and son); the Raleigh site includes the Preston family; the Orlando location includes the Caraballo’s; Harrisburg has the Snow’s who just added their second set of twins to their family, who will be expect will be driving for us in 2026. And, finally, in Detroit we have the Matanzas family.

We are either masochists, or we really love what we do. The next time you are out shopping for a company to help you with your same-day, rush delivery, or expedited courier needs, ask yourself the question…do I want to work with that big corporate black hole where I am a small part of their business, or should I choose the company that will treat me like I am one of the family?