Anderson Trucking Service is a family owned trucking service and logistics provider since 1955. ATS handles all aspects of freight transportation including oversize load permits, route surveying, and pilot car services. They’ve recently prioritized software development initiatives to ensure customers have visibility to every load’s location and status, as well as real time route adjustments.

Why is the Manufacturing Express visiting a company that doesn’t manufacture equipment? Well, that’s an easy answer! Anyone who’s ever walked through a trade show, or seen an equipment dealership, or driven by a construction site with piece after piece of 20-ton equipment has the same thought: how did they get that here? For that question, there’s a three-letter answer: ATS.

Here in St. Cloud, Minnesota, Anderson Trucking Service is all about the machines and people that move the machines— and the army of folks that make the logistics happen.  It’s a bigger job than many realize: 5,000 customers rely on ATS every day as the freight logistics company that gets goods where they’re needed, no matter the size, weight, or distance. No component or material part of any piece of equipment built in the USA doesn’t rely on trucking.

So, when the AEM Manufacturing Express rolled into the ATS facility on Friday afternoon, Business Development Manager Marty Brix took a minute to give our rig the once-over, as if to silently say Yep, we can haul that. 170 ATS employees soon joined in, welcoming the Manufacturing Express with ice cream in hand.

Revenue Enablement Manager Megan Miller, a ten-year veteran of ATS, notes that the logistics of hauling thousands of loads per day can be a challenge, but it’s that complexity that brings the wonder of American prosperity: “I don’t know if people realize the enormous impact trucking makes on our day-to-day lives. If trucking stopped, our shelves would be empty, our ATMs would be empty, we’d be completely out of water. What we do every day, it’s rewarding.”

If these United States have grown more interconnected over the last 69 years, ATS has helped make it happen. ATS founder Harold Anderson saw a problem: in the ‘50s, St. Cloud was home to 15 or 20 small monument manufacturers, each shipping their product out of town separately. Harold realized that by combining these small shipments into one large load of freight, the local manufacturers would save money—and he’d make some, too.

Since then, ATS has grown into a continent-spanning (and beyond) hauling operation, offering multimodal shipping, freight brokerage, warehousing, and attentive service as bespoke as the loads they carry. When asked to describe ATS in one word, AEM President Megan Tanel chose “foundational.” That’s how essential ATS is: without their hauling capabilities and logistical prowess, America wouldn’t be where it is today.

So, if you’re looking for a hauler for your hauler, just holler: ATS is the company that keeps on trucking.