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CityLight.org
september 2011
improvement teams, recognition teams,
ACTION teams, and safety committees.
Each involvement they do is documented
on a quality activity program, so SEFL can
track their involvement, which allows them
to be nominated for even more recognition.
Another key part of Southeastern's Quality
Improvement Process is called "Formalized
Process Improvement," which people out-
side the company might refer to as Statisti-
cal Process Control.
"All of our leadership people have been
trained in two generations of Process Im-
provement, and I'm not aware of another
trucking company that has even come close
to this," Cassels says. "Process Improve-
ment is all about taking data and using the
data through the use of statistics to tell you
what you need to do to change a process to
make it better."
Southeastern Freight Lines was started by
Cassels' grandfather, W.T. "Toby" Cassels
in 1950 with operating authority between
South Carolina and Georgia. At the time
the company had five trucks, 20 employees
and a $5,000 loan.
In 1975, W.T. "Bill" Cassels Jr. became
president and CEO, becoming chairman
in 1989 upon the death of his father. He
became well known in the industry, serv-
ing as chairman of the American Trucking
Associations.
The third generation, W.T. "Tobin" Cassels
III, started working for Southeastern in
1973 at age 13 in the trailer shop for $1.65
an hour. He worked in the shop the next
three summers, then the warehouse, and
moved on to become a driver. He worked
his way up through the company, and took
over as president in 2001.
Today, Southeastern serves 12 states in
the Southeast and Puerto Rico and has
a network of service providers to ensure
transportation services in the remaining
38 states, Canada, Mexico and the Virgin
Islands. The readers of Logistics Manage-
ment magazine have named the company