Employee Owner Q1 2023

Employee Owner of the Quarter: Robert Pease

by TMC Corporate Communications on Wednesday, April 19, 2023 in Company News


Robert Pease is known to many of us as the “SpecOps guy” and, while he earned this nickname by being a key player in the design, development, and implementation of TMC’s SpecOps(Special Operations) division. TMC’s SpecOps division is a dedicated team that provides Over-Dimensional (OD) and Heavy-Haul (HH) guidance for TMC through their expertise with OD and HH pricing and project execution. Robert is the SpecOps Project Manager and leads TMC’s SpecOps Subject Matter Experts (SME) as they assist TMC Logistics and Asset sales professionals secure multiple large-scale OD and HH projects for TMC Customers. From the early days of TMC’s SpecOps division, Robert has provided his OD and HH expertise with detailed explanations of the potential challenges of projects, offering solutions to any challenges, and continuously supporting the TMC teams to cross the finish line and achieve success. 

Robert started his career with TMC in May 2018 as a Logistics Sales Representative (LSR) in Bentonville, Arkansas (AR) office. From his first day, Robert knew TMC was different from any other Transportation Company. Robert said, “TMC takes time to train people, build ethics in business and do things the right way.” Robert achieved early success as an LSR, bonused in his fourth month, and continued to achieve success. While Robert grew in the LSR role and grow his book of business, Robert shared his talents with others in the AR office, which allowed others to also develop, grow, and achieve their own success. As a result of Robert’s natural ability to coach and develop others to success, he was promoted to Team Lead (TL) in August 2020. In the TL role, Robert freely gave the AR team the same gift of time to learn, build business ethics, and knowing how to do it all the right way that he received on his first day at TMC.

TMC Logistics’ Specialized division was the vision of Sam Philip, AR General Manager (GM), and was born in 2021. With Robert’s OD and HH experience, combined with his current role as TL to the AR sales team, Robert was the ideal person to partner with Sam to get the Specialized division off the ground, and Robert immediately made himself available to anyone in TMC with OD and HH opportunities. As TMC’s demand to assist Customers with their Specialized freight grew through 2021 to 2022, the Specialized division grew into what we know as the SpecOpsdivision under the expertise and guidance of Robert, along with Sam Philip, Steve Feldman, Mike Crist, and a handful of others. Robert said, “like all new things, we made adjustments along the way, building the best possible team we could.” Robert relies heavily on the SpecOpsteam and is proud to say that the SpecOps team provides exceptional service, and “gets the job done the TMC way, the right way.” When asked about the reward he gets from the success of the SpecOps division, Robert said, “It’s the excitement of the job, getting it done right, and helping those who might not be knowledgeable in HH and OD have the load go well, and make the customer happy.” 

Robert knows that having a team as accessible as the SpecOps team is and a team that can “speak the language” have a tremendous impact and makes the difference for TMC sales professionals to grow their existing Customers from a one-dimensional service, to gaining more of the Customer’s trust, and providing solutions for other needs like HH and OD, which “allows sales reps to be multi-dimensional with their Customers.” Robert believes in the strength of a team, and says, “If I didn’t have the SpecOps Team, I couldn’t do it by myself.” Robert said, “I appreciate everyone on the SpecOps Team and what they all have done to develop it to what it is today. This isn’t a solo award, but something that I want to share with the entire SpecOpsTeam.” The impact that Robert has on the success of the SpecOps division, the influence Robert has on the growth individual sales professionals, and the entire TMC Network are only a few of the reasons that lead to Robert Pease being named the Employee Owner of the First Quarter of 2023.

Congratulations, Robert!