Celebrations will roll out all year at McColl’s Transport as the business celebrates 70 years of providing expert service in the delivery of liquid loads.
In 1952, the Geelong Cats brought home a premiership flag after winning 26 games in a row and defeating Collingwood on Grand Final Day.
It was also the year Stuart and June McColl bought two F600 trucks, launched McColl’s Milk Transport and set about picking up milk from dairy farmers around Port Fairy and delivering it to processing plants to be made ready for retail shelves.
As proud Geelong residents, it’s only natural the McColl’s trucks would carry some blue and white – a tradition that carries on to this day, more than 70 years later.
Stuart and June’s vision and determination provided the foundation for a business that heads into 2023 with a turnover of more than $200 million, 26 depots all over the country, six major workshops, more than 250 prime movers, 800 trailers and 650 staff.
The couple started a journey which current CEO and part-owner Simon Thornton is determined to honour for the next 70 years.
Thornton’s passion for the business and the opportunity it presents to show the world what can be done when a group of like-minded individuals are willing to take a long term, “generational” approach to business ownership is never far from the surface.
This is Thornton’s second time around at McColl’s. His first was in 2009 when he joined as CEO, hired by the private equity owners to help transform the business.
It was Thornton’s introduction to the truck and transport industry, after having built a career as a business leader focused on heavy machinery, farm equipment and company turnarounds.
He left in 2014 after five years’ service, which included the celebration of the business’ 60th anniversary, attended by Stuart and June.
“I went away for four years and at the end of the four years, the private equity firm, which was KKR at the time, came back and said ‘you thought you’d be a good owner for this business, do you still want it?’ And I said, ‘yeah, I do’,” Thornton said.
He rallied a bunch of friends, mainly alumni from when he started studying Commerce at Melbourne University in 1988, and the Friesians investment group was formed.
“We call ourselves Friesian because we think of McColl’s as like a dairy cow, not like a steer, an Angus or a Hereford that’s being fattened up for market.
“We just think if you have a company, and you look after it and you nurture it and you build it over time, then it becomes a force within itself.
“So, we’re now five years in and it’s been an exciting ride, kind of restoring McColl’s to the path it was on originally under family ownership.”
Since 2018 McColl’s has invested more than $30 million in high productivity state-of-the-art A-double tankers, and millions of dollars into new trucks, new depots, tanker washes and technology that enables the business to minimise downtime and reduce wasted kilometres across its nationwide network.
Thornton describes McColl’s as a values-driven business, and the company website clearly outlines its mission: “To deliver a transport service unmatched in safety, quality, compliance and reliability”.
The business lists its five core values as: safety first, honesty and integrity, consistency, mutual respect and commercial responsibility.
They are values Thornton says are ingrained in the hiring, the processes, the purchases and the relationships the business has with its long-term partners.
“We have a saying here that you should never have a conversation that you wouldn’t be happy to invite your kids or your mum too,” Thornton said.
