Wednesday, April 29, 2015
YOUNGSTOWN
A Cincinnati-based company plans to open a new location in Youngstown, creating 70 jobs.
Total Quality Logisitcs LLC is one of the largest freight brokerage firms in the nation, which connects customers with carriers to move truckload freight shipments.
“TQL is committed to organic growth,” said Mark Motz, a TQL spokesman. “To do that in Ohio is a plus.”
The company was granted a 40 percent tax credit, about $230,000, for the next five years from the Ohio Tax Credit Authority. A specific location has not been selected, but it is slated to open in the summer of 2016.
Motz said the company will hire 70 workers over the next three years.
The company usually brings in about four to eight people from other existing offices to create the founding team, he added.
“It’s a great opportunity to create 70 jobs,” said Walter Good, senior director of regional business development for Team Northeast Ohio, the regional partner for the private agency JobsOhio.
Good said Team NEO has worked with TQL on the project since mid-2014.
The Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber also was glad to work with JobsOhio to attract a new firm to the area, said Sarah Boyarko, the chamber’s vice president of economic development.
“It’s pretty clear there in a growth mode,” she said.
The company was founded in 1997 by Ken Oaks in Cincinnati, where the company still has its headquarters. Oaks continues to serve as the company’s CEO.
In 2014, company’s sales topped $2 billion. TQL has 32 offices in 18 states and employs more than 3,200 people nationwide. Aside from Cincinnati, it also operates in Cleveland, Dayton and Columbus.