July 23, 2011: YRC will soon have a new CEO, whose name will be familiar to many former Yellow Teamsters: James L. Welch. This will be announced tomorrow by YRC, but word has leaked out for the past two weeks.
An article in DC Velocity is available here.
Welch was the CEO of Yellow Transportation until 2007, so it appears to be a reunion of sorts, bringing a Yellow veteran back to the driver’s seat.
During that period Welch was in charge of Yellow, Yellow owned Roadway but the two carriers operated separately. After 2007 he became the Interim CEO of JHT Holdings, which operates nonunion and union divisions in the truckhaul (driveaway) sector of the carhaul industry. In November 2008 he became the CEO of Dynamex, a same-day delivery company. In 2009 his compensation at Dynamex was $457,242 plus a considerable sum in stock options, and an additional $246,000 as a director of SkyWest and Spirit AeroSystems.
On June 29 at the Teamster Convention in Las Vegas, Freight Director Tyson Johnson stated he looked forward to working with the new CEO, and that the new management has the best interest of the employees at heart.