by Tim Brady, Business Editor

Legacy Transportation
Key player: Mike Quinn, Senior Vice President
In Business: 23 years
Location: San Jose CA

Legacy is a specialized supply chain logistics and transportation company offering a single-source solution through a dedicated fleet.


What is the primary focus of your business?
The primary focus of our business is servicing clients with specialized transportation and logistics needs, moving more into the world of providing full-service logistics solutions. We handle a lot of medical, aerospace, and tradeshow work. Our team is dedicated to one thing—absolute excellence in meeting customer needs. 

How do you handle maintenance to minimize downtime? What are your mileage intervals for preventive maintenance?
The best way to minimize downtime is through preventive maintenance. Though DOT requires inspection at 180 days, Legacy adheres to an aggressive 90-day inspection schedule with 10,000-mi. service intervals.

How do you ensure good tire mileage?
First, we start with high-quality tires. We also rely on driver training, because even the best tires will give out if they’re not properly maintained. Each driver is issued a tire pressure gauge and instructed to check tire pressure every day to ensure proper wear. The end result has been fewer flats, longer mileage, and better fuel consumption.

How is maintenance handled?
We have a full maintenance facility on-site here at Legacy, and we employ 10 full-time mechanics and service technicians to handle fleet maintenance and DOT inspections; however, it’s sometimes necessary for our drivers to seek service while on the road due to scheduling. In those cases, we encourage them to do so. We feel it’s more important to maintain vehicles on schedule than to handle everything in-house.

Do you stock any parts for your trucks?
Because so much of our maintenance is handled in-house, we stock over 1,200 commonly used parts on-site. For major parts, however, we rely on the local dealer network.

How do you determine when it’s time to replace a truck/trailer?
Traditionally, age and mileage of the vehicle in conjunction with repair history are the determiners. But regulatory compliance is also a factor. When the California Air Resources Board mandated lower diesel emissions, we made adjustments or replaced vehicles.

What are your specifications for your trucks?
Our basic truck is a Kenworth T660 with a 500-hp. Cummins engine and 13-speed transmission. We prefer to purchase new units, but sometimes customer demand necessitates we look at used. When that happens, we look for something as close to spec as possible.

What does your company do best?
While we believe we provide the most excellent service in logistics solutions, our customers would agree that remaining flexible, even in the most challenging situations, is what we do best. It’s important to be in close touch with customers and understand their particular issues so our service options are aligned and “on the ready” for them. It’s cliché, but it’s the truth. We never tell a customer what we can’t do, only what we can do. And everything we do is built around that.