As the leader of a large, publicly traded company, it’s my responsibility to look out for our nearly 10,000 team members, our investors and the community we call home.
Part of this involves assessing risks both near- and long-term.
In recent months I’ve become increasingly enlightened that the divisive rhetoric around diversity and inclusion in Chattanooga could significantly affect the growth of U.S. Xpress and other companies in the region.
I’m calling on Chattanooga business leaders, large and small, to begin taking steps toward creating a culture that’s more accepting of others from different races, ethnicities, genders and sexual identities. As a larger business community, we’ll struggle to attract the type of talent we need to compete in a global economy if we don’t start having these conversations and enacting real change. This change won’t be easy; it will take uncomfortable conversations and challenging opinions of the past. And we should face the fact that Chattanooga is behind other communities and needs to catch up.
At U.S. Xpress we have an aggressive plan to double our revenue in the next four years by investing in innovative technology. Since beginning this process last year, we’ve added nearly 300 new team members. The bulk of these roles have been filled outside of Chattanooga at our Atlanta and Phoenix offices, where we’ve doubled our real estate footprint. These cities have a robust talent pipeline, partially because they are simply larger metro areas with a bigger pool of talent but also in part because they are more diverse and inclusive.