Editor’s note: A previous version of this story posted on Aug. 16 did not include both of the Taimen logistics companies among the Chattanooga companies on the Inc. 5000 list.
Despite the slowdown in freight shipping this year, a record number of Chattanooga’s trucking and logistics businesses moved into the fast lane in 2022 among America’s fastest-growing businesses.
In its annual ranking of the nation’s top growing companies, Inc. magazine includes 20 Chattanooga companies on its list of the 5,000 U.S. businesses with the fastest rate of revenue growth in the past three years. Among the local companies on the new Inc. 5000 list, 70% are either logistics companies or businesses servicing the trucking industry.
“I think logistics are driving our entrepreneurial and startup economy here in Chattanooga, which is why we have called this ‘Freight Alley,'” Freightwaves CEO Craig Fuller said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “We have a high concentration of talent here in a business that encourages growth and innovation, so I think we’ll continue to see a lot of growth in many of these startup businesses in logistics.”
Fuller, whose family has been involved in building such trucking giants as Southwest Motor Freight, U.S. Xpress Enterprises, Covenant Logistics and Transcard in Chattanooga, monitors and reports on the logistics industry for the software and media company Freightwaves, which was among the companies included on the Inc. 5000 list again this year.