Top dog has Coyote running strong - Chicago Tribune

Top dog has Coyote running strong. Jeff Silver runs Coyote Logistics, one of the fastest-growing companies in the country. But he's still at home in the trenches. Manning a desk in the middle of a cramped trading floor in one of four Lake Forest offices, Silver, the company's founder and CEO, is player/coach to hundreds of recent college graduates, a team of ambitious young entrepreneurs projected to rack up more than $300 million in sales this year. "I don't have an office," said Silver, 48, who has an MBA from the University of Michigan and a master's in logistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "I sit out on the floor with them and lead by example." Founded in 2006, Coyote is a rising force in the third-party logistics industry — matching carriers and companies to transport goods across the nation. Among its major clients is Heineken, which this year named Coyote to forward the Dutch beer from U.S. ports. The company is one of the top performers in the Chicago Tribune's Top Workplaces survey, conducted by Exton, Pa.-based consulting firm WorkplaceDynamics. Each day, about 300 20-somethings descend on the North Shore community, drawn by a work hard/play hard atmosphere and the opportunity to earn six-figure incomes. Recruited mostly at Big Ten campuses, employees go through four weeks of intensive training before taking to the floor to work either the customer or carrier end of the business. Indiana University graduate A.J. Todd, 25, of Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, joined the company in 2008. After completing his training, he found himself stationed next to Silver, which proved highly motivational, he said. "When he's in a room, everyone is trying to succeed, to try to live up to the standards that he sets," said Todd, now an operations manager. Silver's hands-on leadership is equally inspiring to carrier rep Sean Fahey, 24, a Deerfield native and Miami University of Ohio graduate who joined Coyote in 2008. "He'll hop on the phone and dispatch a driver every once in a while," said Fahey, who now lives in River North. "He's not above anything in the company." Coyote plans to move next spring to a 64,000-square-foot loft on West Diversey Avenue, near the Kennedy Expressway. The new Chicago quarters will double capacity and facilitate continued growth toward a goal of $1 billion in annual sales by 2013, Silver said. While welcoming the move, carrier rep Samantha Banks, 23, of Chicago's Wrigleyville neighborhood, said the venue is less important than Silver's vision, which inspired her to follow him from Atlanta to Chicago after her office was consolidated in February. "I could have easily stayed where everything I've known my entire life is," said Banks, an Alabama native and Auburn University graduate. "But I had enough faith and trust in Jeff and the company, and I do not regret my decision at all."