There was volume growth, but these results were driven by yield improvement and operating-margin improvement. We also saw productivity gain and more packages moved per employee.

Trucking is incongruous with what we've come to expect with the blue-collar economy these days. Productivity improvements mean that other industries are scaling down whereas it still takes one driver per truck to move goods, and there is little way around that. What's more, other industries can outsource, but trucking can't.

The debate among economists centers on two key questions. Is there truly a lasting improvement in productivity growth? And, if so, what is the cause of it? We haven't even answered the first question yet.

Our productivity drive is indispensable to the maintenance of market share and improvement in profitability.

Companies are still in the process of eking out good productivity improvement and maintaining good support to their bottom lines as a result.

In the decade ahead I can predict that we will provide over twice the productivity improvement that we provided in the 90's.