BAZETTA TOWNSHIP, Ohio – The Lake to River region’s access to major roadways, rail lines and water routes makes it a good location for logistics and trucking companies while positioning it for economic development, according to officials.
Prop Logistics and Big Blue Trucking sit along Perkins Jones Road in Trumbull County’s Bazetta Township. Sandra Clark started Big Blue in 1988 and it’s run by her husband, Mike Carney.
“We’re pretty much an in-house carrier for Cleveland-Cliffs now,” Carney explains, adding that Cleveland-Cliffs is the latest iteration of the company that was LTV Steel Co. when Big Blue started working with it.
Big Blue uses large capacity trailers to haul coke from Cleveland-Cliffs coke plant in Warren to its mill in Cleveland.
“Coke is very light so in order to get 23 tons on it, you have to have a lot of room in that trailer,” Carney says. “That prohibits you from hauling sand and coal and other things that are very dense. We’re pretty much dedicated to hauling this coke and we go around the clock constantly.”
That’s 24/7 in snow, rain or cold, adds Mark Best, the company’s vice president of operations.
Big Blue’s reputation for efficiency led to a Texas oil company reaching out to Carney, asking if Big Blue wanted to put its power units under the Texas company’s trailers.
Hauling a hazardous material is much different than hauling coke. But Carney is an attorney with U.S. Department of Transportation experience and Best worked with nuclear submarines in the U.S. Navy, so they believed they were up to the challenge.
“We started this company called Prop Logistics to haul oil that no one knew existed around here,” Carney says, referring to oil from the Marcellus shale.
Prop started in 2012 and its drivers pick up oil from sites in West Virginia and Ohio and transport it to companies throughout the region. The company also has locations in Carrollton, Ohio, and Weirton, W.Va.
In the early years, that meant, drivers traveled up mountains on gravel roads during the winter to retrieve a load.
“You’ve heard of that show, ‘Ice Road Truckers?’” Carney says. “I’d put our drivers against anybody on ‘Ice Road Truckers.’”
And Best says Warren is the perfect location for their business.
ACCESS AND CONNECTIVITY
Access is a highlight for the region, says the vice president of economic development at Lake to River Economic Development.
“When we’re looking at just access and connectivity, the fact is that we’re located between New York and Chicago, one day’s drive, as well as a very short drive between Cleveland and Pittsburgh,” Sarah Boyarko says.
“We’re ideally located for companies to access markets. Individual companies can access more than 50% of the U.S. population from our region and 42% of the Canadian population. That’s enormous.”
Lake to River, launched in 2024 as the seventh and final JobsOhio region, encompasses Ashtabula, Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties.
The region offers wider access via waterways as well.
“The logistics infrastructure in our market is phenomenal relative to highway access and the rail infrastructure that’s in our market, as well as the water ports that are sort of the bookends to the Lake to River region – the two ports on Lake Erie, the two ports on the Ohio River,” Boyarko adds.
That’s the Ashtabula and Conneaut ports on Lake Erie and the Wellsville Terminal and East Liverpool Port on the Ohio River.
“These locations are available to bring product in that is imported and pushed out into the region, as well as the ability to export,” Boyarko explains.
The Ohio River port connects to and goes out the Gulf of Mexico and the ports on Lake Erie are able to ship to Canada, other parts of the U.S. and out the St. Lawrence Seaway into the Atlantic Ocean to European markets. Other ports also are accessible throughout that connectivity.
“Companies are looking to locate in our region for that connectivity and that access as well as companies that are already here looking to utilize that,” Boyarko says.
The region’s accessibility appeals to any companies that will be manufacturing and distributing or shipping a product. And the region also affords accessibility to workforce, the vice president says.
ASHTABULA PORTS
Greg Myers, executive director and chief administrative officer at the Growth Partnership for Ashtabula County, says the region offers logistics assets but they’re underutilized.
“I think there’s a massive opportunity for us to leverage those differently to advance, particularly manufacturing growth within the region,” he adds.
Ashtabula County includes what Myers calls tremendous rail assets. He acknowledges that a lot of communities say that. Those though are generally class one main rail lines that run through hauling a unit train at 60 miles an hour.
“But a lot of times they’re not going to stop and break that train down or add more cars in, unless you have other assets and other demand in the marketplace to do that,” he explains.
Ashtabula County is different.
“We have lots of facilities that have a connecting short line track, or a connecting spur track,” Myers says. “We have distribution yards right where they can stop and easily break down trains and add cars and take them out. …There’s a logistical advantage for them within our county because we can connect them much easier to the rail system.”
The county exports soybeans from northern Trumbull and southern Ashtabula counties with most of them going to Asia. Most of those soybeans are trucked out before eventually getting into the rail system.
But they could go directly from the field into a rail car, he says.
As Boyarko mentioned, the Lake to River region’s other logistical advantage is water. Its two deep water ports are dredged to accommodate fully loaded lake freighters. Historically, iron ore mostly from Minnesota would come into those ports, be offloaded and put onto a train and shipped to steel mills for steel production. That’s still happening but at much lower volumes because there are fewer Midwest steel manufacturers.
Years ago, coal from southwestern Pennsylvania was loaded onto trains which traveled to the Ashtabula and Conneaut ports. The coal was loaded onto ships and headed out of the ports to coal burning power plants. The coal market is mostly gone.
“But all of that rail infrastructure that services it, all of the maritime wharfage is still there and still functional,” Myers says.
The ports are still used to ship out iron ore that goes to steel markets, to bring in limestone used for steel scrubbing that goes into construction material and to bring in salt. But their volumes are much lower than the ports’ historic capacities.
“Where they used to run 50-60 million tons a year out of the ports, they’re probably doing 10% of that now,” Myers says.
MORE OPPORTUNITY
He says there may be opportunities to utilize the ports differently.
“Is there an opportunity for us to attract investment that can utilize the St. Lawrence Seaway, so that we can do direct maritime moves through the St. Lawrence Seaway into markets like Europe and places like that?” he says. “Because we have a huge logistical advantage if you move a product, say, through the St. Lawrence Seaway into our ports by maritime vessel.”
Running a ship from Rotterdam, a heavy commercial port in the Netherlands, into one of the Ashtabula County ports for example, would take seven to 10 days less than if it were traveling to an East Coast port like Baltimore or New York, Myers points out.
“There’s a time savings advantage,” he says. “There’s lots of advantages here that we haven’t quite figured out how to fully take advantage of yet, and I think we will at some point in time.”
SHENANGO
The Shenango Valley offers logistical advantages for businesses as well with the proximity of routes 80, 79 and 376. That prompted the Mercer County Career Center to start a logistics and supply chain program for students a few years ago.
Tony Miller, the school’s administrative director, says graduates are securing employment at companies including Joy Cone, George J. Howe, Imperial Systems and Walmart.
“We do have several employers in the county that rely on students with the skills we are teaching them here at MCCC,” Miller explains.
Students took a recent field trip to Team Hardinger Warehouse and to George J. Howe. Hardinger is a warehouse that keeps suppliers for various customers, the largest being Wabtec. GJH is a distribution center.
“Both employers need the types of skills we are providing – picking the correct item, preparing it for shipment, accuracy in counting and knowing how to use the equipment to complete the needed tasks,” the administrative director says.
SAFETY IS IMPORTANT
Back at Prop Logistics and Big Blue Trucking, safety is paramount and computers and cameras in every truck enable supervisors to ensure drivers follow rules and regulations.
“The two things that we can’t tolerate are speed and cell phone usage,” Carney says. “If I see a driver pick up his cell phone, he’s out of here.”
The company implemented strict safety protocols when Prop started, adhering to the regulations of the Shell Co., with which it did business. Prop still works with Shell although that company has undergone many changes. Prop sticks with the rigorous safety requirements.
Drivers aren’t permitted, for example, to travel over 65 mph, even in a 70 mph zone. They’re encouraged to travel 5 mph below the speed limit.
If you leave for your destination behind schedule and you get behind a Prop truck, Best says you’re going to be late getting wherever you’re going.
“You have to have the culture of compliance,” Carney stresses.
At the same time, though, Carney and Best say it’s important to take care of their drivers. About 55 work at Big Blue and 110 at Prop. The company pays hourly rather than by the load and drivers earn overtime.
And in an industry known for high turnover, it’s low for both of Carney’s companies.
“At Prop, it’s always been below 15%,” he says.
Pictured at top: Mike Carney and Mark Best, owner and vice president of operations, respectively, of Big Blue Trucking and Prop Logistics stand in front of a Big Blue truck at the companies’ headquarters in Bazetta Township.
