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‘Secret’ Little Rock Company Priority1 Has Big Plans

3 min read

Daniel Berardi knows a thing or two about finding paths.

Berardi, 35, is the general manager of Priority1 Inc. of Little Rock, a logistics company that helps transportation companies find more efficient ways to ship products. Priority1 is a subsidiary of Priority Wire & Cable of Little Rock, a company that hired Berardi almost seven years ago to run Priority1.

It happened, partly, because of fantasy football. Berardi swears this is a true story.

“I was playing in a fantasy football league with the CFO’s husband,” Berardi said. “It’s a cool story.”

When Priority Wire & Cable realized that Priority1 needed a day-to-day manager, CFO Candice Hill brought Berardi in for an interview. Berardi was happily settled in at Alltel, where he had worked for 10 years in a variety of executive positions, so he turned the opportunity down.

“I had a great gig,” Berardi said. “That’s where I wanted to spend my future. At Alltel, you do something different every year. I was constantly learning new things.”

But in June 2008, Verizon acquired Alltel, so Berardi was faced with the prospect of having to move to New Jersey to stay with the company. He was much more receptive when Priority called again.

Berardi was sold on the company after he served as a consultant for a week to get a feel for Priority1. What he saw was a company with a great product to sell.

Priority1 uses Web-based software — generally aimed at small- to mid-sized companies that spend up to $5 million annually on shipping — to help companies decide the most cost-efficient way to ship products. Results vary, but Berardi said Priority1 can usually save a company approximately 10-15 percent on shipping costs.

“It was a great opportunity,” Berardi said. “They had this incredible product they were just marketing locally. They had never had a manager.”

He took the job even though he knew little about logistics after serving in operations and human resources at Alltel. And he arrived just in time to struggle through 2009.

“My initial thoughts were I figured I’d spend a year realizing I made a huge mistake,” Berardi said, laughing. “I was terrified.”

The tough times didn’t last. The company, and the economy, eventually recovered, and Priority1 reported nearly $75 million in revenue in 2014. Berardi is projecting approximately $100 million this year.

The growth has spurred Priority1 into expansion mode. The company, which has a series of one-man offices throughout the country, recently expanded operations in Chicago and opened new offices in Indianapolis and Louisville.

Expansion into cities such as Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia is in the planning stage. Priority1 is opening a telemarketing operation in Little Rock with six employees with expectations of hiring 30 within three years.

Priority1 currently has 60 “direct” employees and another 150 who work as outside contractors or agents. Because the company is growing so quickly, Berardi said Priority1 is looking to hire another 36 workers.

“We’ve had a lot of growth, and we need a lot of talented people,” he said. “We’ve been kind of a secret.”

Berardi said the company’s expansion plans are to go into underserved areas while relying on its agents in places where Priority1 doesn’t have established offices. The typical protocol is for the company to hire a regional manager for a new office site, introduce him or her to the business model and support team, and then have the manager hire three or four account representatives to hit the market.

“It has to be large enough to have scale,” Berardi said. “We’ve started to get aggressive with growth. We’ve seen 600 percent growth the past five years. You can’t really limp into a market. You have to make the investment.”

That investment philosophy carries over into the company’s benefits, Berardi said. Priority1 pays 100 percent of family medical premiums, which Berardi said is approximately $1,000 a month per family, and has a 15 percent profit-sharing plan for its employees.

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