Fast delivery their ticket to growth

MAKING CONNECTIONS: Easter Connection Operating Inc. was founded in 1983 with 18 packages and now delivers more than 20,000 packages a day. Pictured above are Eastern Connection General Manager Daren Lee, right, and driver Mark McDaniel. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
MAKING CONNECTIONS: Easter Connection Operating Inc. was founded in 1983 with 18 packages and now delivers more than 20,000 packages a day. Pictured above are Eastern Connection General Manager Daren Lee, right, and driver Mark McDaniel. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

Eastern Connection Operating Inc. believes it offers a major cost-saving edge in the package-delivery market, especially when competing with industry giants FedEx and UPS.
“Eastern Connection delivers from Maine to Virginia in one day for ground pricing,” said company co-founder James Berluti.
The company was launched in 1983 with 18 packages and now delivers more than 20,000 packages a day to 6,800 zip codes.
“With the boom of e-commerce, not as many people are going into retail stores and everyone is competing on logistics,” said Berluti. “Our business is in a growth spurt right now and we’re starting to do some more warehousing of inventory. It puts the inventory closer to the customer. We can pick and prepare the shipment and send it for delivery.”
Rhode Island is getting the benefit of that growth spurt. Eastern Connection’s increased space requirements and vision for expansion resulted in consolidating two smaller warehouses in Worcester, Mass., and Providence, along with the Woburn, Mass. corporate headquarters into 30,000 square feet in Cumberland.
Eastern Connection’s reasons for moving its headquarters and key operations from Massachusetts to Rhode Island last year are bound to be a most welcome message for economic-development leaders in the Ocean State.
“We feel it’s a more business-friendly climate in Rhode Island,” said Berluti. “We feel that the labor pool in Rhode Island is a little more robust, for our business, and that the state has a more favorable climate for promoting midsized businesses.”
Eastern Connection works with many regional service providers for trucks and drivers to cover the expansive delivery routes. The company offers same day, overnight delivery guaranteed by 10:30 a.m., next day and 2-day deferred service.
The bustling operations in Cumberland are a testament to the staying power of the vision of the co-founders, Ted Kauffmann, a graduate of Penn State University who worked in the courier industry before launching Eastern Connection and is based at the company’s New York office, and Berluti. The latter originally got into the industry with a similar company shortly after he graduated from Boston University. Even though many of the paper documents that once required signatures have given way to digital versions, Eastern has seen the dramatic shifts in technology work to the company’s advantage.
“We’ve transformed into a distribution company with more box freight. We do a lot of work in beauty supplies and we have a substantial business in medical supplies,” said Berluti. One of the company’s longtime customers is Legal Seafood.
Daren Lee, Eastern Connection’s manager of the Rhode Island, Worcester and southeastern Massachusetts operations, knew about the company’s fast delivery even before he became an employee.
Lee worked for 17 years at the Providence office of the law firm that is now Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP. One of Lee’s responsibilities was shipping and receiving.
“Eastern Connection has a real niche in the market because of delivering products quicker and earlier in the morning. The attorneys are in the office at 7 a.m. and they want the documents on their desk when they walk in,” said Lee.
Lee began working part time at Eastern Connection’s former Providence warehouse during the holidays a few years ago, while he was still working full-time at the law firm. His two jobs were a couple of miles apart.
He went full time with the company two years ago.
The consolidation of the Worcester and Providence warehouses in Cumberland has made operations more efficient.
The move to the Cumberland warehouse aligns with the company’s growth vision, he said.
Currently the Rhode Island location has eight full-time employees, including four corporate executives who will also maintain offices in Woburn, Mass.,
The company is planning to add additional independent route drivers, said Berluti.
Eastern also anticipates hiring for the logistics department, said Berluti. That increase is expected to help double the Rhode Island staff within two years. •

COMPANY PROFILE
Eastern Connection Operating Inc.
OWNERS: James A. Berluti and Ted Kauffman
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Regional small-parcel carrier serving Maine to Virginia
LOCATION: 70 Industrial Road, Cumberland
EMPLOYEES: Eight in Rhode Island (About 200 total employees at 16 locations from New England through the mid-Atlantic)
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1983
SALES: WND

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