Courier firms learn to adapt to keep business moving forward

Jim Hardenbrook hefted six boxes of records out of the back of his pickup, setting them on a hand cart in the parking lot of a doctors’ building on Spokane’s lower South Hill.

The 58-year-old wheeled the cart through the lobby and navigated to a room filled with records at the Northwest OB-GYN office.

"It’s Jumpin’ Jimmy," one of the clinic employees exclaimed.

Hardenbrook is the founder and lone employee of Jumpin’ Jimmy’s, a fledgling delivery and courier outfit. Using the slogan "You call, we jump!," Hardenbrook makes runs for food and office supplies for a handful of Spokane medical and accounting offices, and he shuttles records between clinics.

While the advent of fax machines was supposed to make couriers obsolete two decades ago, courier companies have adapted, said Bob DeCaprio, executive director of the Messenger Courier Association of the Americas. Fax and e-mail technology has affected single-document delivery, but couriers are branching out into transporting large freight, machine parts, pharmaceuticals, medical test results and human organs, he said.

Hardenbrook may be one of the newest additions to the region’s courier industry, but he’s not alone. He received one of 16 new business licenses granted to couriers by the city of Spokane in the last two years, according to city documents.

A variety of similar businesses offer services — ranging from package delivery to file archiving — to Spokane’s lawyers, financial workers and burgeoning medical offices. While home-grown courier companies may sometimes go overlooked, they fill a niche for businesses, helping them to save time and feel secure in who’s handling their records.

For decades, state government set rates and geographical limits for couriers. But Congress pre-empted much of Washington’s oversight of the industry in 1995, allowing more companies, such as Jumpin’ Jimmy’s, to enter the market.

Now, the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission oversees couriers’ compliance with state insurance requirements, including a mandate that couriers using small vehicles carry USD 300,000 in combined insurance coverage, said Paul Curl, transportation safety specialist for the commission.

Nationwide, local couriers and messengers made about USD 3.3 billion in revenue in 2002, according to the most recent economic information available from the U.S. Census Bureau.The national Messenger Courier Association has about 600 members, while local courier and delivery outfits nationwide numbered more than 5,000 in 2002, according to the Census Bureau.

But not all newcomers succeed, said Patrick DeVries, owner of DeVries Information Management.

"It’s a very touchy industry to get into because, hopefully, we’ve all got a driver’s license, and we’ve all got a car," DeVries said. "It’s so easy to get into, you see a lot of coming and going and a lot of turnover in courier services."

Some couriers will realize they didn’t plan for costs such as insurance and deferred maintenance on their vehicles, said DeVries, who employs about 30 and provides interoffice correspondence and a commercial records center.DeVries said the local courier industry has grown, adding that use of FedEx has increased awareness of courier services in general versus keeping those functions in-house. Using couriers also reduces employers’ liability by keeping workers from running errands on company time, he said.

"For me to be successful in it long-term, I’ve got to really manage my costs, be efficient and work hard on my relationships to inform and educate and express that value," DeVries said.

Both DeVries and City Parcel Delivery Inc., the largest home-grown player in Spokane, tailor rates for individual customers.

Hardenbrook likes a day’s notice on orders, but he also offers same-day service. He charges USD 35 per delivery. For shopping, he charges an additional 4 percent of the purchase total for orders less than USD 450, and 7 percent for larger orders.

City Parcel employs about 85, many of them "independent contractors" who use their own vehicles and drive specific routes. More than 100 years old, City Parcel currently has about 500 clients, including pharmacies, office and medical supply companies and real estate firms, said co-owner Jim Thurber.

Although the large, overnight companies such as United Parcel Service, FedEx Corp. and DHL offer some competition for local couriers, DeCaprio said, they send packages to national hubs and their parcels are transferred by many hands. Some of the large companies also contract with smaller-scale couriers during busy times or in underserved areas, DeCaprio said.

Pressure from those large companies limits small, long-distance courier services, and many local couriers serve niche markets, Curl said.

Though there are a lot of new companies, the couriers interviewed for this story said they don’t see strong competition locally.

"I feel there’s still a lot of business out there," said Jim Watson, 46, an independent contractor for City Parcel who also serves several of his own clients as Business Delivery Services.

Watson envisions increased demand for couriers as more people buy packages online and need them delivered.

A PERSONAL TOUCH

Hardenbrook, who also drives a school bus in the morning and coaches high school baseball, hopped into a niche left open by a previous courier.

He started Jumpin’ Jimmy’s last fall after leaving a 35-year career working in a grocery-distribution warehouse in Spokane Valley. He watched inventory dwindle as work shifted to automatic distribution systems in other cities.

"They told us we would be losing that business, and I thought I had better make a change because I wouldn’t have a job," he said.

While Hardenbrook has a pension, he decided to act on a tip from Ann Gannon, chief operating officer for Northwest OB-GYN, a clinic with several doctors. She suggested he fill the gap left by a previous bicycle messenger who retired.

"We kind of put our heads together, and I kind of thought there is a need for a lot of business managers who don’t have time to go out," Hardenbrook said. "It just takes their time away from their business to buy their office supplies."

Hardenbrook named his new business after seeing a frog on his front porch. He registered for a business license, bought a new pickup truck and started networking for clients.

However, when a Spokane pharmacy approached Hardenbrook about delivering its goods, he turned it down for fear he would become overextended, he said.

"I’m kind of a hands on guy, so if it fails, I’m the one who did it," he said.

That personal touch attracted Wendy Stoehr, clinic administrator for Advanced Dermatology and Skin Surgery, a six-doctor clinic with offices both downtown and in Spokane Valley.

Stoehr said she always felt uncomfortable trusting tissue slides to a larger courier service in town because it would sometimes store parcels at a plant overnight. She also wouldn’t use taxi cabs, like some offices, she said.

When couriers contract with medical offices, federal law requires that patient information be kept confidential.

"When I met Jim, I just felt that he was really reliable, dependable and took it very seriously — someone I could trust," she said. "It was worth even paying more."