Talking transport: A Q&A with the chairman of SC&RA’s Symposium

Louis Juneau started his career in the aviation industry in the 1980s as an operations manager, gaining experience in managing human resources and learning critical teamwork skills. While working in the aviation sector, he developed an interest in regulations and safety, writing an operations manual following the reform and certification of flight dispatchers. He was also part of the Y2K program.

Louis Juneau, Business Development Consultant, Nova Permits & Pilot Cars and AXYS Permits

In the early 2000s he transferred those interests to specialized transportation. Nova Permits & Pilot Cars had been started by Normand Patry in 1992. Patry tried to sell the company to American interests around 2003, but things didn’t go according to plan. In 2004, Nova’s Finances Director Monique Comeau and Juneau acquired shares in the company. In 2005 they bought the company outright.

The kicker to the story is that “Monique and I also became partners in life while completing the purchase of the company,” Juneau said. So for the last 18 years, they have been running and expanding the company to meet the needs of their specialized transportation clientele. The company has become a one-stop location for obtaining U.S. and Canadian permits and licensing as well as pilot car and fuel card management services. The Nova team also provides route survey services.

Getting involved

Juneau, who is chairman of the SC&RA’s Transportation Group, is also chairman of the upcoming SC&RA Specialized Transportation Symposium that will be held February 20-22 in Houston. Active in the Association for more than 20 years, Juneau attended his first Symposium in 2001 in Memphis.

“After attending most of the meetings I knew that I wanted to get involved and hopefully be part of the solutions,” he said. “I had the privilege to be introduced by individuals such as the late Doug Ball, Paul Ross and David Lowry, and later on by Steven Todd, Chris Smith and the late Jay Folladori, who were instrumental with my involvement, and which led to my nomination as the Transportation Governing Group Committee. To see Joel Dandrea and his team players at work made it easy for me to tag along. Now, seeing so many youngsters getting involved [in SC&RA] is refreshing and reassuring for the perennity of this Association.”

Juneau is a well-respected transportation professional, and he brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the SC&RA’s volunteer leadership team. In some regards, he might be considered soft-spoken, but he always gets his point across without question. We were able to catch up with him for our first-of-the-year Q&A. I think you will be interested in what he has to say.

As Transportation Group Chair, you are also chair of the upcoming SC&RA Specialized Transportation Symposium. What were your committee’s goals in planning this event?

Of course, uniformity remains a hot topic as well as automation. Keeping alive the ongoing projects from various taskforces is also very important.

Uniformity continues to be a challenge in the U.S. and Canada.

Program-wise regarding the Symposium, what are you most looking forward to?

As there are many committees and conferences to attend, the Symposium is a great event where you can build new business contacts and renew current ones. One of my favorites is the one-on-one with the states representatives that attend and are as eager as we are to make a difference in our industry. As I have repeated many times already, we should be extremely grateful that they are taking the time and interest. Unfortunately, we don’t have the same forum in Canada.

Nova Permits and Pilot Cars offers a range of services to the specialized transport sector. What has distinguished the company in the markets it serves?

Besides the high values and professionalism of our 30 or so employees working with us, being based out of Quebec and the particulars of the French language make it a no-brainer for carriers abroad to reach out to Nova for assistance. We are bordering Ontario, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, and not to forget Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Labrador, we can also ease the process of getting into Canada.

Nova not only offers to apply and obtain permits on behalf of carriers, but we are also an authorized vendor for self-issue trip and fuel permits for many states and provinces. We also have a Pilot Car division as well as a Permanent Licensing division for a broader regulatory compliance assistance.

What are the geographic areas that Nova serves?

Nova can assist in all provinces and territories as well as the mainland states. As we attended symposiums and other meetings, we realized that regardless how good we are, we were having a hard time positioning ourselves south of the border.

That is why my partner and I decided to start another permit service, AXYS Permits, located in the United States in 2007, initially based out of Columbus, OH.

Since we already had a few employees working remotely from home, we decided to move our headquarters to Florida in 2011. Today, we have more than 10 employees located in multiple states. With the synergy of the two companies, we believe we offer an upscale service to better assist not only carriers, but also many permit services companies to obtain their customer’s permits through Nova Permits & Pilot Cars and AXYS Permits.

What are the biggest differences in performing specialized transportation in Canada versus the United States?

Although uniformity is not quite where we all wish it would be, the U.S. permitting process is still smoother and quicker than in Canada. Most permitting software companies encountered in the U.S. are present in Canada, but we have to change vendors more often as they are not represented in many provinces. We go from one vendor to another when it’s not an in-house system. The super loads process is also more tedious, generally.

What are the biggest challenges facing specialized transportation today?

Some of the biggest challenges remain human resources. Lucky for us, we have a very high retention rate where most of our employees have been with us for 15 to 20 years. Continued expansion is where this challenge lies. Another one is, as addressed prior, in uniformity and automation. We need to find a way to accelerate the changes that are necessary to make the process leaner and more efficient.

What is your business philosophy?

We believe that recruiting not only great employees, but also great people, is the key to providing outstanding customer service. Dedication, integrity and respect are some of the values we promote. We are also investing a lot of time and resources to stay up to par with new technologies available.

What do you do when you are not working?

I spend a lot of my spare time playing golf and tennis in the summer. In the fall, we do a lot of hiking in the mountains. When winter strikes, we try to head down south as much as possible, where our preferred destinations are the Southwest coast of Florida and Palm Springs, California, so we can still indulge in our favorite activities. I am also the drummer of an Eighties rock cover band called Check Engines.

We understand there are some exciting things in the works ahead for Nova and AXYS? 

The last year has been quite an interesting and a turning point for our companies and employees. An opportunity has arisen to sell both of our companies. Our long-time, dedicated and loyal employee Chris Alain, who is our director of operations, had shown an interest for quite some time, and we found the perfect partner for him, M. Stephane Labillois, who has quite an extensive experience in the trucking industry. Stephane will bring all of his wisdom to assist Chris, Donna Beaudoin, the director of operations at AXYS and their teams, to carry both Nova and AXYS to a higher level. This change in ownership will have no effect on our customers and employees. It’s exciting news for everyone.