O&S Trucking to open first terminal outside of Springfield

The freight trucking company is opening a terminal in Springfield, Ohio, its first outside of its local headquarters. The terminal should be operational by April 1 and have 50 drivers based there by the end of the year, according to a company news release.

Brian Underhill is serving as vice president of Ohio operations; Mary Bard is fleet manager and a third employee could be hired there later this year.

O&S currently hauls refrigerated trailers as far west as Oklahoma, as far east as Maine, as far as south as North Carolina, and as far north as the Great Lakes states.

The company also considered a terminal site in Columbus, Ohio, but that location would have meant an 11-hour dispatch time from Springfield, Mo. Current law limits driving time to 11 hours in a 14-hour time period, and if that law ever changed, drivers could not make the trip in one shift, according to the release. The dispatch time between Springfield, Ohio, and Springfield, Mo., is 10 hours.

O&S carries for companies including Dole Fresh Foods, Kraft Foods, Tyson, Kaiser, Seaboard, Reckitt Benckiser and Schreiber Foods. In Springfield, Mo., it has 100 employees and 300 drivers.