A firm with lots of drive - East Coast Transportation

Nation's Business, March, 1995 by Michael Barrier

"We've been market-driven," says B. Alan Melton. "That's how our company has grown, by trying to find out what the market wants."

So successful has the company, East Coast Transportation,. been at heeding the market's wishes that 1994 revenues were about $2.6 million. The Neptune Beach, Fla.-based company, which provides luxury transportation, employs about 70, including 50 full- and part-time drivers. It has about 30 vehicles now, from luxury vans and sedans to stretch limousines and minibuses.

Back in 1983, Melton and C. Gregory Franks were working for a car-rental agency in Orlando, Fla.--Melton as manager, Franks as sales representative. As they talked one afternoon, they realized that they both wanted to go into business for themselves. They decided to pool their resources.

At the time, Melton recalls, only one national car-rental company had an agency in the Florida beach towns just east of Jacksonville--and it was renting cars for much higher rates than anyone in the highly competitive Orlando market. "We realized that we could come here and compete and still maintain profits," Melton says.

They started with just five cars, and "when we rented all the cars out," Melton says, "there was really nothing left to do." But they knew that the handful of resorts in the Jacksonville area had guests arriving at the airport, "and we started to brainstorm on how we could capture some of that airport business," Melton says.

They hit on the idea of having a driver pick up customers at the airport, handle their luggage, and take them to their hotel, where a rental car would be waiting.

"Soon," Melton says, "we found out that people liked our service, and they asked if we could provide it without renting a car." From providing transportation for individuals, East Coast began providing group transportation, "as we determined what a resort's needs might be," he says.

East Coast got out of the car-rental business in 1991, after peaking with 115 cars two years before, because its margins were shrinking too much in an increasingly competitive market. Now, Melton says, "we're trying to diversify our customer base," so that East Coast is not so dependent on its resort accounts. The company is cultivating relationships with Jacksonville corporations, whose executives may already ride to meetings at the resorts in East Coast's vans.

Sometime this year, Melton says, "we expect that East Coast Transportation will be run by the employees. That will enable us to start branching out into other markets," offering comparable transportation services in other cities.

As they expand, Melton, 37, and Franks, 42. will continue to rely on a sort of silent partner. In the mid-'80s, Melton says, "we dedicated our business to Christ. We had not been profitable to that point, and the very next quarter after we committed our business," and agreed to tithe from the company's profits, "we became profitable."

Franks adds: "We've worked hard, and we've got a good staff and a good service, but we believe that the dominant influence is the Lord's blessing and hand on our business."

Melton has found in the precepts of Total Quality Management a direct link between his religious beliefs and the demands of running a business. In recent years, he says, he has read the writings of the late W. Edwards Deming, the seminal thinker on quality, and has tried to implement Deming's ideas at East Coast. "I'm not sure Deming knew it," Melton says, "but I think his concepts were initially pioneered by Jesus Christ."

Deming's ideas, Melton says, are about eliminating fear and setting people free--"and that's what Christ did."