Since taking the helm at RCG Logistics LLC less than five years ago, Vick Kuzmenko has turned the Sacramento-based company from a small operation into a national player.
RCG Logistics is a third-party logistics company that provides automotive transportation services for businesses and consumers. The company, which was founded in 2005, essentially acts as the middleman in connecting trucking operators with clients that need large numbers of motorized vehicles transported throughout North America.
Prior to Kuzmenko joining as CEO, RCG was involved in the movement of less than an estimated 2,000 vehicles per year, its main customers being local automotive dealers and salvage yards. Today, the company through its network of over 35,000 carriers sees that type of volume daily.
For example, during Hurricane Ian's landfall in September, a client needed thousands of damaged vehicles to be transported from an emergency staging area to a safe processing area. RCG leveraged its network of vetted independently-owned and operated trucking companies to help complete the job.
“For our customers, time is money, and that’s literally what we are rated on. If we can’t deliver on what we say we’ll do, customers become upset, similar to if you wanted something overnighted through FedEx and paid for it but they did not deliver on time,” said Kuzmenko, who'd worked for two decades in automotive finance and transportation before joining RCG.
The company currently employs about 150 people and opened a new logistics operations office in Medellin, Colombia earlier this year. RCG's largest clients include salvage auctions, powersport companies and finance companies.
Kuzmenko said the name RCG stands for Reliable Carriers Group, and reliability in the logistics space is paramount.
"It's one of the main reasons why corporate America is constantly making changes to and struggling with its supply chain," he said. "The world will always have unexpected circumstances hit, so a vendor must be able to predict for those possible outcomes."
RCG has been able to carve out its own place in its industry through hard work, constantly reinvesting in its team and technology and by working to expand the number of vendors it works with, Kuzmenko said.
He said the proprietary software RCG uses is the company’s heartbeat and helps it coordinate and monitor its deliveries, which number from 1,500 to 3,000 per day. RCG hired software developers, engineers and others to create a self-standing database that helps the company manage its jobs, allows clients to create new orders, handle billing and track order progress and onboard new vendors.
“We want to continue enhancing the technology to essentially get to where we have an Uber-like product where everyone can see the flow of vendors moving and clients’ transactions being delivered in real time in a truly transparent model,” Kuzmenko said.
In his first year with the company, Kuzmenko helped take RCG Logistics from making a couple million in revenue a year to just shy of $9 million. The next year, the company had revenue of about $28 million, followed by around $53 million in 2021. He said they expect to have more than $75 million in revenue in 2022.
Kuzmenko said RCG differentiated itself as a trucking company by creating a model and network that would cover the spectrum for all types of motorized vehicles, as well as their individual parts. He said the company had to focus on building up its infrastructure, particularly in training its various vendors on different types of jobs in order to gain new clients. Once RCG built up a success story based on small case studies, its sales pitch steadily became more attractive to larger customers.
"I think our success story is what is continuously driving this growth," Kuzmenko said. "Bank of America talks to Chase Bank just like Honda talks to Toyota. Everybody talks in the automotive industry so if you are loved, you are loved. Luckily, we sit by a watering hole surrounded by some of the largest Fortune 500 companies, and those have organically opened new doors for us. We definitely did not expect to be this big this quick, which has been humbling, and we are very eager to keep going."
RCG was recently named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies, coming in at No. 448 nationally following a reported revenue growth of 1,385% between 2018 and 2021. The company also made the list in 2021.
“I think we are only getting started,” Kuzmenko said. “I think we have many more opportunities to make that list again next year and for the next 10 years and beyond, with how young, motivated and hungry this executive group is.”
John Fountaine, president of repossession forwarding company Trynity Financial Services, which has an office in Roseville, spent over a decade working with Kuzmenko prior to him joining RCG. Fountaine said the success RCG has achieved is just the latest example of Kuzmenko's golden touch.
In the early 2010s, when the two worked together at collection agencies company PRA Group, Fountaine said Kuzmenko was a significant contributor to the growth of PRA's automotive repossession division from about $4.5 million in annual revenue to more than $25 million within the span of about 30 months.
“His attitude is amazing. He listens, understands and takes what he’s learned along the way that his mentors have given him and he’s built his own bag of tricks,” Fountaine said. “As an employer, you want someone who you don’t have to manage, that you can turn loose and run a division or an operation and just deliver, and that’s Vick."
Kuzmenko is now facing some obstacles to RCG's continuing rapid growth, with the economy.
The company has had to change its pricing to account for surging fuel prices, he said.
Kuzmenko said he's also concerned about rising interest rates. Higher interest rates and a strong dollar will make it harder for the thousands of small, independently-owned trucking operators to continue to grow their fleets. That could make it harder for RCG to expand. If its current vendors aren't growing their fleets, RCG will have to expand by gathering additional vendors, all of which require vetting and training to ensure quality for customers.
Kuzmenko said, however, that demand for companies that offer services like his will undoubtedly continue to grow. With electric-vehicle makers like Tesla Inc., Lucid Motors and others pursuing a direct-to-consumer sales model with less reliance on physical dealership locations, Kuzmenko said RCG will look to continue evolving to where it can assist in that supply chain.
Another major focus heading into 2023 will be finding efficiencies with the company's technology to better assist customers and vendors.
“There’s a lot of high-level details that would need to be answered, but we hope RCG and our investments into the company and our next phase will help deliver on some of those solutions,” Kuzmenko said.
The Essentials
CEO of RCG Logistics
Age: 34
Personal: Lives in east Roseville with wife, Anna, and daughter, Alice.
Career background: Has worked in the automotive finance and logistics industry for around 20 years.
Passions outside of work: Boating and golfing
First non-professional job: Walked dogs at the age of 6 years old, making a dollar for every mile traveled. While in high school, worked for a catering company where he met a fellow employee who ultimately helped him get a job in automotive forwarding (organizing shipments) and repossession.
