With four locations in the Chicago market totaling 1.2 million square feet and another million-square-foot expansion expected in 2018, business is booming at RJW Transport.
But after years of growth, the company might be looking across the state border for its expansion and the 400 jobs that come with it, CEO Kevin Williamson said on "The Morning Answer" radio show recently.
Williamson said the tax benefits of moving from Illinois into Indiana are hard to resist.
“In this building alone, we’re paying over $1 per square foot in taxes," he said. "That’s $600,000 a year and $50,000 a month. In Indiana, not so much."
RJW makes sure products are on shelves, trucking goods all across the country for companies like Walmart, which accounts for about half of RJW's business. It also works with another 50 retailers that order on demand.
Radio host Dan Proft said Chicago is the Midwestern transportation hub in terms of logistics, and Williamson agreed.
Proft is a principal of Local Government Information Services, which owns this publication.
“Four hundred twenty truckloads a week to Walmart alone, and we get those all the way to California and down to Florida and everywhere,” Williamson said.
RJW is a family company that Williamson took over from his father seven years ago. Since then, revenue has grown from $27 million to more than $100 million and employment numbers have also climbed.
“We went from 40 employees to over 450, and we are currently looking for over 60 employees, both lower-level supervisors and managers, and we are always hiring,” Williamson said.
Williamson didn't say whether he had decided to expand in Indiana, but despite being a job creator in Illinois, he said no one has reached out to him about staying in Illinois.
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