The passing of a trucking icon
Herald “Smitty” Smith Jr. , founder of Cedar Rapids Steel Transportation—known today as CRST International—passed away last month at age 91. When he started CRST in 1955 at age 31, he began contracting with owner-operators hauling livestock to Chicago, returning to the Cedar Rapids area with loads of steel filling out their typically empty trucks. He stepped down as company president in 1977, but remained CRST’s chairman and guided it through deregulation in 1980.
John Smith, Herald’s son and current CRST chairman, recalled a favorite saying of his father’s, “When you get into business, things aren’t always going to go right, so you have to be persistent.”
That persistence enabled CRST to become one of the nation’s largest privately held carriers, with revenues approaching $1.5 billion annually.
