The Kelly Freight Services story:

During the late 70's and early 80's, Dave and Jim Kelly were working on the docks at a variety of airfreight forwarders at Los Angeles International Airport while going to college. Jim worked a variety of positions for these companies such as operations manager and national operations manager. Upon graduation, he was the night operations manager for a family-owned freight forwarding business. Eventually, Jim tried his hand as an airfreight sales representative where he had some initial success in a difficult market. At the same time, Dave was working for another freight forwarding company as a driver.

The Kelly brothers thought it would be a great idea to work together with Jim selling and Dave doing the pick ups. They secured a loan, formed a corporation, and purchased an old bobtail truck putting the plan into action. It didn't take long before there were challenges to overcome with owning the truck and trying to make the payment. This seemed like an insurmountable feat to pull off so partially driven by fear and the need to put food on the table, they approached some of their former contacts they had worked for and began to build their customer base. Before long they added another truck to cover the South Bay area.

The brothers had many contacts in the business that supported them, and the business began to grow. The customers demanded service at all hours of the day, every day of the week. The new venture soon dominated their lives and there was no turning back.

Slowly Kelly Freight Services began to add equipment and employees, as Dave and Jim could no handle all the work. The dedicated service and hard work paid off as Kelly Freight landed some good, consistent, long-term accounts and began to build from servicing the South Bay to servicing the major Los Angeles cartage points.

Fortunately, the customers and their business, combined with effort, advice from critical vendors and family members, and great employees and independent service providers, Kelly Freight has grown into what it is today; a strong, well-respected, customer-driven, cartage company.

Servicing the freight forwarding community with all of its turmoil has been an adventure, but thanks to a lot of help and a little bit of “Irish Luck” Kelly Freight Services has been a success for over 25 years.