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Edwardsville in 1932. Seventy years later, Albert still serves as chairman, and his son, Allen, as vice chairman.
Albert's grandchildren, Lisa and Mark Shashek, and Allen's son, Doug Braly, are all actively involved in the company.
Albert's daughter, Kay, is on the board. Current president Richard Suhre is not related, but he started working part time for
the company in 1951. He continued working while in college, and in 1959 started at the company full time as an accountant.
After a series of promotions, Suhre became president in the mid 1990s.
Lisa Shashek, vice president, said it is a standard practice for Cassens Transport Co. to promote from within.
"We've hired some great people, and we've been lucky that we've been able to keep them with us," she said.
Cassens Transport Co. is a subsidiary of Cassens Corp., which employs about 1,400 people. Cassens Transport employs the
bulk of them, with 1,200 current employees. Cassens Corp. also owns Cassens and Sons, a Chrysler-Dodge dealership in Glen
Carbon, along with an insurance agency, a financing company and other companies related to the automotive industry. Cassens
provides services for assembly plants and railroads. All corporate offices are located in Edwardsville.
But as the family likes to say, the company grew from pretty humble beginnings. George Cassens first became involved with
automobiles in 1918 when he began selling Reos. He later opened a Hudson-Essex dealership and in 1929, sold 165 automobiles.
Driver's education came along with the sale.
During the depression years, the Cassens first entered the trucking business transporting milk, corn, apples and potatoes.
But by 1933, George motored back into the car business when he opened a Dodge-Plymouth dealership in Edwardsville.
An interesting note: at that time, dealerships picked up their own cars from manufacturers, mostly in Detroit.
Shashek said that after performing a few pick-ups up of its own, Cassens came up with the idea of hauling automobiles for
other dealerships, too, and Cassens Transport was incorporated in 1936.
"Our company's strengths have been honesty, fair dealings with customers and clients and dedication to provide service
levels that are expected," she said.
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Cassens transports about two million vehicles annually, mostly in the Midwest, and to areas along the East Coast. Shashek
said the company remains competitive - even with railroads - because even if shipments are made first by rail, they still need
to be moved by truck from the rail point to the commercial dealership.
"Trucks are still involved," she said. "We are quite competitive in our segment of the market."
Cassens has two international terminals in Ontario, Canada and additional terminals throughout the Midwest, plus some along
the upper East Coast. The company fleet consists of some 1,200 trucks, each with a capacity of about 11 vehicles, depending
upon the size of the vehicles.
With Chrysler as its biggest account, Cassens also transports for Nissan, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mitsubishi, Subaru,
Hyundai, Saturn and Toyota.
Cassens Transport Co. is a privately owned company with annual revenues of about $175 million, Shashek said.
The company provides releasing services for Chrysler Corp. in Belvidere and rail loading and unloading services for the
Union Pacific Railroad. Auto releasing is the process of accepting a vehicle from an assembly plant and turning it over to a
railroad or truck-away carrier. Other company subsidiaries such as Kenosha Releasing provide the same functions at the
Chrysler plant in Detroit, Mich.
"We hope to continue to prosper and provide incomes for all the people who work for us," Shashek said. "We've been affected
by the economy this past year just like everyone else, but car sales have continued to stay pretty high, and transport company
revenue is affected by car sales."
One of the challenges the company faces, she said, is competing with some of the non-traditional carriers that are now
growing into this sector.
"But we will continue to try and cut costs and meet those challenges so we can continue to provide service for our
shippers," Shashek said. "Once the vehicle is on the truck, our portion of the process - which is actual transit - is about a
day and a half. All of the shippers are focusing on decreasing transit time once a customer orders a vehicle, because they
feel that is one of the ways they can stay competitive with each other."
graphic designer and staff writer: Vicki Bennington 
email: vbennington@ibjonline.com
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