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This story appears in the Aug. 30 print edition of Transport Topics.

John Labrie, president of less-than-truckload carrier Con-way Freight, abruptly left last week after 20 years with the company.

Labrie had been president of the nation’s third-largest LTL for three years. Con-way said he left “to pursue other interests.” Attempts by Transport Topics to reach Labrie were unsuccessful.

Announcing the change Aug. 24, Con-way Inc. CEO Douglas Stotlar said he will serve as interim president of his corporation’s largest subsidiary for six to 12 months to “focus exclusively on increasing profitability through yield improvement, cost reduction and operating discipline.” Stotlar began his Con-way career with the LTL carrier in 1985.

Company spokesman Gary Frantz declined additional comment.

Con-way Freight reported mixed results for the second quarter, with year-over-year revenue climbing 25.8% to $817 million but operating income falling 64.8% to $17.2 million. Operating ratio deteriorated to 97.9 from 92.5 a year earlier.

An Aug. 4 earnings statement said Con-way Freight’s business levels experienced a “surge to record volumes.” However, expenses for labor, equipment rental and purchased transportation rose even faster.

An intracompany memo from Stotlar to employees and posted on the Internet quoted the chief executive officer as saying, “I recognize that it has been a challenging and difficult time for employees. Over the past year, we got out of balance and focused too much on building the systems of the future and not enough on basic operational disciplines. We will regain our balance by executing against the operating philosophy that made Con-way Freight a great company.”

Backing up Stotlar, Con-way has two executive vice presidents, J. Edwin Conaway, in charge of sales, and W. Gregory Lehmkuhl, in charge of operations.

Stock analyst Jon Langenfeld told clients of Robert W. Baird & Co. the change should be viewed as positive. Langenfeld said he is “encouraged that more drastic actions are being taken to address the Freight division’s struggles” but that “demonstrable improvement in profitability will not occur until 2011.”

Langenfeld said Con-way’s 2009 effort to “build network density through a more aggressive pricing strategy has produced undesirable results, with second-quarter Freight margins hampered with low-yielding freight and excessive costs absorbed to support record business levels.”

He did credit the company for putting together a solid menu of transportation services that has the potential to produce “industry-leading LTL margins” when the economy is healthy.

Labrie joined Con-way in 1990 as a sales account manager for the Con-Way Central Express division of what was then called Con-Way Transportation Services, a unit of CNF Inc. He jumped to Con-Way Western in 1998 and rose to become the regional carrier’s president in 2002.

In 2005, he was promoted to executive vice president of Con-Way Transportation Services and then succeeded David McClimon as president in 2007. Within months, he embarked on his first major endeavor, changing CTS with its three regional units into Con-way Freight, a single nationwide carrier.

Among LTL carriers, Con-way ranks behind YRC Worldwide and FedEx Freight in annual revenue but ahead of UPS Freight.

Con-way Inc., which ranks No. 6 on the Transport Topics 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers, also owns Con-way Truckload and Menlo Worldwide Logistics.