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The Lund Way: 50 Years of Excellence

January 21, 2025

As we look to 2025, the Lund brothers and their family of employees are kicking off a year-long celebration culminating in an epic 2026 milestone: the company’s 50th anniversary. While the momentous occasion signals a future positioned for expansion and metamorphosis, Eddie begins the story at the roots, where the Lund legacy sparked to life in the hands of his father, Allen Lund.

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How do you balance connection, growth, and efficiency? You bet on your people. As I lean into the words of Eddie Lund, President of the Allen Lund Company (ALC), what emerges is a cyclical tale and immersive legacy of grit, determination, family, and tradition that have been the generational hallmarks of a passionate genealogy. In the care of the Lund family, each dilemma, win, accomplishment, and hardship is humanized under a microscope of care and commitment—a practice that has allowed the company to grow and evolve in multiple directions and, at times, at a record pace. As we look to 2025, the Lund brothers and their family of employees are kicking off a year-long celebration culminating in an epic 2026 milestone: the company’s 50th anniversary. While the momentous occasion signals a future positioned for expansion and metamorphosis, Eddie begins the story at the roots, where the Lund legacy sparked to life in the hands of his father, Allen Lund. “It all started with my dad, who had $1,000 in his pocket and the dream of creating a better life for his family,” Eddie tells me, his eyes drifting off to the corners of the room as he dives back into the tale. “We were one of the only families I knew with two phone lines in our house. My five siblings and I used to answer the work line at home as children with ‘Allen Lund Company.’ So, my earliest memories were of us cutting our teeth on the family business. We all followed our own path to the Allen Lund Company, which was important to my dad.”
While each sibling worked at ALC during their high school summers, in the end, each of the boys who joined the company made the choice to be there on their own terms. Each forged their own path, encountered their own fork in the road, and found their passion for the business independent of the pressures of a family legacy. Eddie went to Notre Dame, captaining the baseball team, and was drafted by the Dodgers, but felt the tug to Allen Lund Company in the end. David Lund had been working for the company since high school, and though he left to attend Cal Poly Pomona, he felt the family business calling. Kenny Lund taught and coached for three years after graduating from Loyola Marymount University, but also found that his passion lay in the family business. The boys’ brother-in-law, Steve Doerfler, joined the family after he met Allen’s daughter, Christina, at the University of Portland. After a one-year exchange program in Austria, they fell in love, got married, and Steve jumped on board with Allen Lund. This is why the Allen Lund Company is so successful while steeped in family values. There is a deep desire to find a place in the company’s tradition. Being a part of ALC is more than a gift given; it is a gift earned. Between Eddie, Kenny, David, and Steve, the men have worked nearly every corner of the business and, in doing so, have obtained a deep knowledge and respect for what it takes to succeed in the logistics space. With their fingerprints on each department, category, and business entity, the family has established an executive team worth their weight in experience, years, and fortitude—all helping to define the future of ALC with a strong aptitude for success, informed by the grit and tradition of the past. “One thing our dad taught us was to trust each other’s opinion and experience. He was very inclusive of what the executive team thought, and we did everything by consensus,” Eddie says. “If we didn’t have consensus, we didn’t do it. He was very good at reading the room and driving the conversation forward. Whether it was an acquisition, opening a new office, or making a personnel decision—he included the entire team in the process; even if it was something he felt strongly about.” Whether around the kitchen table or the executive table, Allen, Eddie, David, and Kenny always respected the diverse experiences and opinions of those they brought into the fold. This commitment to their people is one reason there are so many employees with long tenures and why the applications for ALC continue to pile high and wide. It may come as no surprise at this point to read that Allen heavily impacted how the team now champions the business and implements its growth strategies. And it always begins and ends with taking care of its people. “If you look at our benefits package, what he set up and what we have continued, and if you pay attention to the way we run our Managers’ Meetings, travel around to the offices and our customers, you will see that we treat our employees like family,” Eddie says. “This all comes from my father. That personal touch is something Big Al instilled into our whole operation.”
I am suddenly brought nearly to tears at this reference to Allen Lund as Big Al. I am taken back to 2015, sitting with Mr. Lund as he spoke to me from across his larger-than-life oak desk while never once making me feel the tiniest bit small. When he passed away in 2018, the ripple effect was instantaneous and deep, having spent over 42 years at the helm of the company. Sitting in front of Eddie now, those tears of sadness evolve into tears of joy as I see their father in all that they do. “One of the most influential ways that my dad left his mark on the company was by teaching all of us how to develop a relationship,” Eddie reflects. “It begins and ends with trust, and your reputation is everything. The way our industry builds trust has changed in recent years. There are more text messages and emails than handshakes and phone calls, but we adapt to each customer and nurture each partnership with a deep dedication to respect, integrity, and honor. We are the same way with our team members. Even with the great success in revenue and growth, we ensure that it does not come as a cost to the health of our team members. We take pride in that and celebrate them. It is all about balance.” From handwritten cards on birthdays to “Coffee with Eddie” and pins designed by Mrs. Lund that are gifted to associates on big milestones—the company succeeds in appreciating its family any chance it gets, and in the most genuine ways it can discover. Allen Lund Company’s people-first mentality is only further amplified by another philosophy that drives its success. “We have a mantra: Customer, company, and office. And if you ever have a dilemma, you go through these questions: What’s best for our customer? What’s best for our company? What’s best for the specific office involved? If you answer these honestly, you’ll usually get to the answer—the correct answer,” Eddie tells me. “That’s a focus that I think is ingrained in all of our offices. It’s tough to do sometimes because most people ask themselves first, ‘What’s best for me?’” Now, as the company looks to the next 50, 75, and 100 years, its strong bonds are promising enormous growth. “We’ve always said, ‘We’re a growth company.’ I remember Lou Holtz, who was one of the most important coaches of his generation and coached at Notre Dame from 1986 through 1996. There is a sentiment he shared: One of the biggest career mistakes he ever made was that he tried to keep the status quo,” Eddie remembers. “You’re either growing or you’re not, right? You’re either going forward or you’re going backward. So we really look at ourselves as a growth company.”
In recent years, Allen Lund Company has expanded its office footprint dramatically, gone international with a foothold in Canada, and established ALC India, among other ventures. In addition, the company is rallying its investment to its support departments and divisions, trying to align them so sales offices can focus on finding loads and trucks and negotiating deals—doing the work where they really excel. “I always say there are three ways we can grow. We can open a new office, make an acquisition, or grow the network we already have in place. These are where the biggest growth opportunities are for ALC. The work our Vice Presidents and our General Managers are doing to grow their own offices is the most important work we can do,” Eddie says. Such a perspective across the board has allowed Allen Lund Company to build a family of over 700 employees, with shippers and carriers working nationwide to arrange dry, refrigerated (specializing in produce), and flatbed freight. The company manages over 550,000 loads a year and was designated by Transport Topics in 2024 as the 17th Top Freight Brokerage Firm. This is all aside from its logistics and software division, ALC Logistics, which is ranked 48th in the Transport Topics’ 2024 list of Top 100 Logistics Companies and an International Division licensed by the FMC as an OTI-NVOCC #019872NF. To add to the company’s accolades, ALC was named to the 2024 Food Logistics’ Top 3PL and Cold Storage Providers list. In 2023, ALC was included in Transport Topics’ Top Freight Brokerage Firms and Top 100 Logistics Companies lists. ALC has been named to the Inc 5000 list of Fastest Growing Companies, received a Top Software and Technology award from Food Logistics, a Bronze EcoVadis Sustainability rating, and a 2022 Besties Award for Best Philanthropic Initiatives. Today, the Allen Lund Company has more than 40 offices across North America and beyond. While the footprint of this progressive logistics, transportation, and software network feels more behemoth than not, Eddie tells me that sitting down with each employee will always be a lifelong goal. It is at this point I realize nearly an hour has passed, and he has not once looked at his watch or attempted to wrap up the conversation. I may not be one of Allen Lund Company’s 700 employees, but I think I understand the draw now more than ever: When it comes to how it treats its people, you feel like the only person who matters at that moment, in that room, on that day, during that week. And that is not a feeling I will soon forget.