By Christina Rosell Quiroz, Hackbarth Delivery Services, Final Mile Solutions & Marketing Manager

How do you establish reliable service in a state as big as Texas?

If you’re Kelly Picard, you do it all at once.

In 2017, Hackbarth opened 11 Texas terminals simultaneously. In a state where a route that works in Dallas may make little sense in Amarillo, that mattered. Any shipper who has tried to cover Texas with one or two hubs knows how quickly service can thin out between cities.

As CEO and the second generation of the Hackbarth family to lead the business, Kelly knew what the company could do for customers, especially with critical goods in pharmaceutical and medical distribution. Hackbarth has stepped in when shippers needed dependable service since Rob Hackbarth, her father, founded the company in 1975. Kelly saw an opportunity to bring that same reliable service to Texas on a much larger scale.

So, Hackbarth went bigger.

Kelly spent weeks traveling the state, evaluating locations and preparing for the launch. It was an ambitious and impactful investment that ultimately enhanced what Hackbarth could offer. Rather than serving Texas as a set of isolated cities, the company built out a strategic intrastate footprint, which stands at 13 locations today. That presence also opened the door to Oklahoma and Arkansas. Combined, these moves led to expansion in Hackbarth’s linehaul, B2B and B2C operations across Texas to the Southeast. What was once a string of standalone Southeast markets is now a connected, highly coordinated, multi-state network.

The Texas expansion was a leap, and its timing proved consequential. Home delivery grew. Every delivery is now more visible. Two-day and same-day promises have pushed consumer expectations higher. Shippers are competing for market share based on how quickly they can adapt. This means they now need agile partners that can keep up, all without losing control of service. Hackbarth had already made that investment in 2017.

Now operating 40 locations across 12 states with more than 800,000 square feet, Hackbarth remains privately owned, family-led, and is certified as a woman-owned business by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council. Growth expanded the map, but it has not changed the company’s approach, which comes down to one question: “What does this customer’s network actually need?”

Knowing how many stops one route can absorb before service slips or which markets are ready for a dedicated terminal is crucial. Finding the answer can be overwhelming and make both cost and reliability difficult to predict. For Hackbarth, fifty years of experience turns the answer from a guess into a strategy.

Today, the company is still finding new ways to help shippers reach more customers while keeping service personal.