HTLD Company Profile

Heartland Express, Inc. is a holding company incorporated in Nevada, which owns all of the stock of Heartland Express Inc. of Iowa, Gordon Trucking, Inc., (“GTI”), Heartland Express Services, Inc., Heartland Express Maintenance Services, Inc., and A & M Express, Inc. We operate as one segment (see Note 1 to the consolidated financial statements).

We are a short-to-medium haul truckload carrier (predominately 500 miles or less per load) with corporate headquarters in North Liberty, Iowa. We primarily provide nationwide asset-based dry van truckload service for major shippers from Washington to Florida and New England to California. During 2013, through the GTI acquisition, we expanded our historical asset-based dry van service offerings with temperature-controlled truckload, and non-asset-based freight brokerage services. Although these additional service offerings were added in late 2013, they are not significant to our operations. We generally earn revenue based on the number of miles per load delivered. We believe the keys to success are maintaining high levels of customer service and safety which are predicated on the availability of late-model equipment and experienced drivers. Management believes that our service standards, safety record, and equipment accessibility have made us a core carrier to many of our major customers, as well as allowed us to build solid, long-term relationships with customers and brand ourselves as an industry leader for on-time service.

Our operations department focuses on the successful execution of customer expectations and providing consistent opportunities for the fleet of employee drivers and independent contractors, in conjunction with maximizing equipment utilization. These objectives require a combined effort of marketing, regional operations managers, and fleet management.

Our customer service department is responsible for maintaining the continuity between the customer’s needs and our ability to meet those needs by communicating the customer’s expectations to the fleet management group. Collectively, the operations group (customer service and fleet management) and marketing are charged with developing customer relationships, ensuring service standards, coordinating proper freight-to-capacity balancing, trailer asset management, and daily tactical decisions to match customer demand with revenue equipment availability across our entire network. They assign orders to drivers based on well-defined criteria, such as United States Department of Transportation (the “DOT”) hours of service compliance, customer requirements, equipment utilization, driver “home time”, limiting non-revenue miles, and equipment maintenance needs.

Fleet management employees are responsible for driver management and development. Additionally, they maximize the capacity that is available to meet the service needs of our customers. Their responsibilities include meeting the needs of the drivers within the standards that have been set by the organization and communicating the requirements of the customers to the drivers on each order to ensure successful execution.

Serving the short-to-medium haul market (predominantly 500 miles or less per load) permits us to use primarily single, rather than team drivers and dispatch most loads directly from origin to destination without an intermediate equipment change other than for driver scheduling purposes. Substantially all of our revenue is, and for the last three fiscal years has been, generated from within the United States (“U.S.”) with immaterial revenue derived from Canada. We do not have nor have we during the last three fiscal years had any long-lived assets permanently located outside the U.S.

We operate twenty-one terminal facilities throughout the U.S. in addition to our corporate headquarters in North Liberty, Iowa. These terminal locations are strategically located to concentrate on regional freight movements generally within a 500-mile radius of the terminals and are designed to meet the needs of significant customers in those regions while allowing our drivers to primarily stay within an operating region which provides them with more “home time.” This also allows us to better service and maintain revenue equipment at facilities we operate.

Personnel at the individual terminal locations manage these operations based on the overall operating and maintenance corporate goals and objectives. We use a centralized computer network and regular communication to achieve enterprise-wide load coordination.

We emphasize customer satisfaction through on-time performance, dependable late-model equipment, and consistent equipment availability to meet the volume requirements of our large customers. We also maintain a high trailer to tractor ratio, which facilitates the positioning of trailers at customer locations for convenient loading and unloading. Most of the freight we transport is non-perishable and predominantly does not require driver handling. These factors help minimize waiting time, which increases tractor utilization and promotes driver retention.