U.S. Postal Service shipping contractor shutting Columbus operations, cutting 82 jobs

[Backseat Driver]

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2024/04/18/usps-contractor-evo-transportation-closing.html

(Paywall promotion to subscribe to all relevant stories outside of a free newsnote) Not sure this link will correctly work but condensed and copied/pasted here by recipient OP of the newsnote as a quasi-governmental notice related to USPS management. Please read and alert me in comments, and I will delete if rules prevent publication condensed as is and pasted here.

By Carrie Ghose – Staff reporter, Columbus Business First
Apr 18, 2024

A major shipping contractor for the U.S. Postal Service is closing its Columbus operations center, ending 82 jobs, according to a notice filed with the state.Evo Transportation and Energy Services Inc. is "permanently ceasing all operations" at its 3115 E. 17th Ave. facility as of June 15, according to the WARN notice to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

The closure is "caused by a large client unexpectedly notifying Evo that it is terminating its contract with Evo, resulting in a significant loss of work and revenue at the impacted facility," the notice said. The notice did not name USPS, but mail transportation under 200 Postal Service contracts represents 90% of Evo's revenue, according to its latest annual report. The company believes it is one of the largest ground transportation contractors to the agency.

"Over the past few years the USPS has consolidated the number of carriers it utilizes and Evo expects further consolidation of this transportation supplier base," according to Evo's latest annual report, but the company believed at the time it could win more contracts in the process.

Phoenix-based Evo was delisted in March and has been selling off assets, according to its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Its shares are now trading over-the-counter. The company filed its 2022 annual report late in November and has not filed a 2023 report.

Evo shuttered its Austin location in 2020, and filed a WARN notice for its Atlanta location this January, affecting 71 jobs. Besides Columbus, other operations centers are in Des Moines, Indianapolis, St. Louis, suburban Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin. The company had 1,760 employees overall at the end of 2022, according to the annual report.

The company went public in 2017 in a reverse merger of a natural gas company into a shell company, then started acquiring regional trucking carriers.Otherwise in Central Ohio, logistics has been booming, with new carriers attracted and local companies expanding.