Conard Logistics was founded in 1983 in Nashville, Tennessee by Joe Conard. Tennessee was in the Conard blood — Joe's father Cecil Conard and his wife Edna had settled in the state after Cecil's service in World War II, and it was the values they raised their family on — work ethic, loyalty, faith, and the conviction that a handshake still meant something — that Joe carried into the freight business.

Before opening Conard Logistics, Joe had already spent years in the brokerage world, owning and operating offices in Knoxville, Tennessee, Dallas, Texas, and Jackson, Mississippi. During that time he worked closely with Chuck Ellis and Bill Hargrave, the pioneers behind Mr. Loads — one of the very first computerized freight brokerage platforms used in the country. Ellis and Hargrave were at the tip of the spear, bringing technology to an industry that was still passing carbon copies across desks, and Joe put that technology to work for small and mid-size carriers across every office he ran.

When it came time to build something permanent, Joe came back to Nashville — to raise his family and build the kind of company he'd always wanted. He opened the doors of Conard Logistics and eventually settled the headquarters in La Vergne, Tennessee, right in the heart of Middle Tennessee off I‑24. It's been home ever since.

Today, Conard is a second-generation family business. We still answer the phone when you call. We still know our carriers by name. We still believe a handshake means something. And we still build and adopt the most modern brokerage technology in the industry — not to replace the heart of the operation, but to give every dispatcher, broker, and carrier we work with the leverage to do their best work.

It's the same idea Joe learned growing up in Tennessee. We've just got faster computers now.