Media

CBD Courier in the News

Never Exhausted

by Michael Jackman
Louisville Magazine
June 2003

Fast and fuel-less: CBD courier Paul Thompson

When the call comes in to the CBD Courier office at 222 S. First St., cyclist David Zoller doesn’t look up from his book. His dishwater-blond dreadlocks don’t even jiggle. It’s colleague Paul Thompson’s turn to ride.

The pickup’s at 13th and Broadway; the drop-off’s at Fifth and Jefferson. Thompson notes the delivery info on a clipboard, stuffs the clipboard in a pouch, slings the pouch over his shoulder, checks the hands-free phone rig attached to his shoulder strap and, with Zoller waiting on the next call, heads out. Having come here on my own bike, I head out with him.

It’s a brisk spring day — sunny skies, temperature in the 50s. Thompson unlocks his Trek mountain bike from the “fleet” chained in front of the building, stows its lock, and jumps a running mount, popping a curb into traffic. We strain against a stiff headwind.

“Bust a right here,” he yells above the wind and traffic noise while signaling, his left arm up at a right angle.

Thompson is helmeted and wears gray sweats with a blue jacket. We ride side by side, owning our lane like the bike-courier icons of New York, Chicago and San Francisco: hard-core two-wheeled downtown daredevils, weaving in and out of traffic. All we’re missing, thankfully, is spandex.

Jackie Green, 50, a local environmental activist, started CBD Courier last October. For $5 a package, the service promises speedy document delivery within the 40202 and 40203 zip codes, known as the Central Business District (thus CBD). For up to $30, riders will even venture beyond the Gene Snyder (with the help of TARC’s bike-rack-equipped buses) and over the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge into Southern Indiana.

Knowing that lawyers form a large pool of potential clients, CBD also offers court filings. The rates are competitive with Zip Express and Bee Line courier services, Green’s internal-combustion-fueled competitors.

Gray-haired, ponytailed, lean from riding and walking (“I always take the bus, bike or walk,” he says), Green has become something of a Louisville icon himself. Since returning to the city in January 2000 from his 110-acre farm in Scottsburg, Ind., he’s spent most of his time organizing one grassroots transportation group after another: BRUKI (the Bus Riders Union of Kentucky and Indiana); No Wider I-64, a group opposed to a plan to expand the girth of that interstate; and CART (Coalition for the Advancement of Regional Transportation), which advocates for light rail and other eco-conscious transportation alternatives. Now he’s put his own feet to the pedals, hoping, he says, to demonstrate environmental action rather than just advocate for it, and, of course, to generate some cash. But starting CBD has been an uphill climb.

“It’s a slow build,” Green admits. “I can’t keep anybody busy full-time right now.”

Fortunately, startup costs have been low. Green’s CART office, a space donated by Walter Wagner Jr. Co., a real estate outfit, now doubles as CBD headquarters. Outside, chained to a post, Green’s chunky, 20-year-old Ross 10-speed advertises the business via a CBD Courier sign that hangs from the crossbar.

Green runs the service by cell phone. His couriers are independent contractors, not employees, and pocket 60 percent of the take. They supply their own bicycles, helmets and insurance, although CBD is bonded, covering customers for theft or loss.

As this story is being reported, CBD’s daily dispatches number between a dozen and about 20. Green’s short-term goal is to double that. Clearly, no one is getting rich leaning into a headwind for a living. But while Green, who lists 32 clients (about two-thirds of those regulars), peddles his service to local businesses via phone calls, meetings, fliers and the Web, he also peddles a pedaling philosophy. The activist cites a litany of eco-reasons for using CBD, such as reducing air pollution, traffic congestion, parking demand, fuel consumption, urban noise, and increasing the number of companies showing concern for the environment.

“There is no need to take a one-ton vehicle to deliver a 10-ounce envelope,” he says.
Anna Meade, program coordinator and copywriter for Ad Hawk ad agency at 201 E. Main St., says she uses CBD to deliver proofs and mockups because “whenever possible, we like to try and reduce the amount of driving people are doing.”

And Green points out another advantage CBD offers: “We can beat (car couriers) — they have to find a place to park.”

Green is an odd entrepreneur in that he has little patience for bottom-line details, as he readily reveals. “If you want a business plan, go to Harvard. I’m interested in getting stuff done,” he says. He just dropped $400 for CBD T-shirts, a big capital expense for a company making 100 or so deliveries a week. At 40 percent of the take, Green’s making what would be pocket change to other businessmen. “Right now I’m drawing on savings,” he admits.

But that’s nothing unusual for entrepreneurs, who often fund startups by maxing out credit cards. The question is, can Green last long enough to stay in the race.

“I’m fine,” he answers elliptically.

At first, to help put air in CBD’s tires, Green consulted Jillian Corbett, owner of Scram Couriers in Madison, Wis. The 34-year-old former San Francisco courier now keeps herself and six others busy with 30 to 40 deliveries per day.

Corbett, who runs Scram from her home, also started her business out-of-pocket, investing $5,000 in long-range two-way radios, advertising, bonding, and a Web site. She has no objections to Green’s pedal-first, plan-later approach. “If he’s doing it on his own, it sounds like a recipe for getting things going,” she says. “I would say it’s a great dipstick to find out how deep the water is.”

Back on the delivery run, Paul Thompson and I have picked up our package and now are threading our way to the PNC Bank Building on Jefferson.

“What are your biggest obstacles?” I shout at Thompson as we head south on Roy Wilkins Avenue. Unfortunately, we need to get in the far left lane, but it appears deadly to attempt a crossing.

“Drivers,” he says.

I glance back at an 18-wheeler behind me, and another one approaching in the adjacent lane, and at the crowded lanes we are eventually going to cross. I ask him why we can’t just pull over at a crosswalk and walk across. By his expression I gather that my strategy would be wussy. Besides, he says, as vehicles we belong in the road.

“And we follow all the road rules,” Thompson says. “Jackie insists on it.”

A few minutes later we’ve wended our way to the drop-off. Thompson snakes his cable around a light pole and through our bikes, takes the elevator to the 15th floor, and hands over the package. Eighteen minutes, even with an unintended detour — not bad.

Back at headquarters, I ask the 31-year-old Thompson what made him choose to ride for CBD. With his dark brown goatee and narrow, black-framed glasses, I picture him more at home at his regular job — behind the bar at Kentucky Cove in the Kentucky Center. He tells me he took the job to get paid to condition his body (he’s lost eight pounds so far), to do something he enjoys and to be environmentally responsible.

Zoller, who lives in a 10-person “collective house” in Old Louisville, also quotes the Green party line. “I don’t know of anybody that’s involved in this that looks at it as a business,” he says. “It’s more a bunch of us that are banding together so that we can live doing what we love and continue trying to make Louisville a better, greener place to live.”

Even if it involves vying for road space with those dang motorists. “It’s like dealing with any other big dumb animal,” Zoller says, his frustration evident. “If you show fear, you’re going to be in trouble.”

Jackie Green has some good news: A deal has been struck with Brad Baumert, president and founder of Zip Express Courier Services, to farm out some of Zip’s local rides to CBD.

“There’s plenty of work we do downtown that would be conducive for a bicycle,” says Baumert, adding that dispatching cars from far away, only to have them park twice downtown and burn extra fuel, wasn’t efficient.

So why not hire your own cyclists? In fact, he tried that 10 years ago, but didn’t have much luck. “As the summer wore on, it got to where they were wanting to get into vehicles,” he says.

Green probably won’t have that problem. He manages to find the hard-core, committed cyclists who don’t mind a little sweat equity.

The Zip Express business could add from 10 to 25 daily runs, Baumert estimates, which will give CBD some much-needed green of another kind. But right now, CBD’s founder is thinking about all the fossil fuels not being burned, thanks to him.

“This is one of the things we wanted to accomplish,” Green crows. “We wanted to help companies change the way they do business.”