2026 marks the 30 year anniversary of the Erie-based company, Logistics Plus.
Getting fired from his job at the age of 44 is what led Jim Berlin to start his company, Logistics Plus.
According to Berlin, “Actually when I got fired from the trucking company, it was going to bat for our customer which was GE and I had a good reputation there and a few months later, their traffic manager, Dan Lynch called me up and said ‘we have a project for you. It’s a tag team that we are doing to get our inbound costs under control”‘.
Logistics Plus’ first customer was GE and at the start, Berlin was hesitant to see how long the company would last.
“Honestly, I wasn’t sure we would make it through the one year purchase order that we had. It was a shot in the dark”, explained Berlin.
But the company quickly grew both in its customer base and across the global.
“In two years, we went from two to three people from U.S. domestic to eight countries for global”, said Berlin.
In 1997, Logistics Plus went global, making its mark in Mexico and then in Eastern Europe and Asia. Logistics Plus is currently in 35 different countries and has warehouse space across the United States, but Erie will always be home, which is why Berlin cares so much about the Erie community.
“You have to recognize that any success you have is related to the people you are living with and you want to give back to that. So we have always been good on giving money to the local people, the radio stations, NPR, the sports programs”, said Berlin.
Berlin said the anniversary is this coming august and they plan to have a big celebration with all their employees and customers to mark the occasion.