Mercer Trucking Co., of Spokane Valley, is returning to smooth pavement after a bumpy ride through the Great Recession, says Steve Hanning, the company owner.

Hanning and a business partner also have launched a separate flatbed trailer-sales business that’s off to a brisk start, sharing the northern section of Mercer Trucking’s 4-acre lot at 1414 N. Fancher Road.

Mercer Trucking currently has 25 employees and 15 trucks after peaking at 58 employees in 2008 and 42 trucks in 2007.

“When you’re hauling a lot of building materials and they’re not building, you’re in deep you-know-what,” Hanning says of the recession years. “It’s like hauling eggs, and all the chickens died.”

He credits parts and fuel vendors for helping the company stay on the road.

“Vendors kept me in business,” he says. “They basically said, ‘Whatever you need we’ll give to you.’ They had faith I would make it through.”

The company sold off some of its trucks to pay the bills.

“We sold 20 older trucks that had 1.7 million miles,” Hanning says. “We kept the best trucks, the best drivers, and the best customers. Since then we’ve had zero turnover.”

During the recession, Mercer Trucking employees who remained with the company took a pay cut. “They’ve all gotten that back, and business is picking up,” he says.

Some drivers have been with the company 20 to 25 years, he says, adding, “A lot of guys have retired from here.”

Coming out of the recession, Mercer Trucking replaced most of its remaining fleet with Freightliner trucks.

“Those helped us get back on our feet,” Hanning says.

Revenue started to rebound the end of 2013, he says, adding, “2014 was good, and 2015 will be a good year as well.”

Hanning says the company’s revenues had grown steadily for two decades before the recession.

“I was spoiled for 20 years,” he says. “1987 to 2007 were all good years.”

Now that the company has slimmed down, its size is more manageable, Hanning says.

“It gives me an opportunity to get back to our roots and get to know our drivers and their families,” he says.

Mercer Trucking hauls loads throughout eight western states and parts of Canada, with an average haul of 400 miles.

“We’ll haul anything that you can put on a flatbed,” Hanning says.

The company is named for T.C. Mercer, who founded Mercer Trucking in the late ’50s or early ’60s.

Hanning’s father, Marshall, bought the company in 1975 after it had gone through two ownership changes, and Hanning has worked there since then.

He bought out his mother’s interest in the company after his father died following a heart transplant in 1987.

Hanning says he was never interested in renaming the company after his own family.

“It’s not about my name,” he says. “It’s about providing jobs and watching families grow up and seeing they have a form of retirement.”

Mercer Trucking is a family-run company, though, Hanning says.

His oldest daughter, Sonia, is the office manager; his son, Michael, works in the shop; and his youngest daughter Celia does odd jobs for Hanning. 

He says they pull their weight and don’t expect special treatment at work.

Celia also works with her mother, Gladys—Hanning’s wife of 41 years—who founded Junebug Furniture & Design, which specializes in vintage décor.

Hanning and longtime friend Ryne Brockway formed Inland Pacific Trailer Sales LLP earlier this year. Brockway had sold trailers at another dealership for 15 years and was a trucker before that.

He was born and raised in Alberta, Canada, and, with his dual citizenship can sell trailers in the U.S. and Canada.

“Ryne is the guy who brought Reitnouer trailers out West,” Hanning claims.

Reading, Pa.-based Reitnouer Inc. is a leader in the flatbed trailer-manufacturing industry.

“They wanted to know if he wanted a dealership, but he didn’t have the space to park them and no office,” Hanning says.

Mercer Trucking had enough unused space to set up a dealership, so Hanning and Brockway formed a partnership and started selling new Reitnouer, Imo, and Cornhusker 800 trailers in March. Inland Pacific also sells used trailers.

The trailer-sales company has no other employees.

Inland Pacific has logged close to $4 million in sales, although the cash flow is too thin for Hanning and Brockway to start taking any income from it yet, Hanning says.

“We’ve got a lot of signed orders and deposits for trailers that aren’t built yet, so money is tight,” he says. “But that will all turn around. We have low overhead and we run a pretty lean-and-mean operation.”

New trailers range in price from $42,000 to $120,000, he says.

“The biggest challenge is when someone wants to trade in a trailer, and we’ve got to come up with the cash,” Hanning says.

He declines to disclose Mercer Trucking’s annual revenue, and says he doesn’t want to combine the revenues of Mercer Trucking and Inland Pacific.

“My goal is to keep them separate,” he says. “Combining them wouldn’t be fair to one or the other.”

Hanning, a former Harley-Davidson motorcycle owner who until recent years took regular road trips to the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, now rides a high-performance road bicycle for exercise on the Peone Prairie.

It keeps him in shape for his other business, Outdoor Hunting Adventures, a guide service that caters to big-game and waterfowl hunters.

“I’ve kept healthy,” he says. “I’m 62 years old. Most of the guys I guide are younger, and they have a hard time keeping up.”

Hanning has owned and operated Outdoor Hunting Adventures for 18 years.

“I started it to keep youth involved in the outdoors,” he says.

Brockway, his Inland Pacific partner, also owns and operates Bones Bay Lodge, a remote, fly-in fishing and wildlife-tour lodge in Knight Inlet, British Columbia.