The demise of a trucking giant

Celadon Group Inc. on Dec. 9 filed for bankruptcy and abruptly shut down, eliminating nearly 4,000 jobs and bringing to a bitter close one of central Indiana’s great entrepreneurial success stories. 

The trucking company launched with a single truck in 1985 and grew into the largest provider of international truckload services in North America, with more than 150,000 annual border crossings between the United States, Canada and Mexico.

But in the years after its co-founder and longtime leader, Stephen Russell, retired and then died, the company went in new directions that led to financial problems and accusations of fraud. 

Podcast host Mason King talks with IBJ Editor Greg Andrews and reporter Susan Orr about Celadon's rise and fall as well as what role the fraud allegations played in its demise.

You can read more about the alleged account scheme and the people accused of wrong doing in Andrews' Behind the News column published on Dec. 13.

And you read Orr's account of the company's closure here.

News clip is from WISH-TV Channel 8.