Washington, D.C., December 2009

Thayer | Hidden Creek announces its investment in Group Transportation Services (“GTS”) to support the purchase of Great Northern Transportation Services, Inc. (“GNTS”). Based in Milford, New Hampshire, GNTS is a one stop-shop provider of truckload, partial truckload and other transportation services primarily to MESCA, which was acquired by GTS in September 2009. GNTS is primarily a sales driven organization which has established excellent, long-term relationships with its customers in the less-than-truckload (“LTL”) sector and other modes of transportation.

In addition to compelling transaction dynamics, the GNTS acquisition (i) enhances the ability to cross-sell GTS’ full outsourced transportation management solution to new and existing GNTS customers; (ii) ensures that MESCA retains its long-term customer relationships and eliminates the sales commission currently paid to GNTS as an outside agent; and (iii) brings additional transport business together with a team of people with long-standing customer relationships.  Finally, the acquisition also represents an additional investment in the attractive 3PL sector, characterized by non-asset based business models and strong returns on invested capital.