The next supply chain crisis may start not with ports, but with business owners closing permanently. America must make succession a normal part of small business planning because when viable logistics companies disappear, workers lose their jobs, communities lose their employers, and consumers end up paying for less competitive supply chains.
Think about how normal life goes on. The food on grocery store shelves, the parts that keep factories running, the equipment used in hospitals and the packages delivered to your front door all rely on an array of businesses that move goods. Many of these links are not large companies. They are small trucking companies, freight brokers, warehouses and other logistics providers built over decades by people who know their customers, employees, routes and markets.
Now these businesses are approaching a cliff.
According to the McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility, about 6 million small and medium-sized businesses may face an ownership transition by 2035 as the baby boomers retire. More than 1 million could be viable candidates for sale, representing an enterprise value of up to $5 trillion. However, the same report estimates that by 2022, 92% of small businesses will eventually close, with only 5% exiting through sales. There is no shortage of good businesses. Failure to connect owners to successors.
In the logistics world, the consequences of this failure extend far beyond the seller’s retirement. When a transportation company closes, its employees don’t simply disappear from the spreadsheet. A dispatcher who spent 20 years mastering customer operations lost his livelihood. A driver lost a familiar employer. Customers must find other providers. Local tax revenues dropped. Another part of the supply chain is also concentrated in larger hands.
This is the bad result: a lot of quiet closures, fewer independent operators, less competition, and more dependence on companies that are big enough. Ultimately, higher costs and less flexibility impact the prices and delivery times everyone experiences.
But there is another way, and it’s more promising.
Keep your options open
Retiring owners don’t have to choose between running the company forever or closing it. Businesses can be sold to industry veterans, employees, first-time owners with the right operating partners, or other buyers who understand what they are actually buying: not just trucks, contracts, or cash flow, but people, trust, expertise, and reputation.
This distinction is important. I’m not saying that every buyer is automatically good for the business, or that every institutional investor is predatory. Capital can provide much-needed resources for small companies. But treating employees, customers, and institutional knowledge as disposable transactions can destroy value while appearing successful on a spreadsheet. Buyers should understand the industry, respect employees, and have a solid continuity plan in place before the deal closes.
The opportunities are huge. McKinsey estimates that an effective ownership transfer could save up to 12 million jobs and protect local spending power of about $250 billion per year. This is a story of economic resilience.
So we need to take action before owners retire without a plan.
Start preparing now
If you own a small logistics business, start preparing now. Get your finances in order, rely less on yourself, document key processes, and understand your company’s value. Talk to qualified advisors, brokers and potential buyers. Closing the door should be a last resort, not a default resort.
If you are an experienced logistics operator or an aspiring owner, look at acquisitions differently. You may not need to start a company from scratch. Financing tools, including Small Business Administration-backed loans, can enable qualified buyers to obtain ownership.
If you work in economic development, banking, M&A, or entrepreneurship, help build better markets for these transformations.
We have a choice. We can let viable businesses disappear one retiree at a time, or we can transfer them to capable new owners and keep the economic engine humming. The time chosen is before the keys are returned, not after the door is locked.
Pete Vera is a managing partner at GreenRock Logistics, a company that acquires and integrates transportation and logistics businesses, and the host of the Exit Algorithm podcast. All opinions expressed are the author’s own.