Two trucks in 1994.
Three warehouses today.
Ray Kowalski started Laneway in Columbus with two trucks and a dispatcher who was also his wife. His son Daniel runs it now, with 212 company trucks, 640 trailers and the same rule about where the load is.
The load is where we said it is
In 1994 Ray Kowalski bought two used day cabs and parked them behind a body shop on Alum Creek Drive. His wife Linda ran dispatch from the kitchen table, and the first regular customer was a bakery that needed flour from Toledo every Tuesday.
The rule Ray set that first year still runs the company: every load has one person who owns it, and the load is where we said it is. If it is not, the customer hears it from us before they have to ask.
Their son Daniel started washing trucks at 14 and took over in 2016. Today Laneway runs 212 company trucks, 640 trailers and three warehouses, and dispatch still answers on the second ring.
From two trucks to three buildings
1994
Two trucks
Ray Kowalski, two used day cabs and a dispatcher at the kitchen table.
2003
First warehouse
60,000 sq ft in Groveport, so customers could store freight where we pick it up.
2015
Reefer fleet
40 refrigerated trailers for a grocery chain, and the start of our temperature-logged lanes.
2026
Third building
A new Groveport warehouse takes us to 410,000 sq ft across three buildings.
The people who pick up the phone
Four people run Laneway day to day, and every one of them has worked a shift on dispatch.
Daniel Kowalski
President
Linda Kowalski
Co-founder, still on dispatch every Monday
Renee Okafor
Director of operations
Victor Salas
Safety and driver training
Safety numbers we publish every quarter
Shippers ask for them, and so do drivers. These come from our FMCSA record and our own logs.
crashes per million miles, last 24 months
clean roadside inspections in 2025
average age of our tractors
trucks with forward and in-cab cameras