A legacy of resiliency and treating people the right away: G&H

G&H Motor Freight Lines, which experienced a large fire Dec. 27 that destroyed its warehouse and office facility here in Greenfield, has found its origin and staying power in the community through a story of being resourceful and resilient.

Two couples still living in Greenfield have ties to the beginnings of G&H, which was sold to Brown Nationalease in 2003. The name has remained as G&H is a division of Brown Nationalease, a distributor of various products all over the region.

Beginning in 1970, Darry and Roleen Chiles were business partners with Dennis and Nancy Gross as owners of G&H Motor Freight Lines, but the business began back in 1947.

Gross Manufacturing, started in 1929 by Gilbert Gross and his son Roland, needed a way to distribute harrow drawbars and other products they were making, as the business was once more of a repair business and had turned to mostly a manufacturing firm. This was after a fire in 1945, the same day Gilbert passed away.

Roland Gross went into business with Ted Howe to begin G&H after purchasing another area carrier. Roland Gross is Roleen and Dennis' father. Roleen’s husband Darry came into the business later.

In its time, G&H has had more than one location. It was first located a block southeast of the Greenfield square at Gross Manufacturing. It later moved and was just west of Cardinal IG on the north side of town. It ultimately moved to where it is today.

The building that burned was at first smaller and was later added onto. It was first built in 1990. To see a building like this go up in flames hit the past owners hard.

“The fire hit us just about as hard as it hit Browns,” Dennis Gross said in an interview last week. “We spent half our lives out there. Lord knows how many hours we would put in.”

Throughout it history, Dennis said the strength of the company was its employees.

“I’ve always felt like we were pretty doggone successful,” he said. “Most of [our employees] were very loyal and with us for a lot of years.”

”They were all important and did good work," Roleen added.

Dennis said the company was in the right spot at the right time on more than one occasion.

“If an opportunity came up, we pretty much jumped on it, unless it was totally rediculous,” he said.

Early in its history, in the days when a trucking company had to possess the authority to transport between certain destinations, jumping on opportunities meant G&H was purchasing other truck lines which landed them in other markets for “short haul” contracts.

In more recent years when stiffer regulations on the trucking industry went away, jumping on “long haul” opportunities for G&H meant they were latching onto other companies in the area that had a need for freight to be hauled, such as the ink plant Siegwerk, Cardinal IG, Rose Acres egg farms or the gummy bear and candy producer Ferrara, which was in Creston until 2017. These partnerships lasted varying amounts of time, but they were crucial to G&H remaining a viable part of the Greenfield business community.

Darry stated that he’s hoping Brown Nationalease will re-establish a facility here that is similar to the one that burned.

“We hope they’ll re-establish what was here,” Darry said.G&H General Manager Stan Feldhacker told the newspaper that a timeline for a decision from Brown Nationalease on the future of what was lost in Greenfield because of the fire is unknown to him right now.