Carmen Delacroix-Reyes Keeps Red River Freightways Rolling Through Central Louisiana

Carmen Delacroix-Reyes did not grow up around trucks. She grew up around spreadsheets, working as a logistics coordinator for a national freight brokerage before deciding, at 34, that she understood the industry well enough to build something better herself. Nine years later, Red River Freightways operates a fleet of 58 trucks out of a terminal just off U.S. 165 in Alexandria, hauling timber, agricultural goods, and manufactured products across Central Louisiana and into neighboring states.

"I spent years booking loads for other people's trucks and watching drivers get treated like disposable parts," Delacroix-Reyes said. "I kept thinking, somebody could build a trucking company where the drivers actually want to stay. I got tired of waiting for somebody else to do it."

Solving Trucking's Retention Problem

The trucking industry nationally struggles with driver turnover rates that regularly exceed 90 percent annually at large carriers. Delacroix-Reyes built Red River Freightways around the opposite premise, structuring routes so that the majority of drivers return home nightly or within 48 hours, a rarity in an industry often built around long-haul routes that keep drivers away for weeks.

"Carmen designed our dispatch system around drivers' actual lives, not just load efficiency," said Reginald Toups, Red River Freightways' operations manager and one of the company's first hires. "That sounds simple, but almost nobody in this industry actually does it. Most companies extract maximum miles and don't think twice about what that costs a driver's family."

The strategy has paid off in retention numbers that outperform industry averages by a wide margin, with the company reporting driver turnover below 25 percent annually. That stability has, in turn, made Red River Freightways a preferred carrier for regional timber companies and agricultural shippers who value consistency and drivers familiar with their specific loading requirements.

Serving Central Louisiana's Timber and Farm Economy

Red River Freightways has built particularly deep relationships with the timber industry that remains central to the Central Louisiana economy, hauling pine sawtimber and pulpwood from logging sites to mills across a service area stretching from Alexandria to Natchitoches and down toward Bunkie. The company has also expanded into hauling agricultural products, including cotton and soybeans, during harvest season peaks.

"You can't just send any driver out to a logging site," Delacroix-Reyes said. "It takes specialized equipment knowledge and patience with rough terrain. We've built a team that specializes in exactly that, and it's made us the carrier loggers call first."

Delacroix-Reyes has also prioritized recruiting military veterans transitioning out of nearby Fort Johnson, partnering with a base transition program to offer CDL training scholarships in exchange for a service commitment with the company. Roughly a third of Red River Freightways' current drivers came through that pipeline.

"These are people who already know how to operate heavy equipment under pressure and follow safety protocols to the letter," Delacroix-Reyes said. "It's one of the best-kept secrets in trucking recruitment, honestly."

Looking ahead, Delacroix-Reyes is planning a modest fleet expansion in 2026 to meet growing demand from a new modular home manufacturer opening a plant near Alexandria, while resisting pressure from investors to scale rapidly into long-haul interstate routes. "I know exactly what kind of company we are," she said. "We're the ones who get you home for dinner. I'm not trading that away for bigger numbers on a spreadsheet."