Anyone traveling around Lehighton has to notice the maroon tractor-trailers with NEMF across the front. An average of 80 trucks a day come in and out of the hub on Mahoning Drive East.

Steve McEvoy, regional operations manager at the New England Motor Freight Co., said the company has been a fixture in Lehighton since 1986. That’s when the New Jersey-based company bought the former Interstate Dress Carriers facility.

Today, the company sends out about 1,000 shipments per day. Each trailer carries about 20 shipments in one load. And each shipment equals about 1,300 pounds. This comes out to more than 2 million pounds of freight shipped in and out of the Lehighton terminal, McEvoy said.

“We are the largest, privately owned LTL (less than truck load) company in the east, and we’re growing,” he said.

The Lehighton terminal employs about 200 people, including drivers, mechanics, office personnel and loaders, and they’re always looking for more. McEvoy said they are in desperate need of drivers and mechanics and will pay people to go to school to learn how to drive.

“These are two good-paying careers,” he said.

NEMF has its own driver training school. If a person is at least 21 years old, has a clean driving record and obtains a driver’s permit on his or her own, then McEvoy said, “We’ll pay them by the hour to go to school.”

NEMF is pretty unique in that its drivers are home every night after work, because the terminal picks up and delivers freight within the Lehigh Valley, Wilkes-Barre, Reading and the eastern Pennsylvania region. Being able to be home with family every night is important to its drivers, he said.

The terminal also has a 32-bay shop with 36 mechanics at present. McEvoy said they will also provide some training to people who are interested in becoming mechanics, but they need to come in with an educational background in auto or diesel mechanics from the technical school.

The Lehighton terminal has “the largest mechanical shop in the company, and the company has 36 terminals as far north as Quebec, Canada; as far west as Chicago, and as far south as Roanoke, Virginia — with one additional terminal in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In areas where they don’t have terminals, they partner with other carriers and provide service to the entire United States, he said.

“We have good people. We have excellent service,” he said. “We’re very customer service driven. Service is what we sell.”

To contact NEMF for more information about hauling or training, call 570-386-4111.