Drivers in control of Diamond Cabs
Owner Ted Yaceyko plans to hand over keys for business before spring retirement
Daron Letts
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, February 12, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Diamond Cabs is undergoing a reorganization that will put the nearly 20-year-old company in the hands of its employees by March 1, according to outgoing owner Ted Yaceyko.
Ted Yaceyko, owner of Diamond Cab, is retiring in advance of his 75th birthday this spring. The drivers of Diamond Taxi will take over the business in March after heretires. - Daron Letts/NNSL photo |
"In other words, I'm turning the company over to the drivers," he said. "They're going to be the captains on the boat."
During a staff meeting in mid-January, Yaceyko gave his drivers two weeks, until Feb. 1, to decide what they wanted to do with the company.
The new company may be organized as a co-operative, through the selling of shares or as a partnership, Yaceyko speculated, adding he is not involved in the plan.
"They were told they had a certain amount of time to decide whether they wanted to run the company or not and, of course, they all jumped for the opportunity. To get a turn-key company with contracts and cars and radio equipment and dispatch service, all really all there for them - hey - nobody ever gave me a turn-key operation," he said, adding he gave them an extension until March 1.
"They supported me all through and the company will be just turned over to the drivers under new management. Everything stays the same. There's no payout or anything. The company was good to me, it will be good for them."
In April 2012, 10 Diamond Cabs drivers broke away from the company and started their own business, Aurora Taxi. Sharing a customer base with Aurora and City Cab - Yellowknife's longest-running cab company - is a challenge, Yaceyko said.
"There's only so many ways you can cut a pie and with the three companies, each one gets a smaller piece," he said.
"It's just a little bit more tight. More competitive."
However, that competition has improved taxi service in the city, he added.
"I'm sure somebody's there between three to 10 minutes," he said.
About 20-full and part-time drivers run 16 vehicles for Diamond Cabs.
"We certainly, at our peak, had considerably more than we started with and there were times when we had considerably less," he said.
Yaceyko, who turns 75 this spring, plans to retire from business ownership, but said he will continue to drive a cab for the new company owners.
"I will have less stress. I will have more time for doing some of the things that I want to do in my retirement years," he said.
He said drivers are discussing the possibility of replacing Diamond Cabs' manual radio dispatch system with the kind of computer systems used by the other two cab companies.
"I'm from the old-school and I read the old book. Now the new people have new ideas," he said.
"Technology has advanced greatly."
Diamond Cabs, which has operated for about 15 years, 10 under Yaceyko's ownership, is one of several companies the longtime business owner has run.
He transferred National Car Rental, which he started in 1964, to his daughter, Cordi Deutschmann, a decade ago and he ran The Sportsman athletic goods store for half a century, closing in the mid 1990s, after which he began focusing on Diamond Cabs.
Part-time Diamond Cabs driver Tony Alaga said he plans to stay on with the company after March 1.
Alaga has driven with the company for about six years. Prior to that, he drove for City Cab for about 20 years, he said.
"I will stay probably till summer, then take the summer off and come back in winter," he said.
"We will just have to wait and see. You can't really plan yet."
