Rob Ukropina’s advice to fellow entrepreneurs: “Your net worth is your network.”

The amount of help you get relates to the amount of help you give, said Ukropina, chief executive of Irvine-based Overnite Express.

The Business Journal honored Ukropina for his work building parcel delivery service Overnite Express at last week’s Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards luncheon.

After a prior bid at publishing, Ukropina found work delivering packages regionally, late into the evenings for graphic artists, accountants, attorneys and others who wrap up the day’s work well past 5 p.m.

“We’re not shipping for Toshiba or IBM,” Ukropina said.

Founded in 1992, Overnite has about 6,000 small-business customers. It employs nearly 200 people, most of them drivers.

Overnite is known for its 9 p.m. drop-off time, after FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. have stopped picking up packages. The company competes with the big delivery companies as well as Phoenix-based California Overnight.

Overnite Express delivers to California and Nevada.

Ukropina declined to say what Overnite’s yearly sales are. The company expects to deliver more than a million packages this year, he said.

Overnite’s prices, like FedEx’s, depend on the zone and the delivery time. Overnite picks up at businesses or from its own drop-off boxes across the state. The company pays a percent of its box sales to property managers.

Ukropina started out in the restaurant business. After college, he managed a Velvet Turtle Restaurant, a now-obsolete chain. Later, he got into the printing business and ran the Orange County and San Diego division for Pandick Inc., a printer of prospectuses and other financial documents that went out of business in the early 1990s.

The common thread for Ukropina: service businesses. “I love the service business,” he said.

It was a rough start. Ukropina said he put “everything he had” into his last business—a magazine that listed businesses for sale. But it didn’t make it.

Selling advertising during the late 1980s and early 1990s was tough, he said.

“There weren’t enough businesses turning in California to make it work,” Ukropina said. “I was very humbled.”

During that time, Ukropina’s wife Joyce started Johnson/Ukropina Creative Marketing in Irvine to keep them in business. Joyce Ukropina is a partner at Johnson/Ukropina.

Then came Overnite in 1992. Rob Ukropina said he found an angel investor who put in $150,000, which ran out in nine months. He sought an extra $250,000 and got a Small Business Administration loan for $100,000.

And here’s where networking came in, according to Ukropina. He said investors and customers signed on because of how many people he knew and had helped.

“I had a large network and knew a lot of people,” he said.

Partner Doug Schneider, who was Ukropina’s close friend and financial advisor, made a career change and became chief operating officer a year after the company started.

In the early days at Overnite, Ukropina was the salesman. Now he has 11 salespeople. But he said he still spends two to three days a week traveling to meet clients.

“E-mail and voice mail are so impersonal,” he said.

One of Overnite’s big expenses is gas. It charges a variable fuel surcharge, which now is 4%. Workers’ compensation insurance also is a big expense, despite a low accident rate, Ukropina said.

Other advice he’d offer to those starting businesses: “Surround yourself with smarter people and then let go.”

That is a problem entrepreneurs have, according to Ukropina.

“My organizational structure is upside down,” he said. “I’m at the bottom. I nurture the next level up.”

Now Ukropina said he has more time to mentor others. He said he serves on boards of a few startups in exchange for stakes in the companies.

“That’s probably where I’m getting my enjoyment right now,” he said.

Ukropina also spends a lot of time with his family. He has three grown children. He said he likes public speaking, running, and snowboarding.

By Sherri Cruz
Orange County Business Journal