Choosing south St. Louis County as their base, Polish immigrants build a trucking company from scratch
Zbigniew and Agnes Matukin didn’t plan to start a business when they immigrated from Poland to the United States.
Agnes came first, joining her parents and other relatives in 1995. They had settled in a New York City borough, home to a large Polish-American community. Zbigniew, whose nickname is Ziggy, followed her a year later and they married in 1997. Agnes worked at a bank and Ziggy worked as a roofer and helped haul material away from Ground Zero, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed from the terrorist attack Sept. 11, 2001.
The turning point for the couple, who grew up in Lomza, Poland, came when Ziggy’s uncle pushed him to get a commercial driver's license.
Ziggy became a truck driver, first as an employee and then as independent contractor. He hauled loads between New York and California. On days off, Agnes began to learn the trucking business.