Headquarters: Blaine
Inception: 1945 (approx.)
Family name: Canine
What the company does: Operates charter, school, and State Fair buses
Structure: C corp.
Principal owners: Ben Canine, Mike Canine, Alan Gingold
Employees: 170 (approx.)
Family members in the business: 2
Family members on the board: 3

We’ve all driven past a Lorenz bus as we drive around the cities, but most of us haven’t been lucky enough to ride in a Lorenz charter carrying the Gopher football team or maybe the Minnesota Wild. And while precious few adults board a Lorenz school bus on the streets of Spring Lake Park or Anoka, most of us have ridden a Lorenz bus, since the company provides a cool million of the 1.5 million bus trips to the State Fair.

Lorenz does nothing but buses, but within that framework it does it all (other than public transit). That diversification has helped Lorenz scale, survive the pandemic, and thrive in an industry where most operators own five or fewer buses (Lorenz has 175).

The company has its roots in transit, born as Rice-Edgerton Lines, providing transit on its namesake streets within St. Paul. Lorenz entered the charter business in the 1970s, bringing the first coach-style buses to the state in 1983. Jim Canine and Alan Gingold (he owns 26% of Lorenz) purchased the company in 1994. It expanded into school buses in 2010, while its unique State Fair service dates to the 1990s.

When the family entered the business, Lorenz was a $2 million- to $3 million-dollar business; it expects revenue to be 10 times as large this year.

Jim’s wife, Trudy, handled HR for the company throughout the 2010s, while sons Ben and Mike followed him into the business in 2013 and 2009, respectively, and now run it. (Jim passed away in 2021.)

The brothers moved into leadership in 2017 and had three years to become proficient before the pandemic, which literally took away all of Lorenz’s customers, but not the debt on its buses. “I spent every hour from May to December of 2020 on the phone with someone in the industry or a congressional staffer,” remembers Mike, 37, the company’s CEO, who is responsible for sales and marketing, customer service, and HR. Congress was eagerly bailing out many hard-hit industries, but not the bus business. In the end, Canine was instrumental in galvanizing the industry to lobby for the CERTS Act, which provided $2 billion to motor coach companies. (The bus biz had 3,000 companies pre-Covid; half of them made it to today.)

“It’s an industry of mom-and-pops,” explains Ben, 39, COO, who is responsible for technology, operations, legal, and finance. “There was no lobbying savvy. But there were bus companies in 432 of the 435 congressional districts.”

In 2023, Lorenz received the Vision Award from the United Motorcoach Association for Mike’s contribution to the industry’s welfare. “Mike lives and breathes buses. We were a local company before Covid, but now everyone in the industry lines up to talk to Mike,” explains Ben. “He’s an oracle.”

Lorenz’s charter business is heavily dedicated to transporting college and pro sports teams from airport to hotel to venue and back, but it also services conferences and large events such as political conventions and tournaments, all the way down to one-offs such as weddings. The diversification—charter, schools and the Fair—spreads demand throughout the year, keeping drivers busy and cash flow steady.

“It’s a service business,” Ben notes. “You stand out for your customer skills.”

The company also has an intense focus on an internal constituency: its drivers. “We think of them as clients,” Ben explains. “They expect good, clean, modern equipment. We negotiate our driver gratuity with clients up front,” rather than leaving it to chance. “Historically, staffing is this industry’s biggest challenge, but we’ve [improved] the economics of driving to make that less challenging.”

Lorenz has a large quotient of 20- to 30-year employees. “Mike and I share an emphasis on developing people and accountability,” Ben continues. “We spend a lot of time on culture and meet monthly with the entire company” at its Blaine campus just north of County Road J and U.S. 10.

Lorenz has grown to among the top 10% in its field by revenue. A lot of its marketing is word of mouth in the sports arena, but it employs digital tools to attract weddings and small events, while relationships with hotel catering departments provide referrals for conferences.

“Mike is my first call in Minneapolis/St. Paul and has been for 15 years,” says Ed Lane, vice president of transportation services for Boston-based Anthony Travel, which handles travel logistics for 16 of 18 Big 10 universities. “Mike has out-serviced everyone in the Midwest. If we ask for 90 minutes prior, Lorenz is there 95. We get his best drivers. They do dry runs to make sure there are no surprises. I can call Mike at 11 at night and I know he’ll pick up.”

Stop in the unassuming second-floor room that constitutes Lorenz’s executive offices and you’re as likely to see partner Alan Gingold at his desk as Ben and Mike. “We would not be here without the Gingold family, and Alan is a second father to us,” explains Mike. “The Gingolds are about as integral to Lorenz as the Canines.”

“We were a local company before Covid, but now everyone in the industry lines up to talk to Mike. He’s an oracle.”

—Ben Canine, COO, Lorenz Bus Service

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