Tony Coutsoftides

CEO and Freight Guru

A native of Cyprus – an island off the coasts of Greece and Turkey – Anthony (Tony) Coutsoftides spent his youth moving around the world with his family, following the career of his father, a commercial airline pilot. After graduating from high school in Singapore, Tony moved to the United States by himself with the dream of joining the U.S. Army. Under the protests of his parents (they wanted him to finish college and join the Army as an officer), he enlisted first in the Army Reserve and transitioned into full-time service as soon as he turned 18.

While enlisted, he was names the US Army Soldier of the Year in 1997 and then selected for Officer Candidate School. Upon receiving his citizenship and completing his degree, he became an officer in the Army and was stationed in South Korea, Colombia and several locations in the United States, eventually achieving the rank of Captain. Unfortunately, his military career was cut short by a training accident at Fort Bragg that resulted in his medical retirement.

After leaving the Army, Tony worked in Cleveland at Smurfit Stone Container before returning to Europe at age 28, securing $10 million in financing, and starting his own cargo airline with routes to Asia, Africa, and Europe. A weak global economy and exorbitant fuel prices forced him out of business, and he returned to the U.S. to find a career that could fill the void his exit from the Army had left in his life. Tony found a career he loved in third-party logistics brokerage, working for Cincinnati-based TQL. The fast pace, the reward of sales, and the chance to apply his knowledge of military logistics combined to create a civilian life that finally lived up to the high standards he’d set for himself in the military. What he didn’t love, however, was the culture at the organization where he was working, and the gaps in the marketplace that he felt they weren’t addressing. So, even though he was TQL’s top salesperson, setting new records every year, Tony made the decision to leave TQL, sit out a year, and in 2010, he joined his then-wife, Lacy, who had started a new 3PL, Legion Logistics.

When he’s not serving at Legion’s Freight Guru, Tony enjoys horses, soccer (especially FC Cincinnati), Formula 1 racing, CrossFit and spending time at home with his wife, children, and pets.

Tony is good at pricing, solving operational problems and having big ideas.

Lacy Starling

President and Fearless Leader

The daughter of a truck driver and a part-time librarian, Lacy Starling grew up seeing first-hand how the logistics industry affects working-class Americans. In addition to working swing shift driving a tanker truck, her dad also did construction work and both of her parents worked on the family farm. It was that work ethic that drove Lacy to want more than small-town life, and she believed a career as a newspaper reporter was the way to accomplish that. The world had different plans, however, and as she was getting ready to graduate from college, the entire world of print journalism was turned upside-down by the advent of the Internet and the subsequent slashing of editorial staffs nationwide. Even with graduating Summa Cum Laude and being names one of Scripps Top Ten journalism students in the country, she knew it would be a long road to finding permanent, gainful employment at a newspaper.

Luckily, in her senior year at Kent State University, Lacy had started a media marketing and web design company with two other students and discovered a talent for business management and a love of sales. She was so excited by entrepreneurship that she decided to go back to school and pursue her MBA so she would have more credibility in the business world. While attending graduate school at night, Lacy had several marketing and management positions in canton, Ohio in both for-profit and non-profit organizations. In 2007 she moved to Cincinnati and began her sales career in earnest, working first in development for the United Way of Greater Cincinnati and then as an independent consultant for Mary Kay Cosmetics, eventually working her way up to the position of Sales Director and setting records in her national area for recruitment and sales.

Selling cosmetics wasn’t exactly what she had in mind, though, when she set out to conquer the business world. When the opportunity came along to open Legion Logistics, if felt like the right move. Lacy was able to combine her knowledge of freight, gleaned from years of watching her dad earn a living driving tanker trucks, with her beliefs about how company culture should be formed and nurtured, She often says that she didn’t really care what Legion was selling, as long as they were selling it the right way and treating their employees well at the same time.

Lacy was honored as a 2015 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year and included in the 2015 Class of the Business Courier’s Forty under 40. Lacy also finds time to teach sales as an adjunct instructor at the University of Cincinnati and facilitate several sales intensives for local business incubators and accelerators. She always jokes that she doesn’t have any hobbies, but she spends her free time mentoring students and startup business owners, guest-lecturing at local universities, speaking to women’s groups, and traveling with her partner, Brian and her daughter, Catherine.

Lacy is good at telling the Legion story, maintaining the company culture, and auditing the P&L.

Staci Roy

Chief Number Cruncher

Our Chief Number Cruncher, Staci, is one of many Legion employees who came to us in an unusual way – she heard about the job from her ex-boss’s wife. Staci started at Legion in 2012 as a Number Cruncher and was promoted to the manager of the accounting department in 2016. Outside of Legion, Staci enjoys listening to country music, swimming in the pool, and spending time with her husband and children.

Staci is good at helping others, hula-hooping in the Office Olympics, and making sure we don’t run out of coffee, creamer, or paper towels.

Robert Pugh

Chief Problem Solver

Robert started at Legion in 2015 after returning from a deployment with the U.S. Army Reserves. He had a 16 year career in the Army which included two deployments. Before moving to this side of the industry, he spent 15 years as a truck driver, which provided him extremely helpful knowledge to have starting out. He has moved all kinds of freight types, from different kinds of dry freight to refrigerated multi-drop food product, he even moved over dimensional office trailers. Robert spent three years as a Problem Solver, finishing second in overall profit in 2016. In 2017, he got promoted to Chief Problem Solver (Sales Manager), meaning he oversaw the daily workflow of Problem Solvers, Right Hand People, and Interns. He was promoted again in 2019 to VP of Operations overseeing Problem Solvers, Dispatch, Interns, Carrier Services, and the Night Watch team. Robert is engaged to an amazing woman and has two teenagers, a daughter and a son, and a soon-to-be stepson who is 6.

Robert is good at managing day to day operations, issue resolution, and operations training.

Kyle Kosco

Chief People Person