Arch Thomason

Chief Executive Officer Sunland Logistics Solutions

Last Reviewed: September 27, 2026

Executive Summary

Arch Thomason is the owner-CEO of Sunland Logistics Solutions, a third-party logistics company headquartered in Simpsonville, South Carolina, and of its affiliated property business, Distribution Real Estate Inc. His route to the top job was unusual: he joined Sunland as Director of Sales in 1996, wrote a business plan to buy the company as an executive MBA class project, and completed the purchase in 2008, a month before the financial crisis. Under his ownership Sunland has grown from a local South Carolina distribution company into a warehousing and logistics network with sites across the Southeast and Midwest and a presence in California.

Career Highlights

• Chief Executive Officer of Sunland Logistics Solutions and Distribution Real Estate Inc., responsible for strategy and profitability across logistics services and the group’s real estate holdings.
• Joined Sunland Distribution, Inc. in 1996 as Director of Sales.
• Purchased the company and became CEO in 2008, after securing bank financing on the eighth attempt, by his own account.
• Kept the workforce intact through the 2008-09 downturn: senior leadership took pay cuts, with no layoffs and hourly pay preserved.
• Oversaw expansion to Charleston, Toledo, Virginia, McDonough (Georgia), Tuscaloosa, Louisville, Savannah, Chicago, Fontana (California), Milan (Tennessee) and Auburn (Alabama) between 2008 and 2021.
• Past President of the Advisory Board of the Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC), according to the company.

Professional Journey

Sunland began in 1982, when Sam Cole founded Sunland Distribution, Inc. in Greenville, South Carolina. Thomason joined in 1996 as Director of Sales and spent the following decade on the commercial side of the business.

The decision to buy it came, he told Inbound Logistics in 2021, while he was studying for an executive MBA. For an entrepreneurship class he wrote a business plan for acquiring Sunland, and he then set about financing it for real; the eighth bank he approached agreed. He completed the purchase and became CEO in 2008. The timing was severe. A month later the global economy collapsed, and the business was highly leveraged. His account is that senior leadership took pay cuts, nobody was laid off and hourly associates’ pay was preserved, and that the experience shaped how the company thought about winning over the longer term.

From 2013 Sunland began assembling a new senior leadership team of logistics specialists, with Bill T. Gates as Board Chair and Elijah Ray, now Chief Customer Officer. Growth followed a steady pattern of new sites: Charleston in 2008; Toledo and Virginia in 2015; a McDonough, Georgia operation in 2016 that the 2021 interview describes as a 700,000-square-foot facility; Tuscaloosa in 2018; Louisville in 2019; Savannah and Chicago in 2020; and Fontana, California, Milan, Tennessee and Auburn, Alabama in 2021. The company describes its services as warehouse management, multi-client warehousing, port logistics, plant and shuttle support and value-added services, for customers in retail, chemicals, automotive, industrial, beverage and energy. In the 2021 interview Thomason described deploying automation and robotics across the network, including drones for inventory counts.

Sunland marked 40 years in business in 2022 and says it is recognised as a Top 100 3PL by Inbound Logistics. Thomason also runs Distribution Real Estate Inc., which holds the group’s real estate. Outside the company, Sunland lists him on the executive committee and board of the Barbara Stone Foundation, as a past President of the WERC Advisory Board, and as a member of YPO and Tiger 21.

Education

The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina

Graduate (degree and field not stated by the company)

Bob Jones University

MBA