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His father and grandfather both drove big rigs, but Nicholas Carretta only has a small plastic model of those earlier trucks that idles on his desk.

That might be the only way the third generation of Ultra Logistics has reduced its scale.

When Carretta became president of the Fair Lawn-based Ultra Logistics in 1996, he modernized a family legacy that began with Carretta Trucking in 1963. He started the business afresh as a non-asset-based freight broker, which did away with the trucks — bringing in experts that negotiate contracts with carriers, warehouses and distribution centers instead — and ushered in its current $65 million a year in revenue.

Carretta’s Ultra Logistics also has significantly increased its customer base. It facilitates the shipments of products and materials used by global corporations, such as Tyson Foods and Kraft. The company has a hand in up to 200 shipments each day, done by trucks across the United States.

It’s a far different business from when Carretta’s grandfather started the family-owned firm as Carretta Trucking in Paramus. He hauled coal and ice on the East Coast, fielding 1,000 trucks at the height of business.

Carretta’s father then took the reins of the company. The ’80s were good to him — the company was one of the state’s largest asset-based freight carriers. But by the 1990s, the industry had shifted.

“Toward the end of the ’90s, the profitability (for an asset-based freight carrier) wasn’t there,” Carretta said. “He sold off what was left of the assets. Using his contacts, I then started doing freight brokerage.”

Carretta actually got away from the family business for a time. He went off to found a Web applications business, but he came back to pick up where his father left off by establishing Ultra Logistics.

“It is what it is — you can’t get it out of your blood,” Carretta said. “It’s tough to get away from the trucking industry once you’re in it.”

It’s perhaps because he forged his own tech-savvy path that he came back with a mind to introduce UltraShipTMS, a software platform that helped clients automate the process of shipping large volumes of freight by truck, air and rail.

Ultra Logistics has individual clients that have moved more than 250,000 shipments of goods with the software.