Overdrive Radio

With this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, we pick up where longtime Overdrive contributor, former OTR owner and current business coach Gary Buchs left off on the Overdrive Extra blog last week: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15736116/ There, as regular readers will know, he penned and published notes on the "fine art" of rates negotiation, with a special emphasis on ways to counterbalance the pressure so many owner-operators feel to move fast on load opportunities, given the speed at which loads come and go on the boards in particular. Comparing to just a short time ago in history, freight "information's moving so much faster" in this day and age, Buchs said. "The speed ... interferes often with solid negotiation. When you speed that up, things get missed." Move too fast to just outright accept an offer, and you might neglect to consider fully that the good-sound long-haul run to the West Coast starts out due well east of Atlanta, with a load pickup time of 2 in the afternoon. If you didn’t effectively build into your rate the added cost of traffic in Atlanta rush hours (or the time to wait it out, as it were), you’re behind the eight ball before you even get started on the run. Buchs offered a different example of one among many details you can miss if you don’t take the time to effectively negotiate. He heard this one several times: And owner "got to a shipper and ... they wanted cash for the lumper and they didn't have cash," Buchs said, asking "How does that get missed if you do a lot of reefer work?" He advises owner-operators think about such scenarios, when things didn't go as planned: "What lessons do we learn when things don't go quite right? How do we apply the lesson we learn? Like when we overcommit or fail to anticipate travel times, drive times. ... Drivers and owner-operators feel the pressure of time squeezing them so much, and that interes with our ability to tap that brake pedal, to pause for even just a moment. So we have to" be aware of that and "use our experience," he said, knowledge of routes and so much more. Today on the podcast, much more in the way of specific ideas built on Buchs’ wealth of personal experience in business and with owners operating in the freight world today. Getting better at negotiation in general certainly isn't easy. "If we're going to get better, we've got to stop thinking that everything is going to be easy," as Buchs put it. But with some of these ideas, hopefully more can avoid participating in what might otherwise feel like an auction, where the “winner’s curse” is almost always to be paying more than what an item is really worth, research has shown. In the freight world, that’s the opposite. Win the load after race-to-the-bottom ping-ponging with the competition or accepting a broker's lowball offer blindly, and you’ll certainly be getting compensated below the market value for the freight movement. In the podcast, Buchs also stresses starting with cost analysis, and recommends including salary needs on the cost side of the ledger when it comes to business profit analysis. It might help you in load-by-load profit analysis and negotiation, too. Overdrive’s Load Profit Analyzer, our fairly simple online calculator introduced late last year, is an assist to analyze individual and/or compare multiple loads. The calculator includes on its front end places to use the knowledge and analysis Buchs talks about to input not just cost per mile overall, but variable cost per mile, fixed cost per day worked, and, again considering it on the cost side, a salary per day worked figure. Profit-potential results then show results not only per-mile but per day -- with salary added back in, too -- for better appreciation of the impact of time and fixed costs. The Load Profit Analyzer is free to use with registration: https://overdriveonline.com/load-analyzer

"The goal of this program is to take on truck and figure out how to squeeze the maximum amount of profit out of that truck." --Kevin Rutherford on NASTC ROTC joint effort with his business Kevin Rutherford's Let's Truck and other initiatives are likely well-known to Overdrive readers. We last heard his voice here in Overdrive Radio from the conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies at the 2023 event. He made a case to small fleets and owner-operators in attendance for just how they might get through, even thrive, in the down freight markets then ongoing: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15658960 He was back at the NASTC event in Nashville in November last year with some news of a joint venture with the association, bringing his focus through many years helping owner-operators in business with coaching, and with tools like his ProfitGauges software and more ... news about how that singular focus would be coming to a NASTC work in progress, according to association president Dave Owen. It goes by a nifty acronym, ROTC, or “Remarkable One Truck Company,” ROTC. (There's an alternate for that, too, Rutherford quipped during his and Owen's NASTC 2024 presentation: the "Rutherford Owen Training Curriculum.") It will be the end product of a closer relationship Rutherford and Owen have built over a couple years now. These two leaders in small trucking hope to be able to combine forces to help business owners with resources, tools and education. "The number 1 reason for failure in small trucking is growth," said Owen. "And the number 2 reason for not succeeding, after you make the decision to get a second truck, is not growing." It's a paradoxical reality the association sees many one-truck independents fall prety to when they move beyond the single unit, without the infrastructure in place to manage the biz when you’re no longer in complete control of the response to every single thing that can, and will, go wrong. NASTC exists to help provide that infrastructure, as Owen notes. These two men are hoping to fully launch the ROTC program as a training effort in some ways modeled on Rutherford’s long-running programs designed for one-truck owners to maximize efficiency and profitability. Those lessons then can be applied across any small fleet owner’s business as well, to enable better competition with peers -- the big boys, too. As you’ll hear on the podcast today sharing some of their freewheeling conversation with a roomful of NASTC conference attendees in November, owner-operators and nimble small fleets do in fact bring a cost advantage to trucking over their big-fleet counterparts in numerous individual cases. Minus diver pay and benefits, according to the American Transportation Research Institute’s 2024 cost analysis, it's costing the big fleets 1.30/mile. Meanwhile, one owner in attendance at the NASTC session with Rutherford and Owen noted his cost to operate, not considering his own compensation, was below a dollar a mile. We made a comparison using Overdrive’s new Load Profit Analyzer calculator: https://overdriveonline.com/load-analyzer The profit result on a hypothetical four-day, 2000-mile run offered at $2.25 per mile for the rate rate was about 30 cents a mile in profit to the Remarkable One Truck of that owner-operator’s business, plus nearly $2,000 worth in salary to himself for the four-day run. The average fleet’s truck, on the other hand, loses a couple $20 bills’ worth of cash -- the only one profiting there is the driver, earning that nearly $2,000 in salary. As mentioned in the podcast, Kevin Rutherford shared this form questionnaire designed to get you thinking about the areas where you want to improve when it comes to efficiency and business analysis, and signal your interest in the new NASTC ROTC curriculum: https://kevinonxm.wufoo.com/forms/welcome-to-the-rotc-breakout-session

"Constantly trying to learn new things just keeps you keeps your mind young. It keeps you going. When you stop learning, you kind of just stagnate and drift away." --Owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber Overdrive Radio listeners will recognize the voice at the top of the podcast this week as that of longtime owner-op Alan Kitzhaber of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, with his 1995 vintage aerodynamic, 4-million-mile Kenworth T600. Every single mile of that 4 million he's put down on the road himself, since it was new and he was a company driver for Millis Transfer. Kitzhaber was Overdrive’s Trucker of the Month back in August, when we told the tale of the Kenworth’s journey toward May '24, when it crossed the 4-million threshold, likewise detailing Kitzhaber’s long relationship with JR Truck Repair nearby to his home base for a meticulous maintenance approach that has been a big part of the truck’s longevity: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15681362 When we got our Trucker of the Year contenders together late in 2024 for a final talk, and we asked Kitzhaber and others to draw on their wealth of experience for the best single piece of advice for new and/or aspiring owner-operators, it got Kitzhaber to thinking. He had much more than just that single piece of advice. He set to work on a story that you can read today in two parts, starting here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15712314 Attendant to that in-depth tutorial of sorts into smart practices in business ownership, we’ve also got some big news about Kitzhaber to share that he's "certainly excited about," he said. For 2024, in what if current plans come to fruition will turn out to be his final full year trucking as an independent owner-operator with authority, Alan Kitzhaber with his Oak Ridge Transport business is Overdrive’s Trucker of the Year. "I'm going to be retiring the end of March/beginning of April, somewhere in there, and I guess I can't think of a better way to wrap up a career than being a Truker of the Year," he said. With the big win, he goes out on top after a career as an owner that stretches back to the day in 1998 he made the considered decision to buy the T600 from Millis Transfer, where he was then employed as a company driver. Since then, he's modified the truck forever with efficiency, comfort, and operating longevity in mind. Trucker of the Year judges ultimately lauded owner-operator Kitzhaber’s meticulous approach to both maintenance and efficiency throughout the operation. Said one: "Really a monument to the craft of trucking as an owner-operator." Kitzhaber contracts directly in the distribution network of shipper Menards, with retail stores for building supplies and more throughout the Midwest. Menards transportation manager John Schmidley threw plenty in the way of praise Kitzhaber’s way, too: "Everyone up here at Menards is pretty excited for him," Schmidley said. "He has a lot of respect for the industry, and does his homework." Overdrive's Trucker of the Year award "is going to a real good choice." Schmidley sees one of the best in Kitzhaber, and relies on him directly as a resource in their business, that’s sure, in addition to offering him as an example to other owners in the company’s big network of independents hauling freight for them. Schmidley was hopeful to convince Kitzhaber to stay in business on a part-time basis for the summer season uptick in transport needs for the shipper, yet the owner is intent on enjoying the fruits of his labor. "I'm in a position where I just simply don't need to work unless I want to," Kitzhabert said. He's building a house on a 40-acre piece of land he's enjoyed for a couple decades hunting, fishing and more for respite from the road. Meantime, here's our chance to learn from one of the best. Congrats to Kitzhaber from all of us, likewise from program sponsor Bostrom Seating: https://bostromseating.com Enter the 2025 Trucker of the Year field: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

"Theft increased 1,445 percent from the first quarter in 2022 to the first quarter in 2024." --Kathleen Dasal, retired from the Ansonia commercial credit bureau Dasal presented at this past November’s annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies – and emphasized that huge increase in cargo theft over these last years, aided and abetted by organized crime rings’ increasingly sophisticated use of our digital communications tools to perpetuate all manner of frauds on carriers, brokers and increasingly shippers themselves. That’s as you’ll hear in today’s edition of Overdrive Radio, featuring Dasal's talk. She keeps her feet firmly planted in small fleet issues with NASTC, and her presentation featured slides you can download to follow along in full via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/document/15711911/protecting-your-fleet-from-fraud-download-the-nastc-2024-presentation We'd recommend it, given this episode is probably an appropriate way to continue to kick off 2025 here in a year where we’re expecting FMCSA’s big move to revamp its registration system to finally get off the ground, and the identity and double-brokering fraud issue continues to be one of the biggest difficulties to surmount in trucking, particularly for small carriers and owner-operators working spot markets. You'll catch hear a variety of tips and tricks, ways to spot fraud in phishing emails and on fradulent rate cons and in the very voice on the phone who might purport to be even someone you know, or at least to be from a company you know. For regular Overdrive readers, a lot of the anti-fraud measures Dasal speaks to might be refreshers, of a fashion, yet many share a central point that you can make part of your New Year’s Resolutions for the business this year. In Kathleen Dasal’s words, "You've got to just pay attention to who your customer is, and know who you're doing business with." There’s a lot owner-operators can do in that regard, if you’re not already working closely with central, trusted brokers; leased to a reputable motor carrier; or doing direct business with shipper customers. As mentioned in the podcast: **The WhatsmyDNS.net domain age lookup: https://www.whatsmydns.net/domain-age **The "Iluminati" hack of broker DAT accounts and carrier accounts on the Amazon Relay system: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15678337/norman-camamiles-iluminati-hack-weekend-four-amazon-runs-no-payment **Reporting on the trade in MC numbers: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15704468/your-authority-might-be-worth-30000-to-freight-fraudsters and https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15705499/fmcsa-guidance-on-buying-and-selling-mc-numbers **FMCSA's guidance on containing the damage after a hack: https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/mission/help/broker-and-carrier-fraud-and-identity-theft

For every story of difficulty expanding beyond a single truck with leased owner-operators, there's probably more than one tale of success. The latter's been the story the last several years for owner-operator Josh Rickards, whose Rickards Transportation Services business as of late November was up to a total of five owners leased on in addition to himself, still also behind the wheel much of the time. In something of a growth mode now for a time, Rickards has come to specialize in part in the entertainment industry, supporting concert tours and often enough working in tandem with larger entities for the larger tours. His owner-operator journey started back in his boyhood, with a particular mentor in an owner-operator he’s long been happy to call his Uncle in Michael Paul Visbeek, out of Northern California and since passed on. Rickards tells the tale of a kid’s inspiration grown in a Kenworth W9 with a Cat and an 18 speed, then a detour as a young man through hip-hop music promotion and marketing, and on to true trucking success. What’s Rickards looking forward to for the new year? He just bought a brand-new Western Star you’ll hear him talk about in this Overdrive Radio episode, and he’s bringing on two more owner-operators as he continues on the goal of sustainable growth. As he told me last week, asked about any "New Year's Resolutions" for the business in 2025, “it’s not just about growing in numbers,” he said. Anybody with good credit can buy a truck. For Rickards, his laser focus is on what he calls “the real challenge, … maintaining that growth while staying profitable.” Hear much more from him in the podcast episode, and find his fleet at the company website -- https://rickardsinc.com -- where he promotes values and goals of creating opportunity for leased owners through honesty and transparency in agreements, of sustainable growth and with a principal focus on entertainment hauling, of building a true team and, when he’s partnered with bigger entities on larger-scale tours, being that integral part of the team that is any touring production. "We put ourselves out there as the Navy Seals, the Marines, of touring," he said. "We're a smaller outfit, but when you call us in you're getting the special forces that are coming in." As mentioned in the podcast, a promotional video DAT made in which Rickards discusses load board use tactics, strategy, today a small part of his business but more sizable in past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcEwxBarEbE

Happy New Year! This final Overdrive Radio podcast for 2024 -- or the first for 2025, whenever you happen to be catching it -- looks back on the year that has been, a certainly sluggish one when it comes to business for many, though with a degree of optimism heading into 2025 with a new administration incoming and hope for business-friendly policy yielding freight improvement all around. Here’s how this one is going to go: Earlier this month, we charted the top 10 podcasts of this year, including a few two-parters this time around featuring extended talks with working truckers, whether small fleet owners like Gill Freightlines’ Surinder Gill on the collapse of the Convoy brokerage, or some among our owner-operator Trucker of the Year contenders offering business advice gleaned from their wealth of experience. We’ve got a short concert-haul run in-cab, a guide to beating back predatory tow invoices, and much more among hot topics and business dissection throughout the year. So count down through the 10 most-listened-to podcasts of 2024, plus an extra three just outside that top 10 for a lucky 13, all the way to No. 1, to ring in the new year right. Find a playlist of all the episodes excerpted via this link: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/countdown-to-2025-the-top Or tune in for our latest via https://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio

"I just believe very passionately that if you're going to take your industry seriously, you need to be engaged, you need to be involved." --Joe Rajkovacz, Director of Government Affairs, Western States Trucking Association The quote above comes from this week's long talk with Rajkovacz, with a long history in trucking and with the last decade and a half or so with Western States, headquartered in California and among the most prominent actors nationally challenging the onerous parts of the California Air Resources Board’s ever-more-complicated emissions and equipment regulations. Rajkovacz was speaking to the value of association membership for business owners in whatever industry they participate in. Specifically for him, of course, that’s trucking, tracking back to his time as an owner-operator first in the 1980s and in trucking in other roles before that, as you’ll hear in today’s episode highlighting his career. In this final regular edition of Overdrive Radio for the year, track back through Rajkovacz's early years trucking, from a wash bay to behind the wheel as a Teamster for a brief time early on, then to truck ownership, decades over-the-road, and coming off the road for full-time association work with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association in 2006. He wouldn't be there but for a few years, after which he joined Western States, then the California Construction Trucking Association, to devote more energy to challenging CARB's Truck and Bus Regulation, which would ultimate ban 2006 and older emissions-spec engines in-state. I’ts at Western States where he’s officially concluded his career, retiring earlier this month back near where he began his trucking career in Wisconsin with his wife, Joan. The two are proud parents of three grown children, grandparents of eight, and staying warm this winter season, we hope. This conversation was conducted in November during the long-running annual event where Overdrive editor Todd Dills got to know Rajkovacz well -- the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies. Rajkovacz has been a perennial presenter there, and odds are will continue to be as his engagement with regulatory and legislative issues on the West Coast for trucking will also be continuing, as you’ll hear in today's episode. You’ll hear more of Joe Rajkovacz’s story, no doubt, but also plenty evidence of what his career represents – he’s among the best examples we have of a trucking industry participant who spent the time and did the work to act on something fundamental to the truly engaged in the business: a real love for it, and a desire to see conditions for its participants improve for the better. Find more about the Western States Trucking Association: https://westrk.org

In this week's Overdrive Radio podcast, drop into the second and final part of this series re-engaging with Overdrive's 2024 Trucker of the Year competitive field of owner-operators, with check-ins on how the year shaped up for each individual owner. Likewise, you'll hear plenty considered advice from each business owner for peers, particularly those with only short history in the trucking business or looking to get their start. Part 1, ICYMI: Words of encouragement, too, drawing on lessons learned from challenges overcome, and the plentiful nature of naysayers who will undoubtedly tell an aspiring truck owner just to "stay away." Play your cards right, and do the hard work early and often, noted owner-operator Greg Labosky, and you will be poised for profit. Use that "negative energy," as he put it, to "be willing to prove them worng to the best of your ability to show them that you can, indeed, succeed." Labosky's made strides in backstopping profit with cost reductions amid sluggish rates in Amazon's direct-contracting system, where he specializes. He's done that in part by maximizing reliability of his 2017 Cascadia with careful preventive maintenance, always learning more to do smaller repairs himself, and using close record-keeping to drive his efforts. "Keep extermely good, tight bookkeeping to keep track of your expenses that you can control," he advised other owners, to help spot when something is out of line. There's growth on the horizon within the goals for Labosky's GDL Enterprise business, something Alpha Drivers Transportation owner Alec Costerus is already acheiving, having started the year with just one truck. With fellow owner Joel Morrow in their Alpha Drivers Testing & Consulting side business, Costerus is building a dry van-pulling operation with growth this year and more to come, backed by tremendous efficiency gains to reduce costs. "Holding the steering wheel is the easy part," he advised any prospective owner to realize. "There is a great deal more to the trucking business," urging careful study of all of those aspects. Owner-operator Mike Nichols reported steady revenues through the year for his Wayne Transports-leased one-truck operation, with at once some unexpected downtime chipping a smidge away from that top line (including the results of a run-in with an unfortunate deer). Nichols offered considered advice for prospective owners about up-front saving as prep, building for a down payment but also reserves for unforeseen expenses that are inevitable. With respect to "start-up capital and down payment," he said, "you need to treat that like you would firewood. Save what you think you might need and triple it, if not quadruple it." As for Dayl and Nelson Zimmerman, owners of Minnesota-based Zimmerman Ag, the brothers are very close to making good on goals set out at the beginning of the year to erect a new shop at headquarters, which will deliver opportunity for outside maintenance work during slow winter periods. More importantly, it stands enhance their own in-house maintenance prowess to continue to get the job done for direct customers, the center of their ag-support two-truck business. Read more about all of these Trucker of the Year contenders, and others, via https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year Enter your own or another deserving business in the 2025 Trucker of the Year program now at this link: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

Today on Overdrive Radio, after a year's worth of talks featuring Overdrive's Truckers of the Month, all of whom remain in the running for the top 2024 Trucker of the Year honor, the first of two final talks featuring a bevy of contenders. Call this and next week's podcast edition the “Exit Interviews” series, if you will, as judges work through the process of determining a set of three finalists we’ll announce later this month, then a winner in the new year. At once, the perseverance and excellence to drive profit in a time like the present shown by every single owner we wrote about in the program this year make all truly deserving of all the accolades that come their way, the margins between every single Trucker of the Year contender absolutely razor-thin, given unique strengths that all bring to their respective operations. Today on the podcast, you’re going to hear answers to two fairly simple questions. Namely: 1. How has 2024 gone for the business? And, 2. Each owner was asked to look back over their history and experience in the trucking business for lessons learned that could serve as their best piece of advice for peers, and particularly for those newer to the business or thinking about going into business. Hear here from four semi-finalists, including owner-operator Candace Marley, headquartered in Iowa and pulling dry van freight, now leased to Mercer after running under her own authority as Calliope, LLC, when we last spoke early in 2024. She continues to adjust to the realities of the system at Mercer, yet is enjoying a measure of stability compared to the difficulties she'd experienced in the current market. Speaking to her peers, she advised, "If something's not working out, don't be afraid to change lanes." Minnesota-headquartered Gary Schloo, leased to Long Haul Trucking, noted current interest-rate levels as high yet not especially high considering his long history. Yet for an owner-op looking to invest in the business with a truck purchase, saving for a big down payment and building a good relationship with a local bank are likely to save on interest, he said. Then: "Find a good company, with stable freight, and different kinds of freight" to build the most effective partnership long-term, in his view. Independent Rene Holguin emphasized taking control of your business, getting as much mechanical knowledge as possible to save on repairs and gain confidence in the equipment. And "be the boss," he added, as an owner. "Things start going south when you wait for somebody to give you direction," he said. Use your instincts and knowledge through self-education to "get on the horse and go." Independent Alan Kitzhaber made business education his central point of emphasis, particularly for those who've never before been in business for thesmelves. Yet his 4-million-mile 1995 Kenworth T600's longevity has hinged on preventive practices when it comes to maintenance. Like all of the owners, he places huge emphasis on regular check-ups and careful attention with an effective preventive maintenance schedule. "I get my truck in on a regular basis, at least once a month, to have it gone over," he said, at his longtime preferred shop partner in his area. They "grease the driveline and steering column," and he has "an automatic greaser that takes care of the rest," among plenty more he shares in what follows in the podcast. Listen on for plenty more all from these four in the Trucker of the Year field. Read more about all via this link to the central Trucker of the Year profile collection: https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year Put your own or another owner-operator's deserving business in the running for next year's award at this link: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

When Donald Trump first came into the White House back in 2017, an express deregulatory agenda yielded various moves most owner-operators could count as wins. Though the administration famously did not act to block implementation of the Congressional electronic logging device mandate later that year, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's then-pursuit of a speed-limiter mandate, for instance, soon disappeared from the Department of Transportation's regulatory calendar. With another Trump administration incoming, can we expect a similar fate for the current pursuit of speed limiters? That's but one of the questions today's Overdrive Radio guests, OOIDA President Todd Spencer and Executive VP Lewie Pugh, are hopeful to yield an emphatic "yes" answer, likewise as regards a lot of what we've seen from the Environmental Protection Agency this last year and more. But a "deregulatory" agenda could seal the fate of other federal agency moves for which there's no express Congressional authorization but that many owners favor, such as FMCSA's recent pursuit of potential changes to the broker transparency regulations. Fortunately for those owners, notes OOIDA's Spencer, there's history there when it comes to the first Trump administration. And Trump himself. "He heard the horns" of the group of protesting truckers in 2020, the genesis of the current effort around transparency, Spencer points out in the podcast. "Certainly this is going to be an issue that we're going to point out to the new administration that, 'Hey folks, this is old business that we need to get after and fix it this time." In the podcast, hear from Spencer and Pugh on these and other priority issues, and what potentially to expect from Congress and the administration moving ahead: Truck parking: The next infrastructure reauthorization is due up in 2026, they note, and including dedicated truck parking funding at very high levels for a very high, long-term need is perhaps the association's biggest priority. Safety rating change: Pugh noted the kind of "Fit/Unfit" two-tier system FMCSA has proposed is probably preferable to the current three-tier system, yet he's skeptical FMCSA will move forward with much anytime soon. Notably, when Trump first came into office in 2017, an effort to shift ratings to being based in part of roadside data then was tabled. Bedrock value placed on drivers' time: Currently, as Spencer's noted before, it's effectively valued at $0. OOIDA favors legislation introduced in the last two sessions of Congress to remove the exemption for motor carriers from paying overtime as a potential central cog in the effort to increase time's value. Trump Labor Secretary pick, Pugh felt, could well be an ally in that push, though it might be unlikely to move successfully through a Republican-controlled Congress. And plenty more. Following find links to related coverage mentioned throughout the podcast: **Overdrive's July 2024 Trucker of the Month Mike Nichols will be a candidate on OOIDA's upcoming/in-process board elections: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15680591/trucker-of-the-month-mike-nichols-knows-limits-hones-strengths **Overdrive readers' response to FMCSA's proposed changes to the ELD mandate regulations: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15297229/eldexempt-ownerops-say-no-to-any-pre2000-exemption-change **Trump's Labor Secretary nominee: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15709066/prounion-former-congresswoman-tapped-to-lead-dol **Trump DOT nominee: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15708579/sean-duffy-tapped-by-trump-as-secretary-of-transportation

When truck owner Garrett Steenblik was in the throes his personal body-transformation journey toward losing, ultimately, 200 lbs. over-the-road, he was hauling with Boyle Transportation, it was his birthday, and he got a message over the Qualcomm from operations wishing him a happy birthday. Such was his commitment to working physical activity into his daily routine, then teaming with his wife, that he'd garnered a particular reputation with folks at the company, including its customers. "I was so dedicated," he said, that "if we were getting loaded I'd wake up, I'd hop out and do some push-ups, I'd run around the truck, I'd so some body-weigh exercises. ... The shippers would be like, 'What's that man doing?'" The message, immortalized with a picture you'll see as part of the cover image for this week's podcast and which he calls my "favorite picture in all of trucking," contained a simple message for him: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARRETT, CELEBRATE WITH A FEW LAPS AROUND THE TRUCK AND SOME KALE CAKE!" As of August this year, Steenblik had hired an operator to join his wife in their rig, a 2023 Kenworth T680 leased to Tri-State Motor Transit, as he's at the end of years of development of the Trucker's Body Shop business, a membership and support program for truckers seeking to lose weight or address some other conditions (smoking cessation, for instance, is a part of it). In this edition of Overdrive Radio, Steenblik details Trucker's Body Shop goals to help drivers deliver on their own aims of weight loss via diet and exercise, medical doctor network support through telehealth, convenient weight-loss prescription delivery, ongoing doctor consultation and more. Overdrive featured the Trucker's Body Shop MediReady travel kit covering common OTR needs recently here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/gear/product/15708444/truckers-body-shop-truckers-body-shop-intros-new-medical-kit-for-truck-drivers In the podcast, hear how Steenblik found not only greater physical health through the weight-loss journey but, ultimately, bedrock mental well-being as well. With Trucker's Body Shop, he hopes to deliver that to any fellow OTR hauler who needs it. Find more about Trucker's Body Shop via this link: https://truckersbodyshop.com/ More from Overdrive Radio: https://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio

It’s one of our favorite opportunities covering the trucking world these last several years -- the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies, for four years now the sponsor of Overdrive's annual Small Fleet Championship, recognizing and sharing the stories of business excellence for owner-operators who hit and/or cross that 3-truck threshold. On November 7 this year, Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills announced winners in two categories, recognizing four total finalists during NASTC’s Thursday-night conference-opening Transportation Trust Forum. You’ve likely seen the news – Paul Rissler Transportation and C.W. Express took home the Small Fleet Champ title belts this year in their respective categories: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15707739/rissler-transportation-cw-express-emerge-as-small-fleet-champs Yet that’s not the true highlight of the program for Dills. Rather, the chance for an in-person, roundtable sitdown with all four of our Small Fleet Champ finalists, to share their perspectives on business challenges overcome, on the makets in which they operate, and more. The talk you'll hear in this Overdrive Radio podcast edition offers plenty potential lessons for other truck owners similarly wrestling with various business difficulties of various stripes. Likewise a strong current that’s a bit different from past Small Fleet Champ roundtables we've conducted. All owners offered examples of how they pay their hard-earned trucking knowledge forward to leave behind capability when the end of the line comes squarely into view. For some, those efforts were front and center in the talk itself. Automotive and general dry van carrier C.W. Express owner Steve Wilson was joined in the talk by his son, Steven the second, in his early 20s and newly involved in the business, for instance. Hear also C.W. Express’ fellow finalist in the 11-30-truck division of the Small Fleet Championship – Brian Brewer and Jennifer Leasure of mostly local scrap and dump hauler Brian Brewer Trucking. Likewise, competing in the 3-10-truck division, Jamie Hagen of mostly dry van carrier Hell Bent Xpress and Paul and Michelle Rissler, of Paul Rissler Transportation, running reefer. It's a hallmark of a truly exceptional business owner that, though the day-to-day fires may mount, keeping eyes on the future is a necessity for the next generation. As Steve Wilson outlined his immediate and longer-term goals, invoking all that he'd been through over the last several years (including 8 months' worth of a hospital stay, near death at one point), "I've got grandbabies now," he said. "You know, what I want is to build a legacy for those kids. 'Hey, my granddad built that.' That's what I'm here for." Read Wilson's and others' stories via the Small Fleet Champ section of Overdrive's website: https://overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ

Here’s wishing all United States military veterans in the audience a happy Veterans Day with this edition of Overdrive Radio. To mark the day, we bring you this dive into the work of the Farmer Veteran Coalition, an organization that got its start back in 2009 with a goal of a then California/Mexico produce farmer to help support returning military servicemembers in bids to enter the business of feeding the nation. We’ll hear today Overdrive Radio's talk with Jeanette Lombardo, current Farmer Veteran Coalition CEO, about the FVC’s recent induction into the Howes company’s Hall of Fame, bringing another important support organization to the attention of trucking and ag industries: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15705903/vetssupport-group-now-in-howes-hall-of-fame-deadline-approaching-for-small-biz-reporting-to-fincen-alert FVC CEO Lombardo details a variety of new-farmer support and other programs that deliver on the org's mission, dovetailing in several ways with trucking and logistics businesses that support the nation's food supply chain. Lombardo sees plenty honor and value in the Howes Hall of Fame induction, enabling connections between the coalition and, not just new groups and people in the ag world, but also in trucking and logistics. "We're a nonprofit. We don't have much budget for advertising, ... yet we're seeing this huge increase in membership," she said, in part given word of mouth that occurs as a result of programs like the Howes Hall of Fame. "We were very humbled to receive the nod from Howes, and even more so when we went online to see previous awardees. ... I think it's the beginning of a wonderful partnership." The Hall of Fame launched during Howes' 100-year anniversary celebration five years back, said Howes Products' own Rich Guida. It's intended as an effort "to find the people, places, and things that make trucking and farming -- and diesel systems, really, of any kind -- so valuable. And for us to be able to give back to these people, and support them the way Jeanette was talking about, is where we find reward." Access the stories of all inductees in the Howes Hall of Fame, or nominate an organization or individual yourself, at this link: https://howesproducts.com/hof In the podcast, find much more detail about the FVC's many support programs for returning servicemembers and hear Lombardo's personal story of how, in the midst of the pandemic, she would come to be inspired by and, then, intimately involved in leading an organization with a worthy mission. More about the FVC: https://farmvetco.org/ Howes' induction video about FVC: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15705903/vetssupport-group-now-in-howes-hall-of-fame-deadline-approaching-for-small-biz-reporting-to-fincen-alert

In this Overdrive Radio, we catch up primarily with owner-operator Daryl Zimmerman of Belgrade, Minnesota, co-owner with his brother, Nelson (also featured in the podcast), of two-truck Zimmerman Ag. Daryl was looking out the windshield glass on a bright and sunny day running between Minneapolis-St. Paul and his area in Central Minnesota bound for a feed mill that has been a principal customer of his business for much of its nearly 10-year history. Since launching as one man, one truck in 2015, Daryl's was joined by Nelson when he got his own truck and leased it to the business, starting in 2020. They’ve since fully joined forces, extending a family base that stretches back to Daryl and Nelson’s father’s time as an owner-operator in the late 1990s. Zimmerman Ag is Overdrive’s Trucker of the Month for October, putting the brothers in the running for the 2024 Trucker of the Year award and marking the end of the run of our semi-finalists for this year. In the coming weeks, expert more from all of them as judges begin the evaluation process for our final 2024 Trucker of the Year winner. Today, the Zimmermans take us on a tour through their history in business, its entirety for both men as owner-operators working in support of farmers and other ag-support businesses, by and large, around their home base in Minnesota: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15706944/strength-in-numbers-zimmerman-ags-daryl-and-nelson-zimmerman Look for further coverage of all Trucker of the Year semi-finalists in the coming weeks and for announcement of three finalists in December. All have a chance to win a custom replica model of the truck of their choice plus a brand-new seat from Trucker of the Year sponsor Bostrom Seating. Big thanks to Commercial Vehicle Group and the fine folks at Bostrom Seating for continued support. To get in the running for next year’s program, get over to https://OverdriveOnline.com/toptrucker to start that process. Deadlines mentioned there have passed for the 2024 award, but note that any entries or nominations of deserving owners will be considered for the 2025 program.

"The driver shortage is dead, long live the driver shortage." That’s sort of the message you might get digging into a recent truck driver compensation study and the "driver shortage" narrative’s longest proponent’s response to it. That compensation study was conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine at the request of FMCSA. FMCSA itself was tasked to commission the study by Congress in the 2021 Infrastrucutre Investment and Jobs Act, the early Biden-era highway infrastructure legislation. The report examined truck driver compensation and compensation methods and their impacts on retention and safety, and along the way called the American Trucking Associations’ and others’ long-posited notion of a driver shortage "spurious." Fundamental labor economics principles cast doubt on what the ATA has long held out as persistent shortages, as reported Friday by Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15706801/does-trucking-have-a-driver-shortage ATA, though, dug in its heels in response, noting in Cole's reporting that the NAS study report's authors “fail to account for several important points and distinctions that are critical to understanding the market for professional truck drivers.” Of course, plenty others around trucking, including Overdrive's own reporting back in early 2016, have cast doubts around persistent shortages similar to those in the National Academies' study. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association in particular has long-pointed to high turnover rates in truckload as a kind of bellwether statistic that belied any existence of a true "shortage." Today on the podcast, Cole’s conversation about the conclusions with OOIDA President Todd Spencer, who reiterated the association’s long-held view about persistent driver shortages now underscored. On the driver-retention front, Spencer felt putting real value on a driver’s time, furthermore, could well be the single biggest improvement truckload carriers could make to build a base of longer-tenured pros over-the-road where delay at shipper or receiver docks or via an on-highway emergency "certainly isn't predictable," he said. "You can't plan for it and again the common thread with detention time is that the prevailing rate for that is zero" dollars. Our own Executive Editor Alex Lockie, too, joins the podcast to break down last week's Broker-Carrier Summit conference in Texas, where fraud prevention in brokered-freight markets was front and center. Also, too, plenty subjects that played directly to carriers in attendance, offering insights into opportunities that just don’t exist for brokers, as it were. As Lockie quipped, "Carriers ... had this lab on how to land direct feright, which is essentially how to cut brokers out of your life. Of course, you could not have a panel on how brokers could cut out carriers." More of Lockie's dry sense of humor here, likewise a highlight moment near the end of a fraud-prevention panel discussion with with Anchor Reliable Transport’s Brian Woodring. As mentioned in the podcast: **Owner-operator Ilya Denisenko's thoughts on value in the BCS event: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15684505/sweetness-of-low-price-v-the-sour-of-bad-service **Lockie's reporting on changes to Carrier411's FreightGuard system: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15705912/carrier411-makes-big-changes-to-its-freightguard-carrier-reports **Email contact for the Truckstop load board's look into potentially building a broker-vetting service for carriers: Extensions@truckstop.com

The expert singing voice of Marine veteran and Nashville-headquartered singer-songwriter Sal Gonzalez warms up and brings to fruition a special celebration event held last week by Rush Truck Centers in Nashville, Tennessee, in this edition of Overdrive Radio. Rush was announcing the big winner of the quite expensive, final, only 2025 build of a Peterbilt 389. A 389X, to be exact, that Rush Truck Centers won the final 389 build slot for, with Pete retiring the model for good. As Rush Enterprises CEO Rusty Rush explains in the podcast, the build slot was awarded after an auction among Pete dealers and was secured for 1.5 million dollars. Peterbilt and Rush donated those proceeds then to the well-known Wreaths Across America and Truckers Against Trafficking nonprofits, then held a sweepstakes delivering another half a million to the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) org: https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15705889/last-of-the-389s-goes-to-oklahoma-small-fleet-shane-best-trucking That’s where songwriter Gonzalez enters the picture. In the podcast, hear Gonzalez’s harrowing, moving story of losing part of his left leg in Iraq, then returning home to pursue a songwriter’s dream only to fall into an addictive pattern and seek out the support of WWP. Likewise, get ready for a moving song, "Heroes," Gonzalez wrote as a result of his subsequent work with the nonprofit, inspired by fellow veterans and his own experience. We’ll hear, too, from Rusty Rush, detailing the sweepstakes and its ultimate winners, Shane Best Trucking owners Jennifer and Shane Best, out of Pryor, Oklahoma. The win was fitting for the small fleet owners in more ways than one – the 379X will add to their fleet of 17 Peterbilts doing dump work around their region, yet don’t expect a lot of wear and tear on it. The Bests plan to keep the rig around for many years to come, working with Rush Truck Center hands in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to finish out the rig with back-end mods as a show unit. With any luck, work should conclude in time enough for September 2025 -- look for the Bests and the last of the 389s out at the Guilty by Association Truck Show in Joplin, Missouri, then. Also in the podcast, a window on the presentation Rush, Peterbilt’s Jason Skoog, and reps from the Wounded Warrior Project, with Sal Gonzalez rounding things out with that moving, terrific song we're happy to be able to share with you. More about Wounded Warrior Project: https://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/ Truckers Against Trafficking: https://overdriveonline.com/15680845 Wreaths Across America: https://overdriveonline.com/15304350

"He's such a hard worker. He's always helping his family to help get their own authority. He'll let them lease on for a while ... until they get on their feet and get their own authority. ... He's just a good person all around." --Messina Holguin, speaking to reasons she nominated her husband, owner-operator Rene Holguin, for Overdrive's Trucker of the Year award Rene Holguin is well on his way toward cementing a legacy with his El Paso, Texas-headquartered R&M Transportation business, part of it caught up in what his wife and business partner, Messina, intimates in the quote above. R&M Transportation has also been a vehicle for various family members and friends to get their own businesses up and running toward their own names on their own doors, with authority, a dream Holguin himself made good on more than two decades ago: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15704492/thirdgen-ownerop-marshals-experience-to-thrive-in-business Overdrive's September Trucker of the Month harnesses that significant pay-it-forward goal after getting into business with tutelage of a family member himself, though he freely admits mixing family with business isn't always the easiest thing to do. This week on the Overdrive Radio podcast we're diving into Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole’s conversation with Holguin about his history in trucking, which stretches back to about the turn the century. You'll hear Messina's here, too. Though she works herself outside of trucking, she’s also intimately involved in back-office aspects of the business. They’ve learned a lot together through the decades in business, and Rene Holguin’s made big strides in DIY maintenance in recent times as expenses have mounted and rates have lagged to the truck he’s owned and kept in tip-top now for the entirety of his time with authority. His biggest piece of advice for new and aspiring owner-operators is of a piece with those maintenance strides. "Be ready to work," he said, and work hard. Learn as much about your equipment as you can. "Be ready to get your hands dirty, to keep your truck out of the shop as much as you can." He’s pulling a flatbed with the rig today, and it’s a looker for sure, as you can see in Cole’s feature about R&M Transportation, likewise the cover image for this week's podcast. Dive into September Trucker of the Month Rene Holguin's trucking origin story, which stretches all the way back to his childhood, in the podcast here. Find all of our features about Truckers of the Month through this year at https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year Holguin's nod for September puts him in the running for the 2024 Trucker of the Year award, this year sponsored by Commercial Vehicle Group and Bostrom Seating.

"If you're doing the right things ... if you're looking at your numbers, figuring out your fixed cost per day, your variable cost per mile, and choosing the best loads for yourself, you're going to weather this winter just fine like you have the last two years. And then when freight turns around, you're going to be in really good shape." --ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted When freight turns around. What every owner-operator out there's been waiting for for quite some time, and it's like as not to be a while yet, with East Coast ports reviving from their stall and market prognosticators predicting that we’ll continue “bouncing along the bottom” all the way through the first quarter of next year, to use the words of ATBS VP Hosted himself. Yet there is at least some confluence of opinion on a potential market turn, given what you all heard on the Overdrive Radio podcast just last week, which suggested much the same, Q2 2025: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15704598/when-will-freight-markets-turn-to-the-positive-for-truckers Get through the election, through the winter period and typical sluggish Q1, and hopefully further interest rates cuts might deliver confidence for business investment and some freight improvement. For this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, our Partners in Business coproducers in owner-operator business services firm ATBS were kind enough to share the full audio and slides from their September 18 owner-operator income, revenue, cost and market update: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/article/15684315/ownerops-see-mixed-income-bag-but-wait-for-kickstart-on-rates. You can download a pdf of Mike Hosted’s full slides to follow along here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15704990 Know that over on our Youtube channel, too, there’s a video version of Hosted's full presentation, too: https://youtu.be/jbWFVqL5jtU Topline results from ATBS analysis, with trend lines derived from real-world performance of their thousands of owner-operator clients? Other than the market commentary you heard at the top, owner-operator income has been on average just slightly down for the 12 months ending June of 2024, compared to prior 12 months. It's down as an average because dry van owner-ops were down somewhat significantly. Yet leased reefer haulers and flatbedders, and independents too, posted gains. There’s a lot more detail within all that in the full presentation here, and plenty of potential insights around maintenance spend, fuel costs and efficiency, and much more. Benchmark your own business's performance against the average numbers, yet know enough to recognize every owner-operator business has its own revenue and income needs, relative to costs. Overdrive Radio is sponsored by Howes. Find more information about their full line of fuel treatments via https://howesproducts.com The Partners in Business program is sponsored by the Rush Truck Centers dealer network. Visit them via https://rushtrkctr.com/4bLxbR4

In this week's Overdrive Radio edition, Part 2 of our "How to build business for trucking’s down cycles" online roundtable in late August. Among the questions flagged for panelists was just whether, and when, the long freight-rates slide of the last two years might turn the corner, or at least stabilize. Since the late-August time period, the march toward the presidential election and a modicum of certainty on that front continues, of course, but perhaps more importantly the Federal Reserve has cut benchmark interest rates by a half point, the first such cut in after a two years' worth of several hikes meant to help tamp down rapid inflation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/article/15684315/ownerops-see-mixed-income-bag-but-wait-for-kickstart-on-rates Panelist and longtime Overdrive contributor Gary Buchs posted recently in his Truck Business Network group about expectations of further cuts when the fed meets again late in the year and early next year. Those cuts might spell not only good news for borrowing costs to, say, finance a truck purchase down the line, but also stimulate spending and moves in various sectors of the economy, generating freight. In essence, Buchs noted, get ready for potentially improved conditions, but not for a good while yet. Here’s how he put it: “Every trucker is waiting for the market to turn around, as so-called experts keep predicting These interest rate cuts are historically some of the things that will make this happen. But the increased opportunity for better rates doesn’t happen overnight. Go into your phone and set an alarm for four to six months out from the date these interest rates make dramatic moves. Odds are that is about the time business will change, as it takes time for companies to have confidence to place more orders, then the companies manufacturing have the confidence to ramp up production, and the cards begin to fall and make things move.” He went on to compare running an owner-operator business to an ultra-marathon, as it were. “The return on the investment of hundreds if not thousands of hours of intense commitment and training aimed at a goal is celebrated when, one day, we finally are able to cross that finish line,” he wrote. Today on the podcast we hope to give you further opportunity to learn from Buchs and two other panelists who were part of our roundtable, namely Silver Creek Transportation Founder and President Jason Cowan (Overdrive’s Small Fleet Champ for year 2021) and ICV Express owner-operator Ilya Denisenko. In the previous part of this two-part podcast, panelists ran through a variety of customer-management tactics aimed at preserving relationships, building new ones, and batting back those inevitable requests for a “discount” from even longtime customers. In part 2, they field a variety of live audience questions, from those about timing of a recovery to special considerations for flatbedders when it comes to customers, what owner-operators can do to combat brokers’ ever-increasing insistence on roadside inspections on the record as a condition of doing business, just how to compete when shipper customers are being solicited at cut rates by brokers, and more.

"The sweetness of low price is really fast, even though the sour of bad service lasts a lot longer. The sweetness is really tempting to jump in and take." --Silver Creek Transportation founder and president Jason Cowan At the top of this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, you'll hear the sage words of Silver Creek Transportation Founder and President Jason Cowan, excerpted above. The past Overdrive Small Fleet Champ was speaking to the difficulties of managing freight contracts with customers in a time like the present, two years after what’s been a big filp-flop in demand for carriers of all shapes and sizes. The demand and subsequent freights-rates fall has impacted large and small, from flatbeds and lowboys to tour haulers, dry van pullers and reefer toters, all around the nation. Cowan was talking as part of Overdrive's roundtable on ways to build an owner-operator or small fleet business to weather inevitable down cycles: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15682400/location-location-how-to-find-that-extra-load-in-your-backyard We hosted the event back in August, sponsored by Bestpass and Fleetworthy Solutions, since rebranded fully under the Fleetworthy name and including the Drivewyze weigh station bypass solution: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15683690/diesel-hits-lowest-national-average-since-fall-2021 (The combined company aims to be a one-stop shop for bypass, toll collections management and discounts, and fleet-management solutions.) In this edition of the podcast, drop into the first portion of the roundtable that featured, in addition to Cowan, two other leading voices among owner-ops and seasoned veterans in Overdrive’s orbit (our own Gary Buchs, and ICV Express owner-operator Ilya Denisenko), all speaking to ways to set your trucking business up to stand out from the crowd, to beat that "sweetness of low price" when it inevitably comes to you from the customer’s mouth. As mentioned in the podcast: **Register to view the entire session here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15682393/catch-the-replay-how-to-build-business-for-truckings-down-cycles **Alex Lockie's first report from the session on roads through the dark economic clouds for owner-operators, and how to find that extra load right in your own backyard: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15682400/location-location-how-to-find-that-extra-load-in-your-backyard **Part 2 on salesmanship, effective communication and negotiation, more: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15682445/first-load-free-ownerops-get-creative-with-sales