Overdrive Radio

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

When we polled owner-operators about a year ago on recent-history improvement, or lack thereof, in detention time along their routes and at their customers, a huge majority noted the situation they'd seen at docks hadn’t improved to any noticeable degree in recent years. Forty percent of all poll respondents at the time in fact said detention had gotten worse for them: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15544369/how-to-calculate-detention-rate-for-owneroperator-business If the American Transportation Research Institute's new look at detention is correct, though, waits to load/unload are getting at least marginally better for the average driver out there, if not the majority of Overdrive’s largely independent owner-operator readers. In this week's Overdrive Radio edition, track back through Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole's reporting on ATRI's "Cost and consequences of truck driver detention" study: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15683714/how-detention-time-impacted-trucking-companies-drivers-in-2023 The ATRI study's topline finding estimated trucking writ large lost $15 billion to detention at shippers and receivers in 2023. Yes, $15 billion with a B. If you consider the American Trucking Associations' annual revenue figure for the entirety of the trucking industry at nearly a trillion (ATA's 2023 estimate was $987 billion), that $15 billion is worth a full 1.5% of the entire revenues generated by trucking companies. In the podcast, we break down the headline-grabbing numbers and how ATRI got to them with its 2023 detention-impacts estimate, likewise what owners and operators can do to put a dent in their own detention problems. Some of it’s obvious -- drop/hook situations, such as you can engineer them, will help -- but a lot is difficult, particularly the customer relations management that might truly make shippers and receivers feel the burden of their inefficiencies with detention fees charged. And then actually collected. As it stands today, trucking writ large tackles this issue by half measures, quite literally collecting invoiced detention fees only about half the time, ATRI found. More on the detention subject: **Recent OOIDA member survey: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15665203/ooida-member-surveys-on-detention-time-rates-deliver-ops-insight **FMCSA plans new study, quandary for owner-ops working with brokers: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15638339/ownerops-weigh-in-on-fmcsas-detentiontime-study-efforts

In this week's Overdrive Radio podcast edition we’ll hear more of our talk with August Trucker of the Month Alan Kitzhaber, and a good bit about one particular subject near and dear to the 4-million-mile owner of a 1995 Kenworth T600 he's piloted since it was new. "I've been very religious about investing my money instead of spending it, and it's put me in a position where I can feel comfortable retiring." --Oakridge Transport owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15681362/meticulous-maintenance-efficiency-trucker-of-the-month Part 1 of this two-part podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/podcast/15679534/4-million-miles-in-a-kw-t600-trucker-of-the-month-alan-kitzhaber His long-term retirement investment strategy, suffice it to say, has owner-operator Kitzhaber well-positioned for an exit, making good on his view of his truck and the trucking business itself. As he notes in today's podcast, trucking's always been a vehicle, a tool to "get me somewhere else," he said. "I want to generate profit from it." After squandering retirement savings from his work in the 1980s, mostly in his 20s, running a Radio Shack store, he's managed multiple qualified retirement accounts and other investments soundly. Nearing the end of a nearly 35-year run of consistently putting aside 15%-20% of his income, he’s nearly gotten to that "somewhere else," where he truly wants to go -- that’s retirement, setting out on a variety of projects, including building a house on his property in Eau Claire, Wisconsin; pursuit of photography and videography hobbies; taxidermy; and more. As some of you heard in the podcast last week, Kitzhaber achieved a significant milestone in May this year -- he’s passed 4 million miles behind the wheel of a Cat-powered truck, his 1995 Oakridge Transport Kenworth T600, pulling since 2010 for a single shipper. As is sometimes the case in the profiles we write of our Trucker of the Year contenders, that shipper, the Midwest home-improvement chain Menards, headquartered nearby to Kitzhaber in Eau Claire, was a little slow to get back to us fully. Yet respond the company did, with a bit of a tribute to their long-running partner in Kitzhaber you can hear in this week's edition, too. **You can enter your own owner-operator business -- or that of another deserving owner -- in Overdrive's Trucker of the Year program, sponsored by Bostrom Seating, via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/TopTrucker Entries to the 2024 program are open through September.

"Some guys customize their truck via paint, chrome, lights, and things like that. I customize my truck to make it a more comfortable place to be, a more profitable truck, a more efficient truck." --Owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber It's another rewinder of sorts for this week in the Overdrive Radio podcast series. If you missed the news last week Tuesday, owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber out of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, was honored as our August Trucker of the Month, putting him in the running for Overdrive’s Trucker of the Year award with his three-plus decades trucking and 4 million miles logged behind the wheel of his long-running 1995 Kenworth T600: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15681362/meticulous-maintenance-efficiency-trucker-of-the-month Listeners have heard Kitzhaber in recent memory, of course, when he passed the 4-million-mile mark on the T600’s odometer in May we aired this talk originally in July: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15679534/4-million-miles-in-a-95-kw-t600-owneroperator-alan-kitzhaber For those who missed the talk, this week hear Kitzhaber on his approach to keeping that rig running right these past decades and so many miles. And: we’re at the final sprint for the Trucker of the Year award program for 2024. Nominations will close at the end of the month, and we’ve got just two semi-finalist slots left for a chance to win a brand-new seat, up to a $2,500 value, from Trucker of the Year award sponsor Bostrom Seating, a trip to and recognition at the Mid-America Trucking Show, various other prizes, and more. If you or another deserving owner want to put your business in the running, visit https://OverdriveOnline.com/toptrucker to do that. Kitzhaber's not the first owner Overdrive Radio listeners have heard who's done similar -- "Mustang" Mike Crawford crossed 4 million in his 1994 Freightliner (12.7 Detroit-powered) back in 2022: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15291488/mike-mustang-crawfords-1994-freightliner-4-million-safe-miles (Incidentally, Overdrive editor Todd Dills spoke with Crawford July 1 as he hitting the Prime yard in Springfield at the end of his final run before retirement with a grand total of 4,159,910 miles in the rear view of the Freightliner. More on Crawford’s final run in a future podcast.) Owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber’s career stretches back to 1990, his time as owner-operator some years on with Millis Transfer, where he first took the reins of the then-brand-new 1995 Kenworth T600 as a company driver. He bought the truck from the company itself, then, a few years later. Since then, he's been laser-focused on turning that truck into a profit-making machine, and meticulous with record-keeping in no small way. As suggested by the quote at the top, too, plenty modifications through the years have allowed him to excel to the point of achieving well more than 8 mpg for a fuel mileage average several years running this past decade. There’s a lot to those modifications he’s made, for certain, detailed in today’s episode. And 4 million miles is a very long way. More than 8 times to the moon and back. At roughly 60 miles per hour it’d take you well past the hard end of the 14-hour clock to do it at 66,666 hours. We’ll track back through Kitzhaber’s history a little more quickly than that today on the podcast, along the way learning plenty about just how the owner-operator kept that Cat-powered T600 humming efficiently for so very long. As mentioned in the podcast, Caterpillar's interview with Kitzhaber for its Million Mile Club when he crossed 3 million: https://www.cat.com/en_US/articles/cat-truck-engine-articles/million-miler-alan-kitzhaber.html Gordon Alkire's closed greasing system: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14877182/csa-proofing-part-two-closed-greasing-system

With the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s annual Brake Safety Week inspection initiative kicking off August 26 with stepped-up brake checks and inspections, generally, in jurisdictions across North America, we’re looking back at a podcast from earlier in the year – February 2024 to be exact. The episode featured Wisconsin-headquartered owner-operator Warren McCurdy and a central point of view about what he feels the roadside inspection system was designed for. Something that’s, well, gotten a little off track with how states, the FMCSA, and some fleets treat so-called “safey scores” derived from inspections and associated violations. As you’re hauling this week, if you get a quote unquote “assist” from an inspector out there, take note of the approach he or she takes. Is it “prevention” of accidents that is the ultimate goal? McCurdy, at the top of the podcast, made clear his bone to pick with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's CSA scoring program and all its ripple effects throughout trucking and roadside inspection systems. After a trailer tire lost air in transit sufficient to take the tire off the rim -- the trailer empty, the tire problem unnoticed by McCurdy before inspection -- the owner-operator's leasing carrier assessed points for the violation modeled on the FMCSA's internal Driver Safety Measurement System nearly enough to void McCurdy's lease. This sort of "accountability" isn't, the owner-operator felt, what roadside inspections were designed for. The inspector in this case in Washington State did his job to the letter, and caught the in-transit flattened tire in plenty time to save any real damaging outcome. For all that, McCurdy is thankful. "I think that these inspections are good. They should be preventative things," he said. "Nobody wants to go down the road with flat tires." Yet, he added, "I don't think we should be penalized for something that is not something that you did intentionally." That goes for the motor carrier as well. There's a reason carriers like his own assess those points -- because they are incurring the same level of severity weighting in the Carrier SMS. Potential changes to the Carrier SMS notwithstanding (FMCSA isn't looking at those same changes for the Driver SMS), the podcast this week dives back into what’s at issue in cases like these, in which carriers subject to the severity weighting system for violations pass that on, with their own systems to hold drivers and owner-operators to a degree of accountability themselves, relying on the federal points system to assess and prevent damage to their own scores. Susan McCurdy tried her hand at the DataQs system in a vain attempt to contain the damage in this case by challenging the violation. But given the inspector was doing what he should have done here -- alerting McCurdy to the problem tire on his trailer, conducting an inspection, then reporting the results into the federal system as required -- there was nothing DataQs was going to be able to help correct about the fundamental nature of the situation. More fundamentally, though, it’s the very nature of the CSA scoring system that makes accountability problematic for owner-operator McCurdy here. Nobody indeed intends to run around with flat tires. With respect to any violation, McCurdy urges regulators take a long hard look at what they’re holding carriers and drivers accountable for by scoring them as they do. More in Overdrive's long-running CSA's Data Trail series: http://overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail Find plenty in the way of brakes-related maintenance and inspection resources at this page: https://www.overdriveonline.com/maintenance/article/14875428/tractor-trailer-maintenance-for-ownerops-to-outrun-inspectors

It was no doubt a bittersweet last weekend in Waupun, Wisconsin, at what could well be the final edition of the decades-running Waupun Truck-N-Show, where Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole was on hand talking to many among the owner-operators and other truckers in attendance: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15681420/final-waupun-trucknshow-kicks-off One such was Dane Wisniewski, owner of three-truck small fleet HDR, LLC, headquartered there in the state. Owner Wisniewski recalled fondly his time attending the show during every single one of his years in business from the time he started with just one truck. "I hope that somebody maybe takes it over," he said about prospects for the show to continue past this year, offering a challenge to those among his own younger generation of truck owners. "The younger generation such as I that's coming through the ranks needs to step up." This edition of Overdrive Radio podcast takes even more of the temperature among owners out at the Waupun show not only as it relates to the kind of wistfulness -- with a challenge to the next generation -- coming from owner-operator Wisniewski about the show's future prospects itself. August 22 is coming fast, and on that day we’re hosting an online session geared toward exchanging ideas around building trucking business to weather the inevitable ups and downs of the business cycles: https://fusable.zoom.us/webinar/register/7917212359500/WN_DKU8Uka_QVyvEVqCSBdAjA#/registration Given that, Cole asked five owners you’ll hear from today some of the same questions: What have they done in response to the current, long-ongoing freight slump? Is there any hope that this year’s presidential election’s conclusion might deliver certainty to the spenders out there such that freight might improve significantly in the years to come? In other words, is there a chance the prognosticators foreseeing growth in 2025, rather than full-blown economic recession, could be right, with the better political certainty delivering freight market improvements? Settle in for a lightning round on micro- and macro-trucking economics, as it were, from the point of an ag-heavy group of owner-operators at the Waupun show. We’ll hear along the way from: **Brett Buske, hauling in a custom 379 that's part of his and his father's seven-truck small fleet. **Owner-operator Brian Bucenell, leased to Drake Hauling pulling a hopper. **The father and son small fleet of Dan and Daniel Linn, Linn Acres Farms out of Bucyros, Ohio. **Wisconsin-headquartered HDR small fleet and HDL brokerage owner Dan Wiesniewski, who showed a 2007 Kenworth W900L at Waupun. And finally, one Nate Stone, who shares at least one trait in common with our August 22-set panelist owner-operator ilya Denisenko in that he’s started his owner-operator business at perhaps the most opportune of inopportune times, if that makes sense. That is, right at the bottom of the market. It’s kind of like that old Frank Sinatra song about New York City. If you can make there, at the bottom, with profit to show for it ... well, you might be able to make it anywhere. Read more about the August 22 panel discussion set for 1 p.m. Central time: **https://www.overdriveonline.com/15680141 **https://www.overdriveonline.com/15681671 Register to attend live and/or catch the replay: https://fusable.zoom.us/webinar/register/7917212359500/WN_DKU8Uka_QVyvEVqCSBdAjA#/registration

"As anti-automated driving as I am, I might almost rather see some robots. At least they're not going to be looking at screens" going down the road. --owner-operator and Overdrive July 2024 Trucker of the Month Mike Nichols: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15680591/trucker-of-the-month-mike-nichols-knows-limits-hones-strengths We're picking up where we left off in Part 1 of this talk with owner-operator Nichols -- https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15681077/trucker-of-the-month-steers-business-with-reliable-partnerships -- conducted by Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole and featuring Nichols' perspective on recent-history revenue and income. "I made more in '22 than I did in '23," NIchols said, calling the reality, though, mostly a revenue boost and "artifact of the high fuel prices" that unprecedented year. Fortunately, leased to Wayne Transports with his 2020 Freightliner Coronado glider pulling dry bulk, "we've got a good fuel surcharge," he said. "There isn't any Mickey Mouse games with detention," either, which couldn't be said in his days pulling a reefer around the turn of the century. He's come a long way since with a careful approach to business, including his maintenance plan, approach to health insurance and retirement planning and perhaps the biggest challenge for OTR owner-ops going: bedrock safety on highways where distraction has become something of a norm. "I'm a firm believer in 'loud pipes save lives,'" as Nichols put it, "because people aren't paying attention." Nichols' is a voice for change on that score, in word as in deed. You can enter your own owner-operator business -- or that of another deserving owner -- in Overdrive's Trucker of the Year program, sponsored by Bostrom Seating, via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/TopTrucker Also in the podcast: From the Large Cars & Guitars truck show in Tennessee this past May, a window on a stunning 2023 Peterbilt 389 in the small fleet West Lawrence Logistics of Town Creek, Alabama, piloted by three-year company hauler Jarad Mullinix.

This week on the podcast, we're diving in headfirst to the history of Wisconsin-headquartered owner-operator Mike Nichols, Overdrive's July Trucker of the Month and profiled recently in our Trucker of the Year semi-finalist series by Matt Cole: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15680591/trucker-of-the-month-mike-nichols-knows-limits-hones-strengths As Cole wrote about the owner, Nichols pulls leased to bulk carrier Wayne Transports, for most of the last six years running. And the owner well knows his strengths and weaknesses, and has built his business to hum with that in mind. His prioritization of effective partnerships (both on the freight side and with a trusted maintenance partner nearby his home, among other business areas) have his one-truck business plenty profitable even through the difficulties of these last years. Wayne Transports, where he’s specialized in the dry bulk division, is a big part of that. His was a long road to get to this point, though, and today we’ll run through the twists and turns of a career that stretches back to his first taste of truck ownership almost four decades ago. As mentioned in the podcast: **Nichols isn't the first owner-operator to benefit from Wisconsin's unique Lemon Law and its application to commercial trucks: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14875197/lemon-aid **You can enter your own owner-operator business -- or that of another deserving owner -- in Overdrive's Trucker of the Year program, sponsored by Bostrom Seating, via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/TopTrucker Entries to the 2024 program are open through September.