Posts Tagged “Great Dane”
Allen Loggins has been an owner operator all but three years since he began trucking in 1996. Some might consider him old school, whether we’re talking about the 25-year-old Pete he drives, or his refusal to haul cheap freight. Then there is the matter of him keeping his down time to a minium waiting for loads.
We’ll start with the latter.
A resident of Jackson, GA, Allen says he used to run Florida a lot over a 25-year period. That has changed.
“There is a lot of sitting and waiting in Florida. I used to haul a lot of stuff (freight) into Florida ports. But there is simply too much waiting,” he relates. This also applies to hauling Florida produce, especially during the off season.
Instead, Allen now prefers Texas over Florida. He hauls mostly fresh produce out of the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Often his destination is the Atlanta State Farmers Market. Sometimes he’ll deliver the fruits and vegetables elsewhere in Georiga or the Carolinas. The return trip to Texas typically involves meat that will be exported to Mexico. It typically is something like processed chicken or balonga he picks up in Selma, AL.
“I like hauling produce,” Allen states. “Some people think you are nuts. But if you haul out of Florida, you are nuts. I would sit there all day then they want you in Atlanta in no time. Florida wears you out hauling produce. Texas is much easier.
The 51-year-old trucker says there are occasions he’ll be stuck a day or two in McAllen, TX waiting for the product from Mexico to cross the border, but that is rather unusual.
Allen owns and operates Southern States Produce, which consists of his 1989 Peterbilt conventional, housing a 425 hp Model B Cat diesel. The truck has a 15-speed tranny and 3:90 rears. He pulls a 53-foot Great Dane trailer cooled by a Thermo King refeer unit.
Allen knows the old Pete well. He drove the truck for the owner until that person retired. A few months ago Allen purchased the truck and once again became an owner operartor.
“I don’t like these new trucks. They have too many electronics and sensors. They are too expensive to repair,” he states.
When it comes to produce hauling, Allen has a few basic principals to follow. He makes sure the product is hauled within in the proper temperature range. He also avoids mixing perishable items that are not compatable. Finally, he checks his reefer unit every couple of hours or so making sure it is doing its job.
Allen had recently delivered a load of Mexican green house grown roma tomatoes to the Del Monte facility in Altanta that he had picked up in South Texas. He then loaded meat products in Alabama for delivery back to Texas. From there he picked up a load of Mexican avocados, again in South Texas, where were delivered to the Atlanta State Farmers Market.
He just had his rig washed at the nearby Patriot Truck Stop, before taking four days off until hitting the road again. Allen typically has the truck washed a couple of times a month, citing the need of making a good impression with the shippers and recievers.
“I don’t want to pull up to the dock with a dirty assed truck. If you don’t have a nice looking truck, they might think you don’t take care about their load,” Allen observes.
Finally, as an owner operator, Allen says he has to gross between $2 and $3 per mile. This way he makes enough to put some cash away for repairs and maintenance.
It make sound old school, but it seems to work for this owner operator.
When it comes to women and trucks, owner operator Mark Baumann has found if you treat your truck right, it will never let you down. Women are another matter. He also has a few issues with the large carriers, but one matter at a time.
On this particular day a few weeks in Chicago, it was a bright sunny day. Although he’d driven through some rain storms the night before, his 2005 Peterbilt still looked sharp, even though it needed a bath.
I’d love to see this rig at night with its 300 lights shining!
“My mom always said be seen, not heard,” Mark recalls. “Life has been good to me, but like anything else it has had its ups and downs. I’ve made a lot of money, but I’ve lost a lot of money.”
Mark hauls cheese under a lease to Wisconsin Refrigerated Express LLC out of Sheboygan, WI. Those loads are usually destined to Texas. On the return haul he’ll pick up fresh produce grown in South Texas or Mexico, which he delivers to the Anthony Marano Co. in Chicago. The large midwest produce distributor will unload him, and fill his truck with more produce for delivery to Wisconsin supermarkets.
He purchased his 379 Pete new in 2005 for $115,000 and has since logged nearly 1.3 million miles. It is powered by a C-15 Cat, 18-speed transmission with 3:55 rears. The rig features a fuel enhancing Pittsburgh box by HBA, allowing him to average 5 mpg, which he says is similar to one produced by Bully Dog.
He also owns a 2004 Great Dane, 48-food trailer with a Thermo King Whisper, a reefer unit known for its quietness and fuel efficency.
Mark loves his Pete and states if someone offered him what he paid for it new, he’d walk away from the offer.
“You can find a good woman anywhere. Women come and go, but a good truck is hard to come by,” states the 47-year-old trucker from Plymouth, WI. “That ole girl (Pete) will be with me til the day I die. She’ll do whatever I want, if I ask her nicely.”
He adds, “I always haul produce and cheese. Trucking is in my blood. Once it is there, you can’t get rid of it.”
Mark says he spends $2,800 a week on fuel. Although “that’s a good chunk of money, I’m making good money.”
However, like most successful owner operators, making money comes with a price. He is consistently logging about 3,400 miles per week and spends little time at home.
“I’m the guy they call when they say a job can’t be done,” he states.
Mark has been trucking 16 years and says it is the independent truckers that have built this industry; the small fleet owner with four or five trucks. However, he says it is becoming more difficult to compete with the rate slashing big fleets.
He also is critical of the new drivers hitting the highways for the large carriers, saying many have inadquate training before being put behind the wheel of a big rig.
“A lot of bad things can happen with lack of enough training. They train them for three weeks, give them a new Kenworth and tell them to the head to California. You can replace a rig, but you can’t replace a life,” he observes.
If you want to make it in trucking, you should take some pointers from a real 
veteran, Duane Riendeau. Although he’s now a company driver, for most of his career he was a successful owner operator.
He’s still running over the road, but he takes off a couple of months each year, raised five kids, and still enjoys what he is doing.
The resident of Grand Forks, ND began trucking at age 26. Until seven years ago when he became a driver for Troy Pecka Inc. of East Grand Forks, MN, he was an owner operator. Now 65, Duane doesn’t want to work as hard, pretty much selects his hauls, and still does his share of trucking. Yet, he usually takes off around January and February each year and relaxes in Arizona.
“I owned a truck for 25 years. I really enjoyed it. I paid for every truck I bought and I can’t complain. I had five boys and one girl and most of them went to college. I don’t have a lot of money left, but I accomplished that anyway,” he says in a modest, soft spoken voice.
“All my kids are grown and they are doing pretty darned good,” he says. The only kid involved in trucking is a son with a couple of trucks that run locally for a business his son owns.
So how does a guy raise give kids, vacation two months year and pretty much set his own driving schedule?
Duane says if you are a produce trucker, you have got to be “connected” and “be careful because a lot of people are out there who won’t pay.” For the young, inexperienced persons entering trucking he suggests relying on the credit and rating services such as the Blue Book and the Red Book. These will give one a good idea of how reputable a company is and show their pay practices.
“When it comes to rejected loads or claims, you sometimes learn as you go. I look my loads over when I’m being loaded. You can telll when the produce is fresh, or if it is ‘iffy’.”
When it is “iffy” with quality or appearance concerns, Duane stresses the need to tell your customer about its condition. It is better the load be “kicked” by the buyer at the loading dock than after you have delivered it to the customer. The shipper may not like what the trucker is telling the customer, but that shipper will also realize the product isn’t what it should be.
Duane says there are a lot of good trucking companies to work for, but that Troy Pecka was an independent trucker himself, plus his father and brother were in trucking.
“Troy understands the whole business. I go (on hauls) when I want to go with his truck, just like it was my own. All he expects is that the truck makes money. There are five or six guys my age that work for him and he wouldn’t have it any other way. He knows when you leave with a load it is going to get there,” Duane says.
Duane actually leased his own truck to Troy Pecka Trucking for four years, before selling it and becoming a company driver.
He is now driving a 2007 Kenworth T-600 with a C-13 Cat engine with 475 h.p., pulling a Great Dane trailer.
Duane has nothing but praise for the Great Dane, saying “you pay for what you get.” He cites the Dane’s heavy insallation and sturdy floors, noting some cheaper brands of trailers “are throw aways” because they are not built as well.
“I haul quite a bit of produce,” Duane relates. “I’ve hauled everything you can possibly imagine. We do haul some frozen items. I haul a lot of raw (fresh) potatoes out of the Red River Valley.” However, he also hauls everything from watermelons to lettuce, cabbage and other vegetables and citrus out of South Texas.
“I’ve always hauled a lot of produce and always made a living at it,” he states.
That’s pretty obvious, having raised five good children and vacationing in Arizona during part of the winter.
I spent Thursday at the Great American Truck Show in Dallas visiting with as 
many drivers and exhibitors as possible. It was the first show I’d been to in five or six years. Dates of the show are Thursday, Friday and Saturday, August 23-25.
It appears to be a little larger than when I last attended, and there seemed to be more trucks entered in the Pride & Polish competition. There are over 500 exhibitors, according the GATS program. The first few hours of the first day of the show had light traffic, but it picked up significantly the last half of the afternoon. Traditionally, there will be a lot more attendees today and Saturday.
While there are some of the big name companies at the show such as Peterbilt and Great Dane, there are obviously a number of the big boys that continue to not exhibit at Dallas.
Still, it is a good show, with the usual workshops and country performers with big names, but past their glory days.
Apparently there is still good demand for drivers as quite a few carriers and logistics companies were exhibiting putting, their best foot forward to sign up owner operators and company drivers.
The show continues to be under air conditioning, which includes the Pride and Polish competition. Dallas can be brutal in August, although yesterday it was only 95 degrees, with low humidity.
Show hours today and Saturday are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
— Bill Martin
Tod Taylor has been trucking off and on for over 25 years, but it’s the onlyprofession he’s known for the past seven years. He has 
pretty much done and seen it all during his career and is thankful the equipment has improved immensely.
He still has vivid memories of his first job trucking in January 1986 when he was driving for a company with a 1982 cabover. “They left me in New York City for three weeks, mainly to pick up and drop trailers. I vowed I’d never go back there,” he recalls.
He hasn’t strayed much from those feelings today. A company driver for Professional Services Transportation Inc. (PSI) of Huntsville, MO, Tod says he refuses to drive inside of Interstate 287 in New York. He, as well as PSI pretty much also avoids trucking in California because of the rules, regulations and gridlock.
“You can’t make any time in California or New York. You are dealing with too many things that eat the clock up,” he states.
While hauling meat is the primary focus for PSI, the company also transports its share of fresh produce. In fact, he finds some similarities between the two categories of loads.
Tod had just hauled a load of meat from Milwaukee and made two drops inAtlanta. Now he was parked at an Atlanta truck stop and in 14 hours (3 a.m.) was scheduled to make his first of three more drops. Sounds a little like some produce hauls, in which he also aired some opinions.
“If the produce people would get their act together, it wouldn’t be bad (hauling fresh fruits and vegetables). You wait three days to pick up two skids. You wait for those skids because the product has to be harvested. Trucking just don’t pay enough to do that. When I get lucky and finally get loaded, then they don’t want to pay you anything to haul it,” he reflects.
Tod believes a minumum of two dollars per mile is needed to haul produce out of California and many other places, “but most guys aren’t getting that. They want you to drive 3,100 miles for $2,800. You can’t do that, especially when you are there three to four days waiting for a load. It’s not worth it.”
At age 50, Tod has never owned his own truck, although he has considered it from time to time. However, he has always decided against being an owner operator “because I don’t need all of the extra headaches.”
Tod drives a beautiful 2012 Kenworth T-660, which had only 37,000 miles on it. He loves the truck that is powered by a Paacar 455 h.p. engine, 15-speed automatic transmission, and pulls a 53-foot Great Dane holding a Carrier refrigeration unit. The truck is a light oak leaf color with an 84-inch studio sleeper. The cab has a lot of modern features including a GPS system built into the dash.
He concludes, “Trucking has come along way from that ’82 cabover freight shaker I used to drive.”
Tod Taylor has been trucking off and on for over 25 years, but it’s the only profession he’s known for the past seven years. He has pretty much done and seen it all during his career and is thankful the equipment has improved immensely.
He still has vivid memories of his first job trucking in January 1986 when he was driving for a company with a 1982 cabover. “They left me in New York City for three weeks, mainly to pick up and drop trailers. I vowed I’d never go back there,” he recalls.
He hasn’t strayed much from those feelings today. A company driver for Professional Services Transportation Inc. (PSI) of Huntsville, MO, Tod says he refuses to drive inside of Interstate 287 in New York. He, as well as PSI pretty much also avoids trucking in California because of the rules, regulations and gridlock.
“You can’t make any time in California or New York. You are dealing with too many things that eat the clock up,” he states.
While hauling meat is the primary focus for PSI, the company also transports its share of fresh produce. In fact, he finds some similarities between the two categories of loads.
Tod had just hauled a load of meat from Milwaukee and made two drops in 
Atlanta. Now he was parked at an Atlanta truck stop and in 14 hours (3 a.m.) was scheduled to make his first of three more drops. Sounds a little like some produce hauls, in which he also aired some opinions.
“If the produce people would get their act together, it wouldn’t be bad (hauling fresh fruits and vegetables). You wait three days to pick up two skids. You wait for those skids because the product has to be harvested. Trucking just don’t pay enough to do that. When I get lucky and finally get loaded, then they don’t want to pay you anything to haul it,” he reflects.
Tod believes a minumum of two dollars per mile is needed to haul produce out of California and many other places, “but most guys aren’t getting that. They want you to drive 3,100 miles for $2,800. You can’t do that, especially when you are there three to four days waiting for a load. It’s not worth it.”
At age 50, Tod has never owned his own truck, although he has considered it from time to time. However, he has always decided against being an owner operator “because I don’t need all of the extra headaches.”
Tod drives a beautiful 2012 Kenworth T-660, which had only 37,000 miles on it. He loves the truck that is powered by a Paacar 455 h.p. engine, 15-speed automatic transmission, and pulls a 53-foot Great Dane holding a Carrier refrigeration unit. The truck is a light oak leaf color with an 84-inch studio sleeper. The cab has a lot of modern features including a GPS system built into the dash.
He concludes, “Trucking has come along way from that ’82 cabover freight shaker I used to drive.”