Drilling Deep with John Kingston

It isn't just truck drivers who are in tight supply. It's just as competitive for freight brokers too.   On this week's Drilling Deep podcast, host John Kingston interviews Brent Orsuga, the head of Pinnacle Growth Advisors, on the red-hot market for freight brokers. His message: it's just as much a battlefield there as the fight to get good drivers into the cab. Also on the podcast, Kingston talk...

On this week's Drilling Deep podcast, Peter Stefanovich of Left Lane Associates gives listeners an overview of the market for buying and selling all sorts of trucking-related assets, but with a particular focus on how the demand for brokerages is doing. Also on the podcast, host John Kingston looks at whether a lot of the reason oil prices are rising higher is because diesel is dragging it there. ...

Todd Amen is the president of ATBS and it gives him a ringside seat for how independent owner operators in the trucking market are doing financially. ATBS processes thousands of tax returns for owner operators every year. It's getting toward April 15, when taxes need to be filed, and Amen joins Drilling Deep host John Kingston to discuss what he's seen in this year's tax returns coming off the str...

The U.S. is releasing more oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve than it ever has before. Is this good policy? On the Drilling Deep podcast, host John Kingston discusses why such a move now is precisely why the reserve was built in the first place. Tracy Rosser, an executive vice president at Transplace, is the guest of the week on Drilling Deep. What does the massive amount of data that his...

As the roads have become clogged again as the country comes out of the pandemic, there is some bad news coming from them: safety has not improved. Rob Abbott has spent much of his career dealing with truck safety issues. He's now the commercial leader for enterprise trucking at Lytx. He joins host John Kingston to discuss the state of safety on the roads today. Also on the podcast, Kingston looks...

With so much other news, you may have lost track of what is going on with the backed-up ports on the U.S. West Coast and how their situation has spilled over into other ports. Greg Miller, FreightWaves senior editor who has been following the port backups for months, joins host John Kingston to bring listeners up to date on the easing of the backlog but why the situation is far from being over. Al...

Just as the pandemic was starting, a new Kansas truckstop, Bert's, was getting ready to open its doors. It went ahead with the opening and now it's been recognized as one of the best in the country. On this week's Drilling Deep, host John Kingston interviews the owner and manager of Bert's to find out how they pulled off this accomplishment. Also on the podcast, Kingston discusses the wild ride th...

LTL has a highly unique set of practices, pricing and operations that sets it apart from truckload companies.   Training people wanting to enter the LTL field is a major challenge, especially if they are coming in cold from the outside. On this week's Drilling Deep, host John Kingston sits down with Brian Thompson, the chief commercial officer of SMC3, to discuss how his company approaches the cha...

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and oil markets start gyrating in response, there's a lot of bad information out there about the state of the oil market. That's not a good formula in an industry where fuel prices are a major cost for transportation costs. Host John Kingston clears up some of the so-called "facts" this week on Drilling Deep. Also on the podcast, Transfix and T...

Michael Lemecs is a former truck driver and is now an assistant professor at the University of Houston-Downtown. He's spent a good part of his career studying drivers from the perspective of the forces that shape their careers and their perspective on the world. Given that, host John Kingston wanted to sit down with him and get his views on what happened with the Canadian truck blockade of several...

Amit Mehrotra, head of the transportation research team at Deutsche Bank, joins host John Kingston to review the numbers that poured out of public companies in the recent round of earnings reports for the fourth quarter of 2021. Also on podcast: Kingston talks about the troubling drop in global refinery throughput last year. Those refineries are needed to make diesel. Why didn't they turn out more...

WorkHound is a company designed to bring in feedback from drivers using nothing more than a text message, and it brings in more than 60,000 comments per year. Not all of them are complaining; there was a lot of praise last year too. WorkHound CEO and founder Max Farrell joins host John Kingston to discuss what he heard in 2021 and why the feedback points to the utter importance of training as lead...

Making the final mile more efficient is a challenge with hundreds of moving parts. It is particularly challenging in an urban setting with clogged streets and limited parking. Host John Kingston caught up with Penn State's Andisheh Ranjbari after hearing her presentation at the urban freight session at the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting in Washington earlier this month. She was rec...

In an interview done from the Transportation Research Board annual meeting, Barb Rhode of the Mileage Based Users Fee Alliance talks about continuing progress in the drive to replace gasoline taxes with mileage fees. She joins podcast host John Kingston following a presentation she made at the conference to bring us up to date on where that push stands. Also on the podcast, Kingston talks about th...

Driver recruitement and retention were a big issue in 2021. It is likely to be no different in 2022. Dan Johnston, co-founder and CEO of WorkStep, joins host John Kingston on the Drilling Deep podcast to discuss his company's software-based approach to recruitment and retention. He has pretty blunt words for the efforts that have gone on otherwise in that field; his argument is that they all prett...

Sean Garney of Scopelitis Transportation Consulting joins host John Kingston on this week's Drilling Deep to review some of what happened during this past crazy year in trucking and look ahead to some of the biggest policies that might come out of Washington in the coming year. In his end-of-year oil recap, Kingston has some of the numbers on where the diesel market has taken the trucking industry...

With the infrastructure spending bill now on the verge of sending billions of dollars to various local governments, the question will arise: how should we spend it? One person they may turn to is Kyle Schneweis, the CEO of High Street Consulting. His firm advises governments on setting priorities in their infrastructure needs and spending. He speaks with host John Kingston about the types of spend...

Desiree Wood is an independent owner operator who has devoted much of her time educating those who need to know about the crisis in truck parking today. She speaks in public, she joins webcasts and on Drilling Deep this week, she joins host John Kingston to discuss her recent efforts to alert the world about the parking squeeze. Also on the podcast, Kingston talks about a diesel-related market: th...

Don Newell and Scooter Sayers are long-time LTL industry experts and consultants. Although the stock prices of LTL companies have been soaring on Wall Street, Newell and Sayers join host John Kingston on Drilling Deep to talk about some underlying fundamental problems in the LTL sector that they want to see fixed. Also on the podcast, Kingston discusses the recent OPEC reaction to the release of o...

Chris Visser of JD Power has been tracking used truck prices for a long time. And as he will tell you, he's never seen a used truck market quite like this one. He joins Drilling Deep co-host John Kingston to discuss the wild swings in prices and what needs to happen for them to slow their upward march. Also on the podcast, Kingston discusses the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve...

Testing for drug use in drivers rests now primarily on urine testing. But it has drawbacks. Others argue that hair testing is preferable. But it has drawbacks too. Saliva testing? Easy to do, but it isn't perfect. On this week's Drilling Deep podcast, two academics who have studied the issue join host John Kingston to discuss recent research they've completed on the various methods now in use and...

With the third quarter earnings season wrapped up, Todd Fowler of KeyBank joins Drilling Deep to answer the question: how did they do? He shares his views on several companies, including Knight Swift, Werner and Marten in his discussion with host John Kingston. Also on the podcast, the point of view that believes oil markets may ease up in the first quarter, as well as the controversial suggestion...

Fleet AI is a new truckload carrier that is trying to distinguish itself in a field full of new and existing entrants where it's tough to stand out. Its founder and CEO is Marc El Khoury. He joins Drilling Deep host John Kingston to talk about how his company is trying to stand out and get that competitive edge by its use of AI and algorithms.   Also on the podcast, Kingston discusses the possibil...

Dave Heller is the vice president for governmental affairs at the Truckload Carriers Association. In that role, he is deeply involved in the trucking industry's reaction to the looming vaccination mandate coming out of the Biden administration. At the recent annual meeting of the American Trucking Associations, Heller sat down with Drilling Deep host John Kingston to talk about that battle in Wash...

First, you become a third party seller on Amazon. Then maybe you use Fulfillment by Amazon to fulfill those shipments, taking it off your hand but requiring money to be paid to Amazon for their services. And then in order to make your life easier, you might hire an outside consultant to help you navigate FBA. That is what GETIDA does. Its co-founder Yoni Mazor will join co-host John Kingston on th...