Overdrive Radio

"The goal of this program is to take one truck and figure out how to squeeze the maximum amount of profit out of that truck." --Kevin Rutherford on NASTC's 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 Trucki...

"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-mi...

"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’ increas...

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 t...

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 ho...

"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...

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 busines...

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...

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 ins...

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, th...

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...

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 f...

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...

"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...

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 C...

"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 to...

"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....

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...

"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 Overdriv...

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....

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 r...

"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 Clair...

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...

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 Wisniews...

"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...