The Cypress Truck Lines Podcast

Most drivers know what happens on their end of the load. But what happens on the other side of that phone call? Who is planning the freight, building the routes, and making sure everything comes together before a driver ever climbs into the cab? In Episode 27 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, Marcus sits down with Wes Mitchell, a Cypress logistics expert who has built his career from the inside...

Two hundred and fifty years. America has been doing this for 250 years, and we are celebrating it the only way we know how on the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast. In Episode 26, Marcus brings back two of the show's most beloved guests, Tony Miller and Kevin Barritt, for a Fourth of July special that is exactly as fun as it sounds from start to finish. Firework stories. Childhood shenanigans. Eye-poppi...

Hurricane Helene left a trail of destruction across inland North Carolina and Tennessee in 2024 that claimed 250 lives and cut off entire communities from the resources they desperately needed. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis responded by sending 7,500 feet of temporary bridge infrastructure to help reconnect those communities including a saline and isopropyl factory critical to the medical relief e...

Every driver who has ever applied to a trucking company has wondered the same thing. Will my record disqualify me? Will they find out about that accident? What happens if I am honest about my drug-screen history? In Episode 24 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, Marcus sits down with Angela Barfield, Ciara Watson, and Sharon Stoltmann, the team that recruits, screens, and processes every driver wh...

Your truck gets towed and you did not see it coming. The bill is outrageous, the situation is stressful, and you are hundreds of miles from home trying to figure out what just happened. Predatory towing schemes, cargo theft, and parking scams are targeting commercial drivers at an alarming rate and most drivers do not find out about them until it is too late. In Episode 23 of the Cypress Truck Lin...

Some people find trucking because they love the road. Some find it because they need the money. And some find it because everything else fell apart at the same time, and the road was the only thing left that made sense. Stephen Henderson is that third kind of driver. In Episode 22 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, Stephen sits down with Marcus to tell his story from start to finish. A career in...

Summer is coming, and the road is about to get a whole lot more crowded. Motorcycles are coming out of hibernation. RVs the size of small houses are pulling into your lane. Teenagers who just got their licenses and have no idea that you need 400 feet to stop. Construction zones are popping up on every highway from here to the state line. More pedestrians. More vacationers. More people have no idea...

The miles are logged. The load is delivered. The 10-hour break has started. So what does an OTR driver actually do with that time? In Episode 20 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, Marcus gets three Cypress OTR drivers together for one of the most laid-back and genuinely fun conversations the show has ever had. Parris McLeod, Greg Boyd, and Jeramy Richard talk about everything they get into while...

Most trucking companies will tell you that home time is a priority. Cypress Truck Lines built a system that actually proves it. Five hundred drivers. Fifteen hundred trailers. That ratio is not an accident. It is the foundation of a philosophy that lets Cypress drivers get home at the drop of a hat when something important comes up without asking permission or filing paperwork or waiting on a load...

Every driver who comes through Cypress orientation has one job: prove they are ready. Randy Wells and Blaine Carver have seen hundreds of drivers walk through that door, and they can tell almost immediately who will succeed and who will not. In Episode 18 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, Marcus sits down with the two men who built Cypress's orientation program into one of the most respected dri...

The Life360 app started as a simple way for OTR drivers to keep tabs on each other out on the road. What it became for Tony Miller, Kevin Barritt, and Adolf Metzer is something a lot bigger than that. In Episode 17 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, Kevin reached out after Tony mentioned the app in a previous episode because he wanted the world to know just how much it has meant to him and the dr...

Living out of a car. Down to your last $100. Borrowing money from friends and family just to get through the week. For some people, that's rock bottom. For three Cypress Truck Lines drivers, it was the beginning of something they never saw coming. In Episode 16 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, Trevis Gary, Mateo Van Holten, and James Yoder share the kind of stories that don't get told enough in...

Lease purchase programs promise freedom, ownership, and the big money. What they don't tell you is what's waiting on the other side of that signature. In Episode 15 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, three Cypress drivers who have seen the owner/operator life up close share what nobody tells you before you make the leap. One driver left Cypress for seven years to chase the O/O dream and came back...

Sasquatch. Cryptids. A black dog so terrifying it stopped a truck dead in its tracks. Episode 14 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast ventures into territory we've never explored before, and honestly, we're not sure we're coming back. Cypress driver Steve "Gibby" Gibson sits down with Marcus to share his real-life encounter with what he firmly believes was a Bigfoot or some other cryptid out on the...

OTR, Regional, or Local, it's the question every new CDL holder asks, and almost nobody answers straight, until now. In Episode 13 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, we brought in three Cypress drivers who live in each lane every single day to break it down for you the right way. Kevin Barritt runs OTR. Brad Hollinger runs Local. John Weideman runs Regional. Together, they walk you through schedu...

What does it take to walk away from a 25-year career and start completely over? For Tony Miller, it took a CDL, two sons willing to make the leap alongside him, and a flatbed trucking company that felt like family from day one. In Episode 12 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, Tony shares one of the most unique stories we've had on the show, a feel-good journey from Regional Bank Manager to profes...

Hair follicle drug screening, the FMCSA Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse, and random drug tests. In Episode 11 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, we sit down with Joe Reilly, founder of National Drug Screening Inc. and a recognized expert witness in the field, to break down everything drivers and fleet operators need to know about modern drug testing. We're talking test types, look-back periods, ho...

Two countries. Two journeys. One home at Cypress Truck Lines. In Episode 10, we sit down with Abdul Waheed, a former lawyer and U.S. Government contractor in Afghanistan who traded courtrooms for load boards, and Tyler Goodwin, a flatbed driver who hopped over from Manchester, England, at just 15 years old, only to discover his high school diploma meant four more years of American classrooms. Thes...

MirrorEye cameras and SMARTdrive systems are becoming more common on trucks each year, but what is it really like to drive with them? In Episode 9 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, we hear honest insights from two drivers who have experienced it firsthand. Angel Escoto and Kevin Barritt, both drivers and trainers at Cypress, share their real-world experiences with driver-facing cameras and advan...

Low Country Loading Service doesn't just load flatbeds; they make or break your run before you ever leave the yard. In this episode of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, we sit down with all four Low Country Managers, Juan Perez, Michael Mena, Michael Allen, and Martin Olphert, covering operations out of Palatka, Wilmington, Apollo, and Jacksonville. These guys live on the dock, and they're sharing...

What does it take to go from zero to flatbed driver at one of the Sun Belt's most trusted trucking companies? In Episode 7 of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, we're going straight to the source on Cypress CDL School. Ken Coderre and Lawrence Jones, the Director and lead instructor who are the heartbeat of Cypress CDL School, walk us through the entire process from the inside. We're talking orienta...

Ever wonder what truly occurs between a truck driver trainer and trainee during those first crucial weeks? This episode puts the entire driver training process at Cypress Truck Lines under a microscope. Join us as we sit down with three experienced trainers, Angel Escoto, Ryan Widgery, and Jimmie Henry, who collectively share decades of real-world training wisdom. You'll discover what separates su...

In this episode of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast, we sit down with Debbie Master, Plant Manager at CertainTeed's Palatka gypsum manufacturing plant, to reveal the secrets behind one of the most successful shipper-carrier partnerships in Sun Belt trucking. Cypress hauled the very first load out of Palatka, and that handshake has grown into something extraordinary. You'll discover how CertainTeed...

Ready to master the balance between driver fitness and business performance? This episode of the Cypress Truck Lines Podcast delivers the ultimate roadmap for professional flatbed drivers and fleet owners who refuse to compromise on health or profitability. First, physical therapist Dr. Mark Manera reveals insider secrets to changing your nutrition and fitness habits on the road, because progress...

What does it take to build a trucking company from one beat-up flatbed to a 500-truck powerhouse? The Cypress Truck Lines Podcast pulls back the curtain on real trucking history you won't hear anywhere else. Join the Penland brothers, Dave Jr., Thad, Aaron, and Matt, along with "VP of Everything" Pete Peterson and safety expert Clay Hamblen, as they tell the unfiltered story of Cypress Truck Lines...