I’ve been in the trucking business for 38 years and have driven 3.5 million miles. I’ve enjoyed it all the way through.
I started off working at a tree nursery and hauling trees to customers. I also did a lot of flatbed work for them, hauling equipment to different farms. After a few years, I moved to a truss company and got into hauling oversize loads.
Then, we moved to a new location, and I worked for a hay farm. We hauled heavy and oversize and were licensed for 105,500 pounds. I enjoyed this very much and worked up from being a driver into management.
The days were long and hard, often 80-hour work weeks. I was still driving while dispatching, scheduling maintenance, and doing inventory for over 10 storage facilities. During this time, we had six children, and they were growing up fast, and I was missing out on a lot of time with them. After 20 years in this side of the industry, I was getting burned out, and a friend suggested that I start hauling sheds for his company.
So, I bought a pickup and trailer and started out very green on shed hauling.
After two years, we added another truck. Within four years, we had five semis and two pickups running, with rigs hauling sheds and four hauling oversize/overweight.
We had four different contracts, and I was able to spend much more time at home. My family got involved, too. My wife was a secretary, one daughter was dispatching, and one son got his diesel tech degree and ran our shop.
Besides doing our own maintenance, we also serviced other trucks, rebuilt engines, and did shed trailer and Mule repair. Five years later, he got married and moved to Colorado and started another shop there. (It’s called BossPro and he still does shed trailer and Mule repair besides heavy diesel and auto).
After he left, we closed the shop to outside repair and just did our own in house. By now, my wife and I were empty nesters and felt it was time to start moving on and not be so busy. So, we sold some of our trucks to the guys who were driving them.
We let them run under our authority for a year and carried financing on the trucks. In that way, they could get a year of experience before finding their own insurance and financing so they could get better rates.
The other trucks and trailers we sold over time. So, for the last two years, it’s just been a son-in-law and me running. Then this summer, one of our contracts moved the business to hauling in-house, so our son-in-law moved on and it’s just been me.
I’ve been looking at getting out of driving. I’ve had some injuries that are catching up with me and making hauling sheds very hard. Cardinal Manufacturing had been talking with me for the past couple of years and wanted to start a shop on the west side of the states since there isn’t a local shop out here. So, after praying and seeking God’s direction for us, we made the decision to get out of hauling and move to the service side with Bizzy B Service Center in Hermiston, Oregon. We do on-road service and can schedule to go to people’s location if they want us to come to them to do the work.
I have always enjoyed customer service and sharing God’s love with people whenever I can. We are now a certified Cardinal service center, and I’m working at getting certified by Honda and Kohler so that I can do warranty and service work for them, too.
The goal is to be able to work out of my shop here at the house and not spend many hours on the road anymore. Time to start relaxing and enjoying more time with our 16 grandchildren.
