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Bulkloads Podcast: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Jared Flinn
A trucking podcast that covers all aspects of bulk freight trucking. Hosted by Jared Flinn, owner of multiple trucking-related businesses. Jared brings on a new guest weekly to discuss technology, innovation, safety & compliance, insurance, trucking success stories, and much more related to the bulk freight trucking industry. This podcast hits on all aspects of the industry, our audience includes bulk haulers, shippers, brokers, merchandisers, farmers, and more.
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- 2 weeks ago32 min
BLP: 380 2.5 Million Safe Miles, Now He Lobbies Congress
Watch on YouTube Lewie Pugh drove for 25 years and logged 2.5 million safe miles before he ever set foot in a congressional office. Today he is Executive Vice President of OOIDA, and he describes himself as the closer: the one who follows the association's four Washington lobbyists into a meeting and puts an issue into plain language a lawmaker can actually understand. We sat down with him at OOIDA headquarters in Grain Valley, Missouri to talk about what moves in Washington, what does not, and why he thinks truckers get painted in a bad light by people who have never done the job. He joined OOIDA in the mid nineties as a 22 year old with a new authority, ran for the board in 2004, and has now served 22 years. He is from a rural county in southeastern Ohio with about 12,000 people in it, has a vocational school education, and does not take for granted that someone with his background can testify in the halls of Congress. He talks about why he still misses the road, why he likes the DC work and the truck shows and hates the day to day office stuff, and what he tells members who call in angry or working off bad information: he is not going to tell them what they want to hear. The conversation gets into the money and the mechanics. Truckers have been exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act since 1938, which is why company drivers give away hours at loading docks, and Lewie explains why OOIDA is fighting to remove that exemption and why it would raise rates for owner-operators too. Where the surface transportation reauthorization stands. Why the Highway Trust Fund is running dry when federal fuel taxes have not been raised since 1993 and electric vehicles pay nothing at the pump. Why tolling and vehicle miles traveled taxes worry him more than a fuel tax increase. Why OOIDA stands with the railroads against longer and heavier trucks, with a story about hauling steel in Ohio that shows exactly how more weight turned into less money per hundred. He also clears up a common misconception: roughly 20 percent of OOIDA's membership are company drivers, and the organization advocates for them too. Chapters: 0:00 Four Lobbyists and the Closer 0:52 Started by Truckers, Still Run by Truckers 1:45 What He Misses About the Road 3:29 2.5 Million Safe Miles 4:22 They Have Money, We Have Members 5:12 How to Actually Reach Your Lawmaker 6:04 A Vocational School Kid in the Halls of Congress 6:58 "A Source of Truth" 7:48 Telling Members What They Don't Want to Hear 9:31 Entry Level Driver Training Was Only a First Step 10:23 Joining OOIDA at 22 11:19 Why Company Drivers Belong Here Too 13:04 The Overtime Exemption Since 1938 13:56 Why It Would Help Owner Operators Too 14:50 Cautious Optimism in Washington 16:33 The Highway Bill and the Calendar 20:03 The Highway Trust Fund Is Going Broke 22:42 Tolling, VMT and the $90 Car Driver 24:29 Railroads as Allies and Opponents 25:20 Why OOIDA Opposes Longer and Heavier 26:12 The Steel Permit That Paid Less 27:54 DEF and Who Has to Use It 29:37 From a Laundromat to This Building 31:22 How to Reach OOIDA
- 3 weeks ago43 min
BLP: 379 50 Years of Fighting for Truckers
Watch on YouTube Todd Spencer joined OOIDA as an owner-operator member in 1976 and has spent the half century since fighting for small business truckers. We sat down with him at OOIDA headquarters in Grain Valley, Missouri for a long conversation about the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, the fights it has won, and the ones still ahead. He was elected to the board in 1978, came on staff in 1981 as editor of Land Line and communications director, back when the organization was small enough that he was not sure he would get paid, and became president in 2018 after decades as Jim Johnston's right hand. He grew up in Missouri with a favorite uncle who drove, started hauling grain, shingles and building materials out of Kansas City through Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa, and has slept in line at the river terminal waiting to unload like plenty of people watching this. He tells the story of four states that once pulled truckers off the scales and required them to take a drug test on the spot. A woman driving through Nebraska refused, called headquarters, and OOIDA sued Utah, Nebraska, Minnesota and New Jersey along with the federal agency behind the pilot program. They won in every state. He also walks through the split speed limit fight in Missouri and the Tennessee inspections that included searching a driver's living space, and why he believes a right you cannot assert is not really a right. The conversation goes deep on how the industry changed. Why deregulation and investor capital turned JB Hunt, Werner and Swift from small companies into the dominant players, and why those companies are run by MBAs, attorneys and accountants instead of truckers. Why lease purchase programs and per mile pay exist at all. Why he calls the driver shortage a myth that carrier executives sell to lawmakers, and why he would raise the CDL age rather than lower it. What worries him about autonomous trucks and about bad actors overseas resetting electronic logging devices. And why, after 50 years, his answer is still the same: if you drive a truck, you ought to be a member. Chapters: 0:00 Joining OOIDA in 1976 1:47 Hauling Grain, Shingles and Building Materials 2:40 Sleeping in Line at the Terminal 3:20 Jim Johnston, a Trucker's Trucker 4:26 Starting Out Under the ICC 5:20 The Oil Embargo and 250 Organizations 6:14 Driver Training, Decades in the Making 7:59 Using Technology to Exploit the System 8:53 Paid Before You Even Deliver 10:41 Why Big Business Is Not a Friend to Small Business 11:33 Lease Purchase and Per Mile Pay 12:27 When Trucking Became an Investment 14:15 The Most Important Person in the Supply Chain 15:59 Where Truckers Used to Come From 16:53 Veterans: Three Quarters Then, a Third Now 17:30 Taking Over as President in 2018 17:45 Insurance, Big Judgments and Who Profits 20:23 Professionalism and Preparing New Drivers 22:59 The Driver Shortage Myth 26:32 Why He Would Raise the CDL Age 27:26 How Other Countries Pay Their Drivers 29:13 Livestock Rules Written for the Cattle 30:59 Skin in the Game and Your State Lawmakers 31:52 Autonomous Trucks and Hacked ELDs 33:39 What He Wants Every Trucker to Know 35:25 The Split Speed Limit Fight in Missouri 37:10 Random Roadside Drug Testing in Four States 41:38 Tennessee, Cab Searches and Jail 43:23 "It's Worth a Whole Lot More Than the Effort"
- 4 weeks ago40 min
BLP:378 Who Is OOIDA Actually Fighting?
Watch On YouTube Plaintiff's attorneys, large carrier associations, and the autonomous vehicle lobby. Those are the fights OOIDA is in right now, and Rod Nofziger walked us through all of them. We sat down at OOIDA headquarters in Grain Valley, Missouri to talk about what the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association actually does, who it is up against, and why the fight never ends. Rod worked for the US House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure before moving to DC law firms where OOIDA was a client, and he has been on staff 22 years. His father drove a truck, and he says he watched the industry work against him. We go through the organization from the ground up. OOIDA was founded in 1973 by five or six angry owner-operators during the Middle East oil embargo, when fuel rationing had trucks running truck stop to truck stop and waiting in line. Its first office was a construction trailer chained to a light pole on the same property the headquarters sits on today. Jim Johnston, a founding member who never attended high school, became president two years in and held the job for 43 years. Rod worked beside him for seven of those and calls him the most insightful person he has ever met. Today the association runs truck insurance, a drug and alcohol consortium, permits and licensing, life and health benefits, Land Line Media, and a compliance group of mostly former truckers who take member calls at no extra cost. The back half is the hard stuff. Legislation that would have pushed truck insurance minimums from $750,000 to $4.5 million per truck, and why Rod argues trucking is already over insured when FMCSA's own number puts the average liability claim at $18,000. Why OOIDA opposes raising truck weight limits even though some bulk haulers want them. Why it holds the line at 21 for CDL age, and who is pushing to lower it. What autonomous vehicle lobbyists are trying to do in Washington right now. He is also candid about membership declining, why younger drivers do not join organizations the way their fathers did, and the criticisms OOIDA hears about being in bed with ATA or being nothing but an insurance company. Chapters: 0:00 From Capitol Hill to OOIDA 0:51 Goshen, Indiana and a Father Behind the Wheel 1:45 Why Is It Always a Fight? 3:26 93% of Carriers Have Five Trucks or Fewer 4:40 Jim Johnston, the Man Who Never Went to High School 6:07 1973, the Oil Embargo and Angry Truckers 7:52 A Trailer Chained to a Light Pole 8:44 Why "Independent" Is in the Name 10:28 Building the Washington DC Office 12:15 What Membership Actually Gets You 14:50 130,000 Members and What It Costs 15:40 Broker Transparency and Insurance Requirements 16:31 The Push to $4.5 Million Per Truck 17:27 Truck Parking, Bathroom Access, Hours of Service 18:17 Who Is OOIDA Fighting Against? 19:59 Weight Limits and the 1991 Moratorium 23:31 Autonomous Trucks and the AV Lobby 25:12 Why OOIDA Holds the Line at 21 26:30 Reaching a Younger Generation 29:34 Why Membership Has Dipped 31:19 "I'm Not Sure Small Business Truckers Would Exist" 33:03 Uncertainty, AI and What Comes Next 34:51 Pre-2000 Trucks and EPA Mandates 36:39 Clearing Up the Misconceptions ABOUT BULKLOADS We started 15 years ago connecting bulk carriers with shippers and brokers in the ag and bulk industry — and today we're much more than a load board. Our mission is simple: serve this industry, support small businesses and trucking families, and help them succeed.
- Oct 7, 20261h 15m
BLP:377 He Started With a Desk, a Chair, and a Seven Line Phone
From one desk, one chair, and a seven line phone in 1995 to a trucking, brokerage and transloading operation three decades later. Shannon Himango joins us to walk through the whole thing. He grew up in Two Harbors, Minnesota as a doctor's son who knew nothing about agriculture, got hired by Cargill out of St. Olaf with a degree in biology and economics, and got sent to East Dubuque, Illinois instead of the Geneva office he was hoping for. That is where he learned corn, beans, barge freight, rail freight, truck freight and how to trade the basis. After Cargill came Amarillo, then a small regional shop in Levelland, Texas where he built a rail program and shorted the daylights out of the 1992 milo crop. He left that job over a values disagreement with 90 days of savings and a child on the way, and his phone started ringing the first day out. He brokered 300,000 bushels of corn that afternoon, spent every dollar of the commission on office furniture and a phone system, and opened The Titan Company on October 15, 1995. The business grew into commodity brokerage, freight brokerage and a truck fleet after he bought out his friend Joey's ten truck operation in 1996. Then came a $450,000 warehouse in Lubbock, sunflower seeds at six dollars a ton, and the morning he drove out at 3AM to find out why a hundred trucks were sitting in line waiting on loads. That curiosity turned into Titan Transloading, an $8 million bet on a frac sand facility, unit trains unloading 400 truckloads at a time, and a partnership with Lansing Trade Group that he sold into in 2013 and 2014. Shannon also explains how he used single family real estate as a hedge against diesel prices, how a single phone call put him in the hydrochloric acid business for fifteen years, and what happened when COVID stopped the oil field with 148 trucks running and a bank note that did not stop. He talks openly about negative cash flow of $300,000 in a month, telling his team he might not make it, thinking he would lose everything, and how he came out of it with zero debt and reserves in the bank. We close on what he would tell anyone entering the grain business today, and why Titan is not offshoring its brokerage to AI. Chapters: 0:00 A Doctor's Son Who Didn't Want Hospitals 1:39 Cargill Sends Him to East Dubuque 3:13 Why He Left Cargill for a Small Shop 5:35 Finding Home in Levelland, Texas 9:36 The Milo Short That Made $3 Million 11:56 Rail Programs and Shorting, Explained 16:37 Walking Away Over Values 20:36 Waiting to See If the Check Cleared 21:21 300,000 Bushels on Day One 22:57 Merchandiser vs Broker, the Difference 28:22 First Hires and Buying Joey's Ten Trucks 30:44 Commodities and Freight Under One Roof 32:19 The $450,000 Warehouse Gamble 34:38 A Hundred Trucks Lined Up at 3AM 36:17 Borrowing $8 Million 38:40 400 Truckloads Per Train 42:34 "Can You Transload Crude Oil?" 47:23 209 Bobby Street and a Promise to His Dad 48:12 Real Estate as a Diesel Hedge 52:55 How the Acid Business Started 56:03 148 Trucks When COVID Hit 57:35 Down $300,000 in a Month 1:00:41 The Drive That Changed His Mind 1:02:40 Selling the Trucks and Paying Off Every Dollar 1:04:41 Family and Life Today 1:09:24 Advice for Anyone Entering the Grain Business 1:12:32 AI, Offshoring, and Why Titan Won't ABOUT BULKLOADS We started 15 years ago connecting bulk carriers with shippers and brokers in the ag and bulk industry — and today we're much more than a load board. Our mission is simple: serve this industry, support small businesses and trucking families, and help them succeed.
- Sep 30, 202634 min
BLP:376 Nobody Knows How Much Is in the Pile. These Two Fixed That.
Watch on YouTube Nobody really knows how much grain is in the pile. Rebulk is a Kansas City startup using LiDAR and a mobile app to scan bulk commodity piles and return exact volume and tonnage, and co-founders Warren and Cole joined us to explain how it works. Grain, feed, fertilizer, sand, salt, landscape rock, even raw tree logs with no defined pile shape. Walk around it with your phone, and the app tells you what is on the ground. Warren came out of Milk Movement building supply chain systems for the dairy industry, where he kept noticing feed piles that nobody could account for. Cole spent his career in software engineering at Garmin and Bayer Crop Science before moving into AI startups. They met at a Kansas City entrepreneur event called Startup Crawl, became friends, and started a company doing social media transcription before pivoting to bulk inventory. Their first pilot was with Cargill at a partner dairy farm, with a 95 percent accuracy target they say they exceeded. The Andersons are now deploying their LiDAR units on fertilizer piles. They got into Y Combinator, spent three months in San Francisco, and moved back to Kansas City anyway because that is where bulk trucking, rail and agriculture actually meet. We also get into where this goes next: rail car inventory for covered hoppers you cannot scan, transload sites running flat, tank and silo storage, chain of custody from rail to truck to barge, and an accounting ledger that generates invoices off scale tickets instead of chasing faxed paperwork and Excel files. Warren and Cole talk honestly about selling technology into an industry that runs ten to fifteen years behind, why they do not charge a customer until they go live, and the advice they would give anyone sitting on an idea they have not built yet. 0:00 What Is Rebulk 0:34 Feed Piles Nobody Could Account For 2:47 The Cargill Pilot 4:10 Cole's Background and a Three Person Team 4:49 Cold Outreach and Landing The Andersons 7:26 What LiDAR Actually Is 8:22 From Fixed Sensors to a Phone App 9:29 What You Do With the Number 11:55 How Accurate Is It 13:03 Launch Date and What It Costs 13:58 Rail Cars, Transload and Barge 17:07 Could This Replace a $500,000 Scale? 18:54 Kansas City, Startup Crawl and Y Combinator 21:15 Advice for Anyone Sitting on an Idea 23:43 Selling Tech to Rural America 28:34 They Don't Charge Until You Go Live 31:07 Invoicing Straight Off Scale Tickets
- Sep 25, 202636 min
BLP:375 From Finance Guy to Trucking CEO
Watch on YouTube Frankie Wilmot didn't grow up in trucking — he married into it. A former finance guy, Frankie became CEO of Corcoran Transportation Group about four years ago, right as the industry was heading into one of its worst downturns in history. In this conversation, he takes us through the full story: two cousins who started competing trucking companies in Billings, Montana back in the 1960s, a business that split apart across a generation, and how it came back together into one operation running roughly 150 trucks across four specialized fleets — including an Alaska division that runs freight up ice roads to Prudhoe Bay. Frankie gets into what it actually took to consolidate four separate companies (four payrolls, four software systems, four everything) into one organization, why unfiltered growth kills more trucking companies than it saves, and how staying diversified across freight types has kept the business steady even when individual segments slow down. He also opens up about the challenge of leading a business he joined by marriage rather than blood, why 176 people depending on the company keeps him up at night in a good way, and why he believes truck drivers are the most underappreciated workers in the country. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro: Meet Frankie Wilmot, CEO of Corcoran Transportation Group 0:51 – The History of the Corcoran Family Business 2:29 – Inside the Fleet: Four Divisions, 150 Trucks 4:06 – Billings, Montana & Where They Run 7:54 – The Business Behind the Freight: Grain, Doubles & More 9:28 – From Finance to Trucking: What Changed 11:46 – Trucking as the Backbone of Capitalism 13:14 – Family, Employees & Consolidating Four Companies Into One 15:41 <span class= "ytAttributedStringLinkInherit
- Sep 14, 20261h 19m
BLP:374 From the Battlefield to the Brokerage
Watch on YouTube Ted Fyock Jr. spent six years as an Army armor officer, deployed to Iraq with the 3rd Infantry Division, and then built a career in consulting before starting Carolina Expressways, a bulk freight brokerage, from nothing. Jared Flinn sat down with Ted at Fort Hunt, Virginia, on land George Washington once owned, to walk the whole road. Winston-Salem roots and a family that has served in nearly every American conflict since the Revolutionary War. ROTC at Appalachian State and a commission in 2007, at the height of the surge. Kuwait, Baghdad, and Sadr City. Marrying at 24 and meeting his wife in Paris at the six month mark of a twelve month deployment. Then twelve years at Deloitte Consulting that ended when DOGE cut roughly $20 million of the contract work he was leading and a reduction in force followed. At Oktoberfest at his church, he turned to his wife and told her he was going to start a business. The back half is the freight education. Why he chose bulk instead of a saturated broker market, what his first Bulk Freight Conference in Branson did for a guy with zero industry experience, and the tuition he has paid in year one, including a truck hauling corn that was struck by a CSX train. He gets into how a brand new brokerage gets in a shipper's door, why veteran owned is more than a line on a website, how running supply for a tank company translates to moving hoppers, moving a skid steer to a private island, and where Carolina Expressways is headed by 2030. Faith, family, and 250 years of American opportunity close it out. CHAPTERS 00:00 Fort Hunt, Virginia, on land George Washington owned 01:34 A family that has served since the Revolutionary War 04:00 ROTC at Appalachian State and commissioning in 2007 05:11 What an armor officer actually does 07:05 Married at 24, then a year apart 10:21 Kuwait, Baghdad, and Sadr City 13:20 Coming home and the assignment at Walter Reed 17:53 Leaving the Army at the six year mark <a class= "ytAttributedStringLink ytAttributedStringLinkCallToActionColor" tabindex="0" href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
- Sep 14, 202632 min
BLP:373 They Sold the Company to Their Employees. Now they're Millionaires.
Watch on YouTube Emery Sapp & Sons is 100% employee owned, 3,000 employee owners strong, with 98 millionaires and about 600 trucks on the road every day. Jared Flinn sat down with co-CEO Robert Gillis in Columbia, Missouri to talk about what happens when a founder sells his company to the people who built it. Billy Sapp started in 1972 because the civil contractors wouldn't show up on time, so he did the work himself. In 1999 he and his partners sold the whole thing to their employees through an ESOP. Twenty six years later, 15 new millionaires were made in a single year, and most of them work in the field. Robert breaks down how the ESOP actually works, why about a quarter of every employee's salary goes into it, and why more owners don't take that path. He also gets into the $2.8 billion I-70 reconstruction between Kansas City and St. Louis, the $608 million stretch ESS won coming out of St. Louis, the broken gas tax that funds our roads, and the freight side of heavy civil, including the 600 company trucks plus the third party haulers, quarry trucks, and brokers it takes to keep aggregate moving. If you haul rock, asphalt, or aggregate, this is a look at the other end of the load. CHAPTERS 00:00 Meet Robert Gillis, co-CEO of Emery Sapp & Sons 01:55 Billy Sapp, 1972, and the problem that started the company 03:30 What an ESOP actually is, in plain terms 06:43 Why more owners don't sell to their employees 10:30 98 millionaires, and 59% of them work in the field 12:04 If it's in the dirt, on the dirt, or over the dirt 14:00 The $2.8 billion I-70 rebuild and the $608 million job 19:30 The gas tax problem nobody talks about 22:25 What trucking really means to a heavy civil contractor <a cl
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About Bulkloads Podcast
A trucking podcast that covers all aspects of bulk freight trucking. Hosted by Jared Flinn, owner of multiple trucking-related businesses. Jared brings on a new guest weekly to discuss technology, innovation, safety & compliance, insurance, trucking success stories, and much more related to the bulk freight trucking industry. This podcast hits on all aspects of the industry, our audience includes bulk haulers, shippers, brokers, merchandisers, farmers, and more.
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