Overdrive's 2024 Trucker of the Year contenders

Countdown to 2025: The top podcasts of 2024 in review

A round-up of Overdrive Radio's business-focused podcasts since 2013, including exclusive interviews, presentations and more geared to owner-operator and small fleet owner businesses among listeners.

Trucking business

Manteca, California, Gill Freightlines small fleet owner Surinder Gill's family's trucking lineage traces back through 60 years of OTR work done by his father, Gurmail Singh Gill, over more than one continent. The elder Gill hauled first in his native India, some in the Middle East, and finished out his career in the United States. 

Surinder Gill had dipped his feet in trucking as a dispatcher by the time his father passed in 2018. "I wanted to do something to honor my father," Gill said. "How do I honor my father and his legacy? So we purchased a truck and got a trailer, and I put his photo on the back."

His trailers to this day feature that photo and the "In loving memory" text for Gurmail Singh Gill.

"He'll always be on the road, in a way," as his son puts it in this edition of Overdrive Radio, telling that story but much else besides. Small fleet owner Gill was in part the subject of Overdrive Executive Editor Alex Lockie's reporting on the now-infamous collapse of the Convoy company as a going brokerage concern this past Fall. That reporting told the tale of a variety of owner-operators and small fleet owners just like 28-year-old Surinder Gill who, months following the abrupt shuttering of Convoy in October, remained unpaid for in some cases thousands’ worth of work hauling: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15666087/convoys-unpaid-carriers-signing-back-up-to-haul-loads 

In Gill’s case, unpaid invoices were to the tune of around $35,000 in dedicated contract loads his several company drivers and a larger number of owner-operators pulled for big names in canning and food generally, like the Post company. 

Convoy's debt to Gill alone is nearly half of the worth of the required $75,000 bond any broker is required to have to cover claims. As you'll hear in the podcast, Gill believes that bond amount shouldn't but a static number but rather dependent on the amount of business a broker handles. Larger the broker, larger the bond. 

Convoy, readers will recall, had a valuation in the billions, according to pre-collapse reports. Given the volume of freight -- and money -- that flowed through the broker, Gill asks, shouldn't they be required to hold a bond much, much higher than $75,000? By the time he got to the bond company with his own claim, the full amount in the surety had already been kicked to court deliberation on just who would get paid, and how much. 

As of this past week, Gill remained entirely unpaid for those final loads, though the small fleet owner offered up a bit of information he'd learned since the conversation featured in this podcast. Contact made with the Hercules Capital company, responsible for business debt incurred by Convoy, yielded a name there for everything having to do with the shuttered brokerage. 

“I have reached out to Hercules Capital,” Gill said, “and was given the contact of a Greg Peterson” for everything Convoy-related with the company, a venture funding company that took control of all of the imploded company but for the technology platform. That platform, also previously reported, was sold to Flexport and rebooted for freight brokered through them, a fact that frustrates Gill and others among the unpaid carriers who’d worked with Convoy for years, as you'll hear.

Should freight brokers' required bond amount vary according to company size?

Last week we heard Part 1 of a long talk with Gill Freightlines small fleet owner Surinder Gill, with four trucks owned and headquartered out of Manteca, California, where Gill’s following in the draft of his owner-operator father’s 60-year trucking legacy. (As you can see in the cover image for this week's Part 2 of that talk, the long legacy is honored on the back of Gill Freightlines’ dry vans.) The Convoy brokerage's quick collapse last Fall nearly spelled out a death sentence for the small fleet, as it was mostly built around dedicated hauling for Convoy's shipper customers. 

Gill’s still owed around $35,000 for loads hauled just prior to the collapse, and the collapse of his fleet's work soured relationships with a small group of owner-operators whom he previously worked with. The difficulties, in part at least, extend from what he acknowledges as a classic mistake in business.

"I guess it goes back to the age-old saying of 'don't put all your eggs into one basket,'" as he put it. 

Yet as detailed in Part 1 of the talk, he profferred the notion that, given how many carriers' work went unpaid in the Convoy collapse and the company’s tech platform’s quick sale to another brokerage/forwarder, bigger brokerages ought to be required to have larger bonds in place based on the amount of business they do: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15669109/should-freight-brokers-bond-vary-according-to-company-size 

In Part 2 here, you'll get a window into what Gill’s doing in the aftermath, pivots he’s making toward more direct business, and his hope that so many shippers’ attitudes toward working with small carriers in their immediate physical vicinity, regardless of size, might change for the better.

He's got a distribution center he can physically lay eyes on with nothing more than a step out the door to his office, for instance. "I can see them, phyiscally, they can see me physically," he said, "yet where it confuses me is they would rather give work to these kids right out of college who work for [INSERT BIG BROKER NAME HERE] in Chicago or Atlanta or wherever their office is and trust these kids to go vet these carriers who might be carriers or chameleon carriers. ... But they won't give it to me," with just a few trucks. That's even though, of course, Gill's "right down the street."  

Though load boards and brokers themselves rose out of the need of owner-operators and small carriers to connect to freight they otherwise might not have access to, Gill feels the entire culture around brokerage has devolved with Wolf of Wall Street-type tactics now so dominant that independents become essentially "bottom feeders" in a market like the current one. Volumes have been down in a big post-pandemic readjustment, and demand has sunk back to pre-2020 levels and below, some would say, for an extended period.

Yet he's in it for the long run. He's fully invested in driving change in his own approach to customers. He recognizes his and other independents’ shortcomings, and is committed to being part of a change to re-engage direct customers, really put in the work on building relationships toward better long-term opportunity outside of this or that fancy new brokerage network’s app. "It's going to drive a change" around trucking, he feels, "and I want to be there for it." 

Mentioned in the podcast: Past Overdrive Small Fleet Champ Jason Cowan's recent talk on building relationships, with customers or otherwise: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15668024/how-to-leave-trucking-better-than-you-found-it-with-jason-cowan

Enter the 2024 Small Fleet Championship via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/2024SFC

Hey shippers, we're out here: Small fleet resolved to sharpen biz on long haul for change

"The power demand, the power that's required to pull a truck down the highway ... the idea is to match the power that's produced by the engine to the power that's required." --Overdrive's May Trucker of the Month Alec Costerus on the bedrock principal behind achieving the best fuel economy

Alpha Drivers Transportation two-truck fleet owner and operator Alec Costerus launched the company just a couple of years ago from his Denver, Colorado, home base following about eight years trucking as an owner-operator leased to Landstar. The ADT company runs with authority two trucks today, with cofounder Joel Morrow behind the wheel of one of them out of Ohio, the other piloted by Travis Lauer, an operator Morrow trained himself on driving for max efficiency. ADT's the result of Costerus and Morrow becoming fast friends after "geeking out" for years over how to achieve better trucking efficiency, both when it comes to the equipment and the business itself, for certain. 

Longtime Overdrive Radio listeners have heard Morrow on the podcast, when he was part of panel including past Trucker of the Year Henry Albert, among others, at the 2022 MATS, all about spec’ing and driver practice toward getting to 10 miles per gallon and beyond: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15383454/paths-to-10plus-mpg-in-a-class-8-diesel-truck

Alec Costerus himself turned heads among those in Overdrive’s audience about a month ago, detailing how he and Morrow did just that, a big part of the success of what they’ve built with Alpha Drivers: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15670289/controlling-fuel-costs-for-small-trucking-businesses 

Principal reason for the head-turning? A 10.5-mpg average for their 2023 Volvo VNL760, spec’d to Morrow’s liking with what Volvo’s calling the i-Torque spec. Morrow had a lot to do with that spec, and today, we’ll hear more of that story from Costerus directly, and how Costerus’ efforts in concert with Morrow have resulted in what’s certainly one of the most efficient owner-operator businesses around. Costerus, with 15 years or so in trucking now himself, is certainly unique among Overdrive's Trucker of the Year monthly semi-finalists for plenty reasons. 

Another: He’s mostly managing the now-two-truck business outside the bounds of a truck cab, by and large, though he does jump back behind the wheel moving mostly power-only loads when Morrow is called away to trade shows or the fleet’s other principal operator is down, and in other situations. 

Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole, who you’ll hear asking the questions throughout the podcast, remarked early in his conversation with Costerus about the unique nature of the operation. 

"A lot of people can drive and 'be a trucker' that way," he noted. Alternately, stick around a while, grow and learn and "you can take that experience and leverage it for the greater good, so to speak." 

Costerus hopes to do that with Alpha Drivers, with a push to show just what can be done and bring the next generation up with him -- not to mention other owner-operators of his own generation who may not realize what can be achieved. 

His long experience over-the-road helps mightily. Critical for any trucking company owner, he believes: "that you actually know how the freight is moved, what the drivers endure, familiarity with hours of service, all of that. I think it makes us more efficient."  

It’s a fine balancing act whether you're behind the wheel or not most days, running a trucking business in pursuit of not only efficiency to contain costs but the demands of revenue, time, playing guardian of the bedrock safety of the motoring public around you. Costerus is managing it well with Alpha Drivers.

Enter Overdrive's Trucker of the Year contest: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

Trucker of the Month Alec Costerus' odyssey to 10+ mpg and two-truck Alpha Drivers Transportation

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 about what he feels the roadside inspection system was designed for. Something that’s, well, gotten a little off track with how states, the FMCSA, and some fleets treat so-called “safey scores” derived from inspections and associated violations. 

As you’re hauling this week, if you get a quote unquote “assist” from an inspector out there, take note of the approach he or she takes. Is it “prevention” of accidents that is the ultimate goal? 

McCurdy, at the top of the podcast, made clear his bone to pick with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's CSA scoring program and all its ripple effects throughout trucking and roadside inspection systems. After a trailer tire lost air in transit sufficient to take the tire off the rim -- the trailer empty, the tire problem unnoticed by McCurdy before inspection -- the owner-operator's leasing carrier assessed points for the violation modeled on the FMCSA's internal Driver Safety Measurement System nearly enough to void McCurdy's lease. 

This sort of "accountability" isn't, the owner-operator felt, what roadside inspections were designed for. The inspector in this case in Washington State did his job to the letter, and caught the in-transit flattened tire in plenty time to save any real damaging outcome. 

For all that, McCurdy is thankful. "I think that these inspections are good. They should be preventative things," he said. "Nobody wants to go down the road with flat tires."

Yet, he added, "I don't think we should be penalized for something that is not something that you did intentionally." That goes for the motor carrier as well. There's a reason carriers like his own assess those points -- because they are incurring the same level of severity weighting in the Carrier SMS.

Potential changes to the Carrier SMS notwithstanding (FMCSA isn't looking at those same changes for the Driver SMS), the podcast this week dives back into what’s at issue in cases like these, in which carriers subject to the severity weighting system for violations pass that on, with their own systems to hold drivers and owner-operators to a degree of accountability themselves, relying on the federal points system to assess and prevent damage to their own scores. 

Susan McCurdy tried her hand at the DataQs system in a vain attempt to contain the damage in this case by challenging the violation. But given the inspector was doing what he should have done here -- alerting McCurdy to the problem tire on his trailer, conducting an inspection, then reporting the results into the federal system as required -- there was nothing DataQs was going to be able to help correct about the fundamental nature of the situation. 

More fundamentally, though, it’s the very nature of the CSA scoring system that makes accountability problematic for owner-operator McCurdy here. Nobody indeed intends to run around with flat tires. With respect to any violation, McCurdy urges regulators take a long hard look at what they’re holding carriers and drivers accountable for by scoring them as they do.

More in Overdrive's long-running CSA's Data Trail series: http://overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail

Find plenty in the way of brakes-related maintenance and inspection resources at this page: https://www.overdriveonline.com/maintenance/article/14875428/tractor-trailer-maintenance-for-ownerops-to-outrun-inspectors

Brake inspection blitz this week: Roadside inspection system should be 'preventive,' not punitive

"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 Claire, Wisconsin, was honored as our August Trucker of the Month, putting him in the running for Overdrive’s Trucker of the Year award with his three-plus decades trucking and 4 million miles logged behind the wheel of his long-running 1995 Kenworth T600: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15681362/meticulous-maintenance-efficiency-trucker-of-the-month

Listeners have heard Kitzhaber in recent memory, of course, when he passed the 4-million-mile mark on the T600’s odometer in May we aired this talk originally in July: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15679534/4-million-miles-in-a-95-kw-t600-owneroperator-alan-kitzhaber

For those who missed the talk, this week hear Kitzhaber on his approach to keeping that rig running right these past decades and so many miles. 

And: we’re at the final sprint for the Trucker of the Year award program for 2024. Nominations will close at the end of the month, and we’ve got just two semi-finalist slots left for a chance to win a brand-new seat, up to a $2,500 value, from Trucker of the Year award sponsor Bostrom Seating, a trip to and recognition at the Mid-America Trucking Show, various other prizes, and more. If you or another deserving owner want to put your business in the running, visit https://OverdriveOnline.com/toptrucker to do that.  

Kitzhaber's not the first owner Overdrive Radio listeners have heard who's done similar -- "Mustang" Mike Crawford crossed 4 million in his 1994 Freightliner (12.7 Detroit-powered) back in 2022: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15291488/mike-mustang-crawfords-1994-freightliner-4-million-safe-miles

(Incidentally, Overdrive editor Todd Dills spoke with Crawford July 1 as he hitting the Prime yard in Springfield at the end of his final run before retirement with a grand total of 4,159,910 miles in the rear view of the Freightliner. More on Crawford’s final run in a future podcast.)

Owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber’s career stretches back to 1990, his time as owner-operator some years on with Millis Transfer, where he first took the reins of the then-brand-new 1995 Kenworth T600 as a company driver. He bought the truck from the company itself, then, a few years later. 

Since then, he's been laser-focused on turning that truck into a profit-making machine, and meticulous with record-keeping in no small way. As suggested by the quote at the top, too, plenty modifications through the years have allowed him to excel to the point of achieving well more than 8 mpg for a fuel mileage average several years running this past decade.

There’s a lot to those modifications he’s made, for certain, detailed in today’s episode. And 4 million miles is a very long way. More than 8 times to the moon and back. At roughly 60 miles per hour it’d take you well past the hard end of the 14-hour clock to do it at 66,666 hours. We’ll track back through Kitzhaber’s history a little more quickly than that today on the podcast, along the way learning plenty about just how the owner-operator kept that Cat-powered T600 humming efficiently for so very long. 

As mentioned in the podcast, Caterpillar's interview with Kitzhaber for its Million Mile Club when he crossed 3 million: https://www.cat.com/en_US/articles/cat-truck-engine-articles/million-miler-alan-kitzhaber.html

Gordon Alkire's closed greasing system: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14877182/csa-proofing-part-two-closed-greasing-system

Trucker of the Month Alan Kitzhaber: 4 million miles, ever greater efficiency for his '95 T600

"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 toward cementing a legacy with his El Paso, Texas-headquartered R&M Transportation business, part of it caught up in what his wife and business partner, Messina, intimates in the quote above. R&M Transportation has also been a vehicle for various family members and friends to get their own businesses up and running toward their own names on their own doors, with authority, a dream Holguin himself made good on more than two decades ago: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15704492/thirdgen-ownerop-marshals-experience-to-thrive-in-business

Overdrive's September Trucker of the Month harnesses that significant pay-it-forward goal after getting into business with tutelage of a family member himself, though he freely admits mixing family with business isn't always the easiest thing to do. This week on the Overdrive Radio podcast we're diving into Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole’s conversation with Holguin about his history in trucking, which stretches back to about the turn the century. 

You'll hear Messina's here, too. Though she works herself outside of trucking, she’s also intimately involved in back-office aspects of the business. They’ve learned a lot together through the decades in business, and Rene Holguin’s made big strides in DIY maintenance in recent times as expenses have mounted and rates have lagged to the truck he’s owned and kept in tip-top now for the entirety of his time with authority.

His biggest piece of advice for new and aspiring owner-operators is of a piece with those maintenance strides. "Be ready to work," he said, and work hard. Learn as much about your equipment as you can. "Be ready to get your hands dirty, to keep your truck out of the shop as much as you can."  

He’s pulling a flatbed with the rig today, and it’s a looker for sure, as you can see in Cole’s feature about R&M Transportation, likewise the cover image for this week's podcast. Dive into September Trucker of the Month Rene Holguin's trucking origin story, which stretches all the way back to his childhood, in the podcast here. 

Find all of our features about Truckers of the Month through this year at https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year 

Holguin's nod for September puts him in the running for the 2024 Trucker of the Year award, this year sponsored by Commercial Vehicle Group and Bostrom Seating.

Rene Holguin, September Trucker of the Month, cementing a legacy with authority

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 his business for much of its nearly 10-year history. 

Since launching as one man, one truck in 2015, Daryl's was joined by Nelson when he got his own truck and leased it to the business, starting in 2020. They’ve since fully joined forces, extending a family base that stretches back to Daryl and Nelson’s father’s time as an owner-operator in the late 1990s. 

Zimmerman Ag is Overdrive’s Trucker of the Month for October, putting the brothers in the running for the 2024 Trucker of the Year award and marking the end of the run of our semi-finalists for this year. In the coming weeks, expert more from all of them as judges begin the evaluation process for our final 2024 Trucker of the Year winner. 

Today, the Zimmermans take us on a tour through their history in business, its entirety for both men as owner-operators working in support of farmers and other ag-support businesses, by and large, around their home base in Minnesota: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15706944/strength-in-numbers-zimmerman-ags-daryl-and-nelson-zimmerman

Look for further coverage of all Trucker of the Year semi-finalists in the coming weeks and for announcement of three finalists in December. All have a chance to win a custom replica model of the truck of their choice plus a brand-new seat from Trucker of the Year sponsor Bostrom Seating. Big thanks to Commercial Vehicle Group and the fine folks at Bostrom Seating for continued support. To get in the running for next year’s program, get over to https://OverdriveOnline.com/toptrucker to start that process. Deadlines mentioned there have passed for the 2024 award, but note that any entries or nominations of deserving owners will be considered for the 2025 program. 


'Good day to be out trucking': Overdrive October Trucker of the Month, two-truck Zimmerman Ag

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 we’ll announce later this month, then a winner in the new year.

At once, the perseverance and excellence to drive profit in a time like the present shown by every single owner we wrote about in the program this year make all truly deserving of all the accolades that come their way, the margins between every single Trucker of the Year contender absolutely razor-thin, given unique strengths that all bring to their respective operations.

Today on the podcast, you’re going to hear answers to two fairly simple questions. Namely:
1. How has 2024 gone for the business? And,
2. Each owner was asked to look back over their history and experience in the trucking business for lessons learned that could serve as their best piece of advice for peers, and particularly for those newer to the business or thinking about going into business.

Hear here from four semi-finalists, including owner-operator Candace Marley, headquartered in Iowa and pulling dry van freight, now leased to Mercer after running under her own authority as Calliope, LLC, when we last spoke early in 2024. She continues to adjust to the realities of the system at Mercer, yet is enjoying a measure of stability compared to the difficulties she'd experienced in the current market.

Speaking to her peers, she advised, "If something's not working out, don't be afraid to change lanes." 

Minnesota-headquartered Gary Schloo, leased to Long Haul Trucking, noted current interest-rate levels as high yet not especially high considering his long history. Yet for an owner-op looking to invest in the business with a truck purchase, saving for a big down payment and building a good relationship with a local bank are likely to save on interest, he said. Then: "Find a good company, with stable freight, and different kinds of freight" to build the most effective partnership long-term, in his view. 

Independent Rene Holguin emphasized taking control of your business, getting as much mechanical knowledge as possible to save on repairs and gain confidence in the equipment.

And "be the boss," he added, as an owner. "Things start going south when you wait for somebody to give you direction," he said. Use your instincts and knowledge through self-education to "get on the horse and go."  

Independent Alan Kitzhaber made business education his central point of emphasis, particularly for those who've never before been in business for thesmelves. Yet his 4-million-mile 1995 Kenworth T600's longevity has hinged on preventive practices when it comes to maintenance. Like all of the owners, he places huge emphasis on regular check-ups and careful attention with an effective preventive maintenance schedule. 

"I get my truck in on a regular basis, at least once a month, to have it gone over," he said, at his longtime preferred shop partner in his area. They "grease the driveline and steering column," and he has "an automatic greaser that takes care of the rest," among plenty more he shares in what follows in the podcast. Listen on for plenty more all from these four in the Trucker of the Year field. 

Read more about all via this link to the central Trucker of the Year profile collection: https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year 

Put your own or another owner-operator's deserving business in the running for next year's award at this link: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

Success through self-help, lane change: 2024 Trucker of the Year 'exit interviews,' part 1

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 business or looking to get their start. Part 1, ICYMI: 

Words of encouragement, too, drawing on lessons learned from challenges overcome, and the plentiful nature of naysayers who will undoubtedly tell an aspiring truck owner just to "stay away." Play your cards right, and do the hard work early and often, noted owner-operator Greg Labosky, and you will be poised for profit. Use that "negative energy," as he put it, to "be willing to prove them worng to the best of your ability to show them that you can, indeed, succeed." 

Labosky's made strides in backstopping profit with cost reductions amid sluggish rates in Amazon's direct-contracting system, where he specializes. He's done that in part by maximizing reliability of his 2017 Cascadia with careful preventive maintenance, always learning more to do smaller repairs himself, and using close record-keeping to drive his efforts. 

"Keep extermely good, tight bookkeeping to keep track of your expenses that you can control," he advised other owners, to help spot when something is out of line.

There's growth on the horizon within the goals for Labosky's GDL Enterprise business, something Alpha Drivers Transportation owner Alec Costerus is already acheiving, having started the year with just one truck. With fellow owner Joel Morrow in their Alpha Drivers Testing & Consulting side business, Costerus is building a dry van-pulling operation with growth this year and more to come, backed by tremendous efficiency gains to reduce costs.

"Holding the steering wheel is the easy part," he advised any prospective owner to realize. "There is a great deal more to the trucking business," urging careful study of all of those aspects. 

Owner-operator Mike Nichols reported steady revenues through the year for his Wayne Transports-leased one-truck operation, with at once some unexpected downtime chipping a smidge away from that top line (including the results of a run-in with an unfortunate deer).

Nichols offered considered advice for prospective owners about up-front saving as prep, building for a down payment but also reserves for unforeseen expenses that are inevitable. With respect to "start-up capital and down payment," he said, "you need to treat that like you would firewood. Save what you think you might need and triple it, if not quadruple it."   

As for Dayl and Nelson Zimmerman, owners of Minnesota-based Zimmerman Ag, the brothers are very close to making good on goals set out at the beginning of the year to erect a new shop at headquarters, which will deliver opportunity for outside maintenance work during slow winter periods. More importantly, it stands enhance their own in-house maintenance prowess to continue to get the job done for direct customers, the center of their ag-support two-truck business.

Read more about all of these Trucker of the Year contenders, and others, via https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year 

Enter your own or another deserving business in the 2025 Trucker of the Year program now at this link: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

'You can succeed': Truckers of the Month beat 2024's sluggish conditions with more than just will

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 how this one is going to go: Earlier this month, we charted the top 10 podcasts of this year, including a few two-parters this time around featuring extended talks with working truckers, whether small fleet owners like Gill Freightlines’ Surinder Gill on the collapse of the Convoy brokerage, or some among our owner-operator Trucker of the Year contenders offering business advice gleaned from their wealth of experience. We’ve got a short concert-haul run in-cab, a guide to beating back predatory tow invoices, and much more among hot topics and business dissection throughout the year.

So count down through the 10 most-listened-to podcasts of 2024, plus an extra three just outside that top 10 for a lucky 13, all the way to No. 1, to ring in the new year right.

Find a playlist of all the episodes excerpted via this link: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/countdown-to-2025-the-top

Or tune in for our latest via https://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio

4 million miles toward optimism for a new year: Overdrive Radio's countdown to 2025

"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-mile Kenworth T600. Every single mile of that 4 million he's put down on the road himself, since it was new and he was a company driver for Millis Transfer. Kitzhaber was Overdrive’s Trucker of the Month back in August, when we told the tale of the Kenworth’s journey toward May '24, when it crossed the 4-million threshold, likewise detailing Kitzhaber’s long relationship with JR Truck Repair nearby to his home base for a meticulous maintenance approach that has been a big part of the truck’s longevity: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15681362 

When we got our Trucker of the Year contenders together late in 2024 for a final talk, and we asked Kitzhaber and others to draw on their wealth of experience for the best single piece of advice for new and/or aspiring owner-operators, it got Kitzhaber to thinking. He had much more than just that single piece of advice. He set to work on a story that you can read today in two parts, starting here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15712314 

Attendant to that in-depth tutorial of sorts into smart practices in business ownership, we’ve also got some big news about Kitzhaber to share that he's "certainly excited about," he said. 

For 2024, in what if current plans come to fruition will turn out to be his final full year trucking as an independent owner-operator with authority, Alan Kitzhaber with his Oak Ridge Transport business is Overdrive’s Trucker of the Year. 

"I'm going to be retiring the end of March/beginning of April, somewhere in there, and I guess I can't think of a better way to wrap up a career," he said. 

With the big win, he goes out on top after a career as an owner that stretches back to the day in 1998 he made the considered decision to buy the T600 from Millis Transfer, where he was then employed as a company driver. Since then, he's modified the truck forever with efficiency, comfort, and operating longevity in mind. 

Trucker of the Year judges ultimately lauded owner-operator Kitzhaber’s meticulous approach to both maintenance and efficiency throughout the operation. Said one: "Really a monument to the craft of trucking as an owner-operator."

Kitzhaber contracts directly in the distribution network of shipper Menards, with retail stores for building supplies and more throughout the Midwest. Menards transportation manager John Schmidley threw plenty in the way of praise Kitzhaber’s way, too: 

"Everyone up here at Menards is pretty excited for him," Schmidley said. "He has a lot of respect for the industry, and does his homework." Overdrive's Trucker of the Year award "is going to a real good choice."

Schmidley sees one of the best in Kitzhaber, and relies on him directly as a resource in their business, that’s sure, in addition to offering him as an example to other owners in the company’s big network of independents hauling freight for them. Schmidley was hopeful to convince Kitzhaber to stay in business on a part-time basis for the summer season uptick in transport needs for the shipper, yet the owner is intent on enjoying the fruits of his labor.

"I'm in a position where I just simply don't need to work unless I want to," Kitzhabert said. He's building a house on a 40-acre piece of land he's enjoyed for a couple decades hunting, fishing and more for respite from the road. Meantime, here's our chance to learn from one of the best. Congrats to Kitzhaber from all of us, likewise from program sponsor Bostrom Seating: https://bostromseating.com 

Enter the 2025 Trucker of the Year field: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

Staying young, learning more: Master of the owner-operator craft Alan Kitzhaber, Trucker of the Year

This week on the podcast, the voices of two semi-finalists for Overdrive's 2025 Small Fleet Champ award: 

First, Robbie and Levi Turnage of Mississippi-headquartered tanker fleet Turnage and Sons, LLC. They're respectively fourth- and fifth-generation milk haulers who've made good on a business with a stable of dairymen in the region specializing in organic milk over two decades of so Robbie's grown the fleet from just a single truck, following in the footsteps his father, grandfather and great grandfather before him -- the hands-on nature of each successive generation’s training and involvement in the shop, behind the wheel, and everything else that goes along with running a trucking business have no doubt contributed to the family business' longevity, with 19-year-old Levi now fully entrenched as well. 
 
In the podcast, you'll hear the Turnages in conversation with Overdrive's own Long Haul Paul Marhoefer in the cab of Levi's 2005 Peterbilt 379 "Big Red" parked up in March at the Mid-America Trucking Show. Marhoefer wrote about the pair in a story published in July you can read here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15751311/five-generations-trucking-the-turnage-familys-longevity-secret

Catch some pictures there of Big Red, too, which placed second in its class at the MATS show. Stay tuned for more reporting on the Small Fleet Champ contender in the coming weeks. 

Also in the podcast, fellow semi-finalist MRL Transport owner Mark Ledford, who founded and grew Red Baron Transportation to 35 trucks over 15 years starting in the early part of the decade before selling out and restarting with just one truck in 2019 as MRL. That story aired just last week at https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15753736/mark-ledfords-mrl-transport-master-class-in-trucking-rightsizing 

He’s up to five trucks now, with four drivers employed, and similarly gets his hands dirty behind the wheel himself, a fact key to both maintaining customer relationships spanning back decades now but also inking new business, as he tells in the podcast. Here, he takes even farther back to his origins in trucking working a dock in the 1980s, then his first OTR driving experience with a team operation. On his first run from North Carolina out to California his co-driver woke him up by turning the rig on its side in the middle of the night, memorably leaving Mark to climb out of a window and onto the cab's side, now upright, unable to find his glasses to sharpen the blurry lights all around him. Needless to say, as he notes in the podcast, he never would run team again. 

Meet all Overdrive's 2025 Small Fleet Champ semi-finalists and read more about them through this month via https://overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ 

Two Champs will be honored along with two fellow semi-finalists at Championship sponsor NASTC's annual conference October 23-25 in Nashville. More about NASTC: https://nastc.com

Small Fleet Champ semi-finalists not afraid to get their hands dirty in shop, behind the wheel

How might truckers get back a measure of flexibility in the hours of service rules, such as that enjoyed by so many owner-operators of past generations? That is, the ability to split the 10-hour required rest period into two periods of any length they want. That’s the option favored by a whopping 88% of readers who responded to Overdrive polling around the subject this time last year, with results published earlier in the year showing most readers wanted the ability just to split as they saw fit, fundamentally. 

Since the 14-hour duty window came into play more than two decades ago, well before the time of electronic logging device mandate's implementation in 2017, greater duty-window and/or rest period flexibility has been owner-operators' cardinal ask of regulators when it comes to the hours of service. 

After trucker appreciation week last week, we might see a path forward to it. In this Overdrive Radio edition, Chief Editor Todd Dills and Matt Cole break down the details of the DOT and FMCSA's announcement to start truck appreciation week last week of two proposed pilot programs to fully test two different options for split flexibility. 

It’s not often we start the annual appreciation week with something other than a free soda at a truck stop or other deal from a vendor or supplier to write about. Yet that was the case for Cole last week Monday, when DOT announced formal proposals to conduct those safety-efficacy studies. One's the split-as-you-see fit option of up to 5/5-hour sleeper splits, the other a daily up-to-three-hour pause button, spot to speak, for the 14-hour clock. 

The news wasn't entirely unexpected, nontheless. The formal proposals had been teased back in June as part of what the DOT called a “Pro Trucker” package of efforts. The formal proposals open up a comment period on how regulators might set up and conduct the programs, each of which will be open to more than 250 drivers to participate: https://www.overdriveonline.com/hours-of-service/article/15755537/what-fmcsas-hoursofservice-flexibility-pilot-programs-could-look-like

We’re certainly months out from interested participants being able to apply to take part, and given each test could take years to bring to fruition, it could be quite some time before any subsequent regulatory action is taken. That is, unless another federal body pushes the ball more quickly forward, as Cole puts it in the podcast, and "Congress were to get involved." 

Absent Congressional directive to take regulatory action, further hours flexibilities for all drivers aren’t likely in the cards before the next decade rolls around after these studies conclude -- depending on results, of course. That timeline takes us into whatever administration follows the current one.

"Personally I don't see this as necessarily a partisan issue," said Cole. "If a Democratic Administration were to come in" come 2029, he felt FMCSA wouldn't be likely to wholesale abandon work put into potential new flexibilities. After all, some of groundwork for the 2020 split-sleeper enhancements was put in under the Obama administration. 

If these two studies show positive or even neutral safety impacts for participating truckers, it might really get things moving toward change for the next administration's FMCSA.

Where to read and comment on the proposals, through mid-November: **Split-sleeper program: https://www.regulations.gov/document/FMCSA-2025-0193-0001 
**Split-duty program: https://www.regulations.gov/document/FMCSA-2025-0194-0001

More on the 2020 split-sleeper change, which itself offered a boost in duty-pause and split flexibility: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/safety-compliance/video/15737159/significant-hos-change-fmcsas-2020-splitsleeper-provisions

Sleeper berth: Will truckers be able to split as they see fit? FMCSA opens potential path forward

One of the trucking industry's biggest events, the biennial Guilty by Association Truck Show at 4 State Trucks in Joplin, Missouri, is officially under way at Exit 4 off I-44.

With hundreds of trucks in attendance (organizers expect 800+ to participate in the Saturday night convoy), the massive show sprawls across multiple businesses, including 4 State Trucks itself, the Joplin 44 Petro and Pilot truck stops across state highway 43, and more.

No matter what your taste in trucks is, you're certain to find what you like on display. There's no shortage of antiques, cabovers, Peterbilts, Kenworths and everything in between. Most of the trucks are no doubt workers, but there are also some true showpieces on display: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/podcast/15767972/guilty-by-association-truck-show-under-way-in-joplin

In addition to the beautiful iron exhibited, there's plenty to do around the show, including big-rig burnouts, a truck and tractor pull, concerts, Trucker Olympics and more. Friday morning, officials from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration were on hand for a Q&A with attendees. See more from that next week. For now, drop into this Overdrive Radio conversation with Overdrive Senior Editor Matt Cole, on hand covering the show after a round of rough weather had participants hard at work day 1 Thursday, September 26. 

As noted in the show: 
**The big news from DOT around non-domiciled CDL issuance to foreign drivers: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15767991
**David Foster's 2005 W900L as pictured way back in 2017 (with rainbow): https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/14891552/dave-fosters-2005-kenworth-w900l
**Enter Overdrive's Pride & Polish by October 1 to compete in our own virtual truck show: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/2025-pp

Guilty by Association Truck Show rolls into Joplin

No news has been bigger in trucking this year than the DOT’s announcement Friday, September 26, of changes to the rules around non-domiciled CDL issuance, effective now: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15767991/fmcsa-to-force-nearly-200k-nondomiciled-cdl-holders-out-of-trucking

New restrictions on issuance hold potential to limit foreign-domiciled CDL drivers' ability to work OTR in the U.S. The influx of asylum seekers into the country in recent years has meant a lot of those asylum seekers ended up getting those non-domiciled CDLs. Going forward, they won’t, unless they have an employer-sponsored visa for temporary work in the United States. 

The same day DOT announced the changes, likewise initial results from its ongoing audit of state CDL programs around non-domciled CDL issuance, our own Matt Cole was out at the Guilty by Association Truck Show in Joplin, Missouri, where he reported from a sort of listening session hosted at the event by the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and featuring questions and commentary from owner-operators in attendance. Responses came from FMCSA’s own Senior Policy Advisor Michael Hampton. 

This week's episode features a good near-hour’s worth of audio from the session, and applause lines weren't hard to come by -- rare for a regulatory session, that's certain. One came fairly early on in response to a commenting owner-operator's contention that, as was noted by many Overdrive readers earlier this year, maybe a non-domiciled CDL shouldn’t even exist, particularly as an option for a non-immigrant in the country with temporary status: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15747114  

Perhaps the biggest applause line, though, came when FMCSA's own Michael Hampton contended that more hours of service flexibility would result in better safety, as the agency readies two studies of flexibility enhancements we highlighted two weeks back here on the podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15755974 

Hampton urged truckers to participate in those studies when they get rolling -- the agency will need data to help it get further changes to the split-sleeper rules, and/or a 14-hour clock pause button, across the finish line in future. Participation’s going to be paramount to analyzing safety impacts and, with any luck, truly showing that Hampton in his contention is in fact correct. 

As also mentioned in the podcast:
**Big congrats to Overdrive's four 2025 Small Fleet Champ finalists! Recent announcement: https://overdriveonline.com/15768558
**DOT OIG's audit of oversight of CDL skills testing and training: https://overdriveonline.com/15755980 (second brief down the page)

FMCSA's GBATS session: Truckers' applause for Trump DOT moves not hard to find

Off the top of this week's Overdrive Radio episode one thing's clear. Longtime Alaska-based truck driver Lisa Kelly is now a business owner. That's right, in the very long time since Overdrive editor Todd Dills last spoke to her (though not the last time you read about her in Overdrive), she bought a 2019 Peterbilt 389 and leased on with a company to work Alaska's Dalton Highway (the "Haul Road," as its known): https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14874578/haul-road-to-the-himalayas-interviewing-lisa-kelly

It's also the 389 she's hoping to earn money enough to either repair or replace as shown in episode 1 of the brand-new season of the History Channel's "Ice Road Truckers" franchise, back after a long hiatus. Owner-operator Kelly's got long history with the show, part of the first seasons that were filmed in Alaska after it got its start along routes partially on frozen lakes in far northern Manitoba in 2007. 

She couldn't talk publicly about the fleet she's leased to today, per an agreement with the owner when she decided to go back to IRT, yet she was willing to share her own business's name. "I'm Arctic Fox Trucking," she said, and yeah, there's a story there. 

"Back in the day when we were filming in Alaska, Season Three," she said, the Arctic Fox moniker was bestowed upon her by a young woman among the show's producers, one among many nicknames passed around for cast and crew on the show. "She thought it would be funny," Kelly added, yet "I didn't get it" at first. Finally, though, she did, perhaps when Esquire magazine dubbed her the "sexiest trucker alive" in a headline back in 2010, coupled with photos of Kelly and the Kenworth she drove for well-known Alaska-headquartered Carlile Transportation.  

For all such attention she got back in those days, it was another quality that stood out perhaps more prominently -- a no-nonsense attitude toward the work of trucking. It all ended with her in a role as something of a de facto ambassador to the world for North American hauling. 

What's life been like for her since? Catch plenty more about all of that, including a good bit of time away from the road before buying that Peterbilt, in the podcast. The current "Ice Road Truckers" season -- find two episodes available for streaming today via this link: https://www.history.com/shows/ice-road-truckers -- features a cast of two other haulers with Kelly working for Operations Manager Bill Dahn's Muskie Creek Ltd. company, hauling north on six weeks' worth of winter roads to communities otherwise cut off from land routes. The first episodes also features Harris and Sons Transportation owner and operator Shaun Harris and his sons Riley and Zach, as they survey ice that just doesn't seem to be firming up fast as usual, with the work piling up for the season west in Saskatchewan.

As always for the reality-TV franchise, there’s plenty drama in those first couple episodes, offering an entertaining window into a brand of trucking that’s certainly more man v. nature than most.

In the podcast, drop into Kelly's story of how she came to truck ownership some years after the end of the "Ice Road Truckers" original run, as the owner-operator takes us back to her time as a Carlile Trasportation company driver, then all that’s happened since. Short version, as it were, of a long, long story. 

"A lot happened, and nothing happened," she laughed, to start it off.

Ice Road Truckers' Lisa Kelly, back in action -- new show season, new biz

The Overdrive Radio podcast is produced by Overdrive magazine, the Voice of the American Trucker for 60-plus years. Host Todd Dills -- with a supporting cast among Overdrive editors, contributors and others -- presents owner-operator business leading lights, interviews with extraordinary independent truckers and small fleet owners, and plenty in the way of trucking business and regulatory news and views. Access an archive of all episodes of Overdrive Radio going back more than a decade via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio