This is America's truck In Network with Kevin Gordon.
This is america struck In Network seven hundred at WLW. I'm Kevin Gordon. I'm joined by Connie Dempsey, Senior Continuous Improvement Manager, and Deborah Smith, she is the director of Operations Continuous Improvement. But their involvement in Rush Enterprise's twentieth anniversary Tech Tech Skills Rodeo. They are part of the
competition committee that actually puts this whole thing together. And what Jody had talked about the other day was that, you know, in addition to the full time job and all the responsibilities, you've got this part time, full time job that you guys do throughout to hear and so explain, first of all, how long.
How many times have you, Connie have you done? Have you done this rodeo?
This is my fourth year being on the committee.
Yes, okay, And you've been with Rush Truck Centers for.
I've been with Rush Truck Centers or RUSSI Enterprises for twenty three years, okay. And yeah, just got involved a few years ago doing scheduling and things like that for the classes. And that's my main responsibility here.
At Deborah, you have a Deborah or Debbie Deborah Deborah. Okay, yeah, so so I don't want to get the names right, so I don't assault anybody, makes sense.
Yeah.
So I have been on the Rodeo committee for about five years, did support before that, and then I've been with Russian Enterprises for actually almost twenty one years.
Wow, coming up so amazing.
I am blown away by the number of people I talked to from russ Enterprises that have been there for fifteen, twenty, twenty three, thirty.
It's incredible.
That speaks a lot about well the individuals, but also Rush Enterprises themselves.
They must be doing something right.
To Yeah, definitely.
I think there's a lot of opportunity for just being able to find your thing at Rush. You know, if you're a truck sales parts service, there's just really so many different opportunities for sure.
And it's a great company.
Yeah.
And so the planning of this, let's go to the Connie here and so this is not something that's just wing together. This is all those a full time, full time, part time job.
Yes, yeah, we start we start planning again in January. We'll meet as a committee and talk about the past year, what went well, what we could approve on and things like that, and then we start planning for the next one.
So it's a year round.
Yeah, and now this year was a lot different than the years past because it's been well, the first one twenty years ago was in Nashville, that has been in San Antonio since.
Yes, I don't know who calling the frame.
I think it was one of your people at breakfast. Rachel had mentioned that this and I guess it's a term you guys used. Yeah, but when it's in San Antonio it's.
Rinse and repeat. Yeah.
Yes, we work with a lot of the same locations, our contacts that those locations are the same, so they're really used to what we do.
Coming here. Of course it's a new venue.
It's all new venues, including our night events, and so it was definitely.
It's definitely a new experience.
Oh great, Now, and of course, you guys show a wrinkle or the whole thing got thrown a wrinkle when four, I guess four years ago it was decided that we do that they do the twentieth anniversary back in Nashville. Yes, so in addition to year of the four year cycle, year one year, two, year, three, you guys are working on this show in addition to the San Antonio Show and that little thing called your normal job.
Right, Yeah, we don't know. We don't think about that in November and December.
Okay, but that threw a wrinkle into it too. And I keep mentioning, I know I've mentioned this several times, but it absolutely blows me away, the logistics of getting everybody here, all the equipment, and then the vendors themselves. As has been pointed out, it bears repeating that it is the show itself. Three million dollars to put this on is sponsored by all the vendors and sponsors, So not only do they step up to the plate there, but then they bring all their equipment and the trucks and.
The stuff to this location.
So that is a huge expense, and that speaks to again Rush Enterprises, the value that they put on, the value that these companies see working with Rush, but then also getting the exposure to the individual technician.
So I just find that absolutely amazing.
Yea, our sponsors are phenomenal.
I mean, we definitely couldn't do this without them, and they do such a great job with communicating to us so that we know what they need, And yeah.
It's just it's great to have them all here. We get to see a lot of them a year after year.
But to throw this in and say, hey, guess what, we're not going to be in San Antonio where you're used to it.
You know, they've all done a really great job.
They have they have. Now what are these phone calls like?
Because you said you can contact the suppliers and you can contact the people to be participating. Is that an easy call or is it more less something they're expecting and they're looking forward to jumping on board or does there need to be arm twisting? And Conte Connie just looked at me. I've got answering that question. Maybe maybe I'll push this off on Tabra.
So now, yes, there was definitely a conversation. In addition to being the twentieth anniversary, and this is obviously a very special event for us. Nashville is, you know, considerably more expensive than San Antonio is, and we're in at the Gaylord, which is beautiful, and so we did have to have a conversation and say, you know, our costs will be higher, so our sponsorships, you know, are a little bit higher, And but I feel like everyone was.
Yeah, they stepped up.
They were all will to you know, push it a little bit more to be here and to support the technicians and the parts team that everyone who's competing.
Yeah, and I think at four hundred and forty different vendors here.
That Yeah, it's amazing.
The great job on your guys part for pulling this off. That is incredible. So if you are willing to answer any questions.
Got any question you have.
That one?
Yeah, that was a tough one.
Okay.
So as as far as again putting it together, the meetings and the involvement, so percentage time wise, what is that or that's a good question.
I think, you know, the first part of the year, it's you know, we meet I think once a month, we meet monthly just to kind of start planning things. And then once we hit about August is when things really kind of ramp up and we're working on schedules and the qualifiers and you know, registration, all of the you know, logistics.
Of everything else thing has to be put together.
Yeah, So then we start meeting you know, two or three times a month, and then I mean it just snowballs from there.
Yeah, real quick and very you're and with anything else. I can imagine in August it seems like, oh, that's so far away, it seems like it, and then all of a sudden, boom, it's right around the corner. We're telling you with Deborah Smith is director of Operations a Continuous Improvement and Connie Dempsey Senior Continuous Improvement. So I want to kind of lay the groundwork for the next segment.
One of the things we talked about is possibly, you know how you got involved with Rush Truck Centers, the career path to get here, and in terms of maybe encouraging other people as to how they might be able to maybe think in terms of this as a career, because as we talked before, it's one of those things where if you were to think about as a as a young person, what am I going to do when I grow up?
This was probably not even on the radar screen.
Well, I will say, twenty three years ago, I don't know that continuous improvement was really a thing.
There you go, so we'll pick that up.
I'm Kevin Gordon, America struck In Network seven hundred WLW.
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Team Penske will celebrate its sixtieth anniversary in twenty twenty six with a year long effort to tell its story through special events, liveries, and exhibits. Our sixtieth anniversary is a tremendous milestone for our organization, said Roger Penske in a statement. The twenty twenty six season will give us the opportunity to celebrate the people, partners, and fans who
have helped shape Team Penske since nineteen sixty six. Major highlight of the celebration will be a dedicated sixtieth anniversary exhibit opening in late spring and the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Norm Carolina and Charlotte, North Carolina. Featuring historic cars, championship memorabilia, and rarely seen artifacts of the team's archives. The exhibit will showcase the pivotal events that have defined
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The full practice and qualifying schedule, including for Friday, July twenty fourth, will be shared at a later date. For ticket information for the Brickyard Weekend, visit IMS dot com.
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And I'm Kevin Gordon, America struck a Network, seven hundred WLW, continuing our conversation with Deborah Smith, director of Operations Continuous Improvement and Connie Dempsey, Senior Continuous Improvement Department. Okay, we talked before about how the career path was, How did you come into Rush Truck Centers.
Who wants to take the microphone and start from there?
I can go ahead and start.
Okay, we'll start with Deborah.
Okay, Yeah, So I started at Rush Enterprises twenty one years ago in our central purchasing department, so placing parts orders for all of our truck centers. From there, I really moved through Parts operations, did a little bit of everything. If you think about you know, we've got customer pricing, we have customer maintenance. All of our part numbers that we sell, those have to be set up and maintain.
So handled all of that and operations. Let's see, I was an operations specialist, really supporting all of our parts departments. So any kind of question that the field has that they need to help from corporate, it's working through that.
In twenty sixteen, we created our Business Process Management Team and I moved over there, so started doing process improvement for Parts operations, really starting to look at how do we standardize processes across the network and how do we make things, you know, look the same no matter which rush truck center you walk into.
Okay, So in terms of as the title describes, Director Operations, continuous improvement, continuous improvement in terms of the organization itself and how these things all come together exactly because they just don't happen to fall into place. There requires a lot of planning with that, Oh.
For sure, yes, I mean yeah, when you have over one hundred and sixty locations. It's really difficult for all of them to one know what the best practices are and know what the process is should be. And our team does a really great job of improving the processes and then making sure that everyone knows what they are.
Donnie, how about you? How did you?
Very similar to Debora?
Actually, I started twenty three years ago as a temp doing purchasing and just.
Worked my way through.
I worked for Rick Touff Truck Carts as the business manager for about eight years, and then I did some buying. I was a buyer for a while and then went to go work for Deborah.
And you know, but again in terms of coordination of things, I think one of the things that rush enterprises stress is the fact that Okay, somebody's out on the road. Yes, if their truck is down, they're not making any money, and so the key is to get them out back on the road as soon as possible. So that involves continuing improvement of making sure that the parts flow are done, even in some of these challenging times with certain suppliers and whatnot, making sure that the supply chain is all
there and at the coordination with the individual locations. So again one hundred and over one hundred and sixty sixty locations.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And so that's a lot of what we do, you know, from warehouse management and making sure that you know, the parts are where they need to be and you know, salespeople can find them quickly and easily to actually delivering the parts.
We kind of have a hand and on a lot of.
That making sure those processes are efficient good.
We're speaking with Deborah Smith, Director Operations Continuous Improvement and Connie Depsei, Senior Continuous Improvement Manager. One of the things that is, you know, interesting from the standpoint of this can continuous improvement and getting parts and everything located in the right spot is again the logistics end of it and making sure that they're all available there. But it's even more than that. From the standpoint of a career
path or the job. I can imagine that you know a lot of people will say, you know, my job is boring that you know, doing the same thing over and over again. I'm guessing that there's probably not a some things are similar, but every day is different.
It is, Yes, every day is different because I mean, whether you're looking at parts or service, there's so many there's just so many things we could fix, right, there are so many things we can improve, and so one day we might look at, you know, how are we going to improve our estimates for our customers? How do we start to break down where we're wasting time so we can get rid of that. And you know, with us being in operations, we're handling parts, service, our rush,
care team, warranty. You know, we're really covering so many different areas that yeah, they're just two there. Every day is a little bit different because we're trying to find what is the thing that's going to make things easier for our customer and make the most impact for the entire organization.
Now, in terms of that, is that so as you mentioned that is that you know, continuous improvement over this department, this department, this department and this department, or is it all one linear thing?
So on our team, we have four continuous and six continuous improvement managers.
I have three for parts and three for.
Service, okay, and so in general they'll work on their own division. But we're a very closely knit team. So if something you can very rarely make a change in parts that doesn't affect service and vice versa. So there's a lot of alignment figuring out like Okay, if I go change something in parts, how's that going to affect my technician, how's it going to affect the service advisors, And just making sure that we keep in mind that those other impacts.
And then the feedback from the individual locations and what they're experiencing kind of gives you an idea of well, how well are we doing?
And absolutely yeah, yeah, I mean a big piece of that of what we do is you know, the change management piece and getting that information you know, to the field and explaining why we're doing what we're doing, and you know, help train them and make sure that they understand. Yeah.
One of the things I'm picking up from Rush Enterprises is that not that it's we've been doing this for a long period of time and we're going to continue
doing this. It's constantly evolving, absolutely and improving, I know, you know, going you know, having been an account and going to different well, when you go to different companies, one of the first things you try to do is make sure that you look at their flow of paperwork at the time or how things are moving, and so that things are in a convenient and well managed and
streamlined situation. And when you start to make those changes, sometimes there's a little bit of resistance with that, and so sometimes Deborah has got this big grin on her face. So apparently this has happened a few times.
I will say that as human beings, we are wired to resist change, and there are definitely people who are more wired to resist change. I always tell I mean, I tell everyone I am the I do not like change. I don't like change done to me, and so I will do change to everyone else all the time, but don't do it to me. I feel like it makes me a little bit more qualified to say, Okay, I do get where.
You're coming from. I don't like change either.
But we try our best to say this is why we're doing We're not doing it to make your life harder. We're trying to make your lives easier and make the lives of the customers easier.
So a lot of times if it's improved on their end, then it's improved on the customer's end. Oh that cuts down on the complaints from the customers. It makes the customers happy exactly. Thanks, everybody happy all the way around.
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is a lot of times our process changes and so involve new systems. New systems you have to learn, and so eventually we get to the point where you've learned the new system, you're comfortable with it, and everyone likes it better than the old system.
You just have to get there.
I will start with Connie's final thoughts in terms of any advice for people that are interested in getting into this end of the business, if it's something that they may not have heard about before, or I.
Think my advice and I'm going to hope and hopefully this is okay, but kind of related to women is you know, I don't think that there isn't a place in this trucking industry for them. I mean, there are so many opportunities, especially with a company such as Rush. You know, it's it's once you get your foot in the door, there's just there's a lot of opportunity.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I completely agree with Connie. My advice I think would be, you know, don't limit.
Yourself, right, I was going to jump in there.
I have no idea that continuous improvement was a thing, and now I wouldn't want to do anything else.
That's fantastic.
Yeah, Connie, it was really great talking to you. I certainly appreciate you stopping by. Devora Smith's Director Operations Continuous Improvement and Connie Dempsey, Senior Continuous Improvement Manager. Thank you both for stopping by the booths and talking with me this morning.
I certainly appreciate it.
Thank you for having us.
All right, have a great day.
I'm Kevin Gordon, America struck in Network seven hundred WLW.
Here's your trucking forecast for the Try State and the rest of the country. In the Try State, overnight mostly Claudia and not as cold. The low down to thirty two, Mostly claudi early Wednesday, then gradually becoming sunny. A high of forty three. Afternoon. Rain expected Thursday. Highs in the mid fifties. Friday, slight chance of snow showers the first half of the day, otherwise partly sunny and colder, a high of thirty one. Nationally, the Pacific Northwest scene heavy rain,
impossible flooding this week. The mountain west to the northern Plains seeing destructive winds and winter weather impacts. For the Ohio and Tennessee Valley, strong storms are possible Thursday.
This is america'struck in Network seven hundred WLW. I'm joined by Michael Freese. He is the feature editor of features editor Transport Topics out of the Washington DC area. Also Leo Leo Barrows with truck Trucknews dot Com. He's the associate editor out of Toronto. So welcome to the program. Thank you both for joining me this morning.
Thanks for having us, Kevin, thanks for having me.
Yes, there may be a little delay there.
We got one microphone that they're both sharing, and uh, but let's start with you, Michael with Transport Topics. I got to say, I go to your I told you last night that I go to your side a lot and I look at a lot of the articles. So what are your how many times have you been to the truck rodeo?
This is my second year at the second year.
And Leo, I'm a rookie here, me too, rookies here all right, and he's done, and Michael has done nothing to help us along to what to expect.
So we've been just thrown into the water. All Thank you, Michael.
It's well worth it, y.
Lare it on your baptism by fire?
So again, I well here second, I'm obviously last year was in San Antonio and then now this year the twentieth anniversary up here in Nashville, Tennessee, where they began twenty years ago. Difference between the two, well.
You know, the you know, the first thing that that strikes me where the difference between Nashville and San Antonio is the.
Lack of text mechs.
So yeah, yeah, you have that, but it's really a you know, Nashville, you know, is a nice convention city. The you know, the difference you know, being that you know, this was where the the the Russian Skills radio originated, so it was very important for the for the.
The company that had to have that, that have this here.
You know, we're in San Antonio, which is the home base of Russian Destroyer, where you know, everything is a very much you know, home feeld type of convention. I mean, it's almost akin to a party exactly.
I was talking to some of the people from Russia Enterprises yesterday and then again at breakfast this morning, and they were saying that one of us in San Antonio's kind of washed rents repeat because they're so used to doing it there. But this was a whole different thing took them actually started planning this four years ago, and then of course the logistics of getting everybody here and
getting the travel arrangements and everything. So, h leo, what's your impressions being their first time, because I'm I'm absolutely blown away by all.
That I am.
It's really well organized, the people are really nice, and you get to see a lot of trucks, which is awesome.
Do you guys go to the America Mid America Trucking Show or Mid America Truck Show down in Louisville.
I have a demand, but I do show Super Riggs. Okay, so I love that show.
But the good thing over here is what I'm seeing is I normally talk to drivers, fleet managers, fleet owners, not that many tech guys, right, and now I interviewed a lot of them here, and you see how their brains work. They look at the truck as a buzzle, right, and they don't. One guy said, I don't let the truck defeat me. You know what I'm saying.
Yeah, they take it as a challenge.
It's a challenge.
And he said, if I can't die, if I can't fix the problem, I will go home unhappy. I'll think about it all night. I'll come back in the morning and I'll fix it.
You know, that is somebody that is a true student of the game because they take their work home. You know, I don't know about you guys, but being on the air, I've always said that you're either on the air or you're doing show prep because you know, just meeting people that's a topic for a show or a topic for an article.
But the same goes with us.
Be right, but you're always thinking, what's the next story, what's the next angle?
Will this help me? What should I be asking? So it's the same thing exactly. Again, we're talking with Michael Freese. He is the features editor of Transport Topics, Leo Barrow's truck dot Com Associate editor. So again, overall impressions, are you delo You had talked about seeing all the trucks and everything.
The trucks, the skills that these guys have. Uh, these guys are so talented and a lot of them are experts in their field. Uh So they really dive down into the weeds and they know exactly what's happening with that truck or that engine.
It's awesome to say they are the cream of the crop. They are and they've got that competitive edge, and it just proves again talking about how Rush enterprises and how well run that corporation is.
It is.
And one guy I spoke to, he said he was competing against.
Last year's first and second place people and he was third.
Uh huh, the same three guys are back here again.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Now you mentioned about the trucks, and what blows me away too about all this is the fact that not only are the are the sponsors here four hundred and forty sponsors of this which they paid for the event three million dollars to put this on. And then as I'm thinking from a logistics standpoint, and as they're recovering accountant, I'm thinking in terms of the not only the investment
of them paying the money. But then you've got Azuzu, you've got International trucks, You've got Peter Bilt, You've got Voweling that we can just see in the surrounding areas moving all these trucks. Of what International has two, it looks like Peter Built has three or four moving those vehicles here and moving all their people here, because each one of these booze has five, six seven people with them.
That is a tremendous investment not only.
For their people, but it speaks well of their relationship with RUSH truck centers.
Yeah, Kevin.
And one thing with that, the full sponsorship is truxtaposed with the soft freight market that we have, this economy that we have that in that environment you can have an event that's sponsored.
You know, that's a testament to you know, the.
Organization of Rush and the relationships with their with their vendors and and suppliers, and the willingness to be involved in the event to celebrate their technicians.
You know.
One I also cover the TMC super Tech Competition by Technology and Maintenance Council, you know, coverage of coverature that can be available at t T news dot com.
Just to pluck that in the.
Commercial.
It's all good, We're all no, but you just now but yeah, yes.
The the thing about it is that that the celebrations of the technician with the lead was referring to earlier, you know, it's it's it's really great to have that environment. And definitely when you can get the sponsors involved and get those suppliers, you get those those parts people that are all part of that technician network together in that celebration and in that competition too, just as a reporter you know who used to do metro reporting too for for newspapers and sports.
Uh.
You know, this is the closest thing to a sporting event that we have in our industry. You have the drivers, but you also have the text and and it's really this is really hard work, you know, physically and more mentally, right, So to be able to recognize that and celebrate that and recognize the best of the best, you know, that's one that's one great thing about this industry.
I love to come.
Yeah, and of course obviously you guys are gonna be in the print, gonna be uh talking about the individual people that want and and that sort of thing. So again, Leo, we're talking about the uh, the event itself, and any thoughts in terms of that is.
Considerably a nice thought.
That game, to my mind, is when you say my truck needs to be fixed, right, and you think you send it to a shop and it gets fixed, But there are suppliers, there are other people who are working behind the scenes. It's not just the tech who's fixing it, distributors, suppliers, warehousing, it's all these bots that come together and it. In the end, you have your truck fixed. You say, oh
it takes two days. It just cost me two thousand dollars. Yes, but then you have all these little bots that are playing into this massive project that's taking place.
But then also part of that is that, you know, it seems like everybody from the suppliers to rush enterprises themselves are geared towards this idea that hey, if the truck's off the road, they're not earning money, and so we need to streamline this so that we can get them in and out as soon as possible. And then the suppliers themselves being involved and making sure that that happens.
And I think a lot of recognition needs to go because you know, this is not obviously, this broadcast is not going out to just rush truck enterprises and individuals, just going out to you know, the general public and whether or not they drive an eighteen wheeler or not. A lot of these suppliers, a lot of the companies are in the you know, the four wheeler and of it.
So it's just the idea that knowing that they are supporting the trucking industry that basically supports everything that goes on as far as everything that is delivered by a truck. The fact that they support that, you should support them as the sponsors as well.
I think it's you know, symbiotic when you think of your truck and you say, you know, the trucking is the backbone, yes, but then this is the backbone of the backbone.
Exactly, exactly. We got to take a quick break. Can you guys hang around for another segment? That'd be fantastic speaking with Michael Freese. He is the features editor of Transport Topics.
And out of the Washington, d C. Office.
Leo Barrows trucknews dot Com Associate editor out of Toronto. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck in Network seven hundred WLW Transport Topics, Washington, DC office and Leo Barrows with trucknews dot Com Associated editor located out of Toronto. Now, this is going to be an interesting mix because I'm curious for both of you in terms of what you're seeing as far as the trucking industry. We've all talked about.
We've all heard about the trucking recession which is now into the third year where the average is more like fourteen months, and are we seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, Do we see things breaking up?
Do we see things moving ahead? So let's start with you, Michael.
Well, you know, especially yeah, as you said, with the ongoing soft freight, I don't know if we'll actually I mean, I think we'll see a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's just the warning of that light being another train coming at you.
Exactly how many have we had to tug or run away from over the last.
Few years, right, you know, But you know, the industry so far in the two three years that we're in this condition, I mean, it's pretty resilient, you know there. I mean there's still trucks are still moving that the industry is slowly catching on to the environment that's in You know, you're you're comfortable in this situation until you aren't. And right now I think we have the realization that we're in a solid space.
You know there.
You know, maybe that first year, in that second year, there were you know, maybe we're gonna we're gonna turn this around next year. We're gonna turn this around next year. Now you know, we're saying this for the third time. But however, you know, we we know what we're getting into.
So once the you know, the economic conditions that in some ways we can't control, get the better, you know, such as you know, interest rates, you know, such as you know just you know businesses, regulation, right, regulation, you know that that whole cloud. You know, that's a that's another interview session right there.
Yeah, you know.
So, I mean there's some challenges ahead, and with the fixing the problem, it's going to be a long that's going to be a long process in itself.
The turnaround is not going to happen in the month.
The turnaround might happen as long as we've been in this recession already. So there's a lot of things that has to be done on the you know, on on the federal level and state level, and also with each fleet company right now, you know, holding their head above water. So now you know, it's it's the point of just moving in this industry and finding out where those spots where it can thrive and finding those spots and really let in on trying to get this market up again.
Well, you hit on a very important topic about the resilience of the industry itself and people being resilient, and it always strikes me amazing that you know, if you just got well, you can't got to have government, you got to have regulations to extend. But sometimes it's just like stay to hell away for a little while and let us the market will work itself out. So Leo, what are you seeing in terms of Canada? To mention that you said before, you said things are a lot
different in Canada than maybe down here. It reminded me when I was talking that I live in northern Kentucky and Cincinnati is right across the river, and a lot of times people will say that bridge is a lot longer than it looks because the life on one side of the bridge is a lot different than life on the other side of the bridge. And we only have basically basically a boundary between Canada and the United States, but that boundary is a lot wider in certain instances than it looks.
So in Canada we've been dealing with tariffs, the big key word, and the goal post keeps them changing. So it's harder for companies to plan when you don't have a fixed goal post in the right.
That's one thing.
The majority of our trucks comes south of the bottom, so they come to the US.
That's how it has been all this time. Then you've got.
Drivers who are being pulled over, right, A lot of drivers are now afraid to come south of the bottle.
They don't want to come really.
Yeah, So a large population of drivers are from other countries. Yeah, you know, they have settled in Canada, immigrated, so now some of them are not very good in English, so that breeds fear in their minds.
They don't want to drive south. So what's happening is.
All the lanes in Canada getting clogged with drivers who used to normally drive south of the bottom. That's one Freight rates are low as well, so that's another issue that we are dealing with. And now we are seeing some bankruptcies taking place, so the smaller boys can't play in this market, so there are bigger fleets that are kind of taking over.
You've got also we deal with.
Something called driver misclassification where drivers are part of a company but they work as independent contractors, but they are doing the job of a regular driver. So what's happening is that there's a tax issue there and that's a big part of the industry as well, and fleets that run that kind of business have a competitive advantage because they have savings from.
Right they don't have them.
That is used a lot to buy property to lower the rates, where other fleets that are playing by the books.
Cannot play in the same field.
So is there more of a push to eliminate or not have is reclassify them as employees as opposed to that pushes on That seems to be a little bit contrary to what we have in the United States, if I'm not mistaken, there seems to be a lot more independent truckers to prefer that as opposed to.
In some ways, you know, I mean to to what Lee was saying. I mean, I don't want to go out on a limb, but I mean, but I wouldn't say half half. But you know, but I think there's there's a point that you're making, Kevin.
You know, sort of like uh.
In my former life, I used to cover the distribution right uh industry, and one of the things was just that association that you were just talking about, Leo. Just you walk into a federated store to buy something. You ask the owner, you know, is are are you a federated story? He'll say no, I'm I'm independent. But you know he's relying on Federated for all all those costs, you.
Know, for for it time to be up in this window. So there's a little bit of pushing pushing pull off of that.
You know.
There there's some independent drivers who you know who who want that relationship right, while there are others as as Leo was just saying, you know, they're a part of a system, right, but the way that they proceed it's you know, they're they're independent, so you kind of you know, you can you can have that dynamic, right, I mean, I think it's kind of fifty.
So at the time we have again speaking with Michael Freese, Transport Future Editor, Features Editor Transport Topics out of the Washington d C Office, and Leo Barrows truck news dot Com Associated editor, to mean to cut you off, Leo, but in terms of what you're seeing in terms of the economy and what's going on in Canada, you're saying, a light at the end of the tunnel.
Do you think this is going to last a lot longer?
You hopeful or were hopeful, will be always hopeful.
What I have seen while speaking to fleets, some of them are now focusing on drivers retention, because when so now as you know that, fleets are holding on to trucks trailers for longer periods of time, But there will come a time when you need a new truck, but it takes a while to procure that truck, six months, eight months, You have to book them right now. What you can sort of control is drivers, your maintenance cad.
So if you have the best drivers available when that light does come, you have the people ready to go. The trucks will come, you know, the trailers will come, but if you don't have the people when that opportunity comes, you're going to lose.
That's kind of along lines what we're seeing as far as the economy in terms of the no higher, no fire situation kind of I guess lessons learned from the pandemic when businesses shut down and then trying to regear everything back up, trying to find qualified employees, suppliers, supply chain issues and that. So, Michael, what are your impressions in terms of where you're seeing the industry and turning around.
And well, you know, just from the nuts and bolts that we were just talking about, it's kind of want to take a ten cos a few of things. One thing that we talk about in the office and a lot is artificial intelligence. But you know, I mean, that's such a buzzword, but I think we're getting into the stage right now where we're going to have to figure out, if we haven't already in some spaces where this can
work effectively in the trucking industry. I mean, we're past the stage of you know, slicesed dices, right, you know, And I think you.
Know, as you mentioned about artificial intelligence, possibly the rescheduling of things and the schedule and as far as the routes are concerned, so there's not as much debt heading, there's you know a little bit more coordination, a little bit more I guess coordination in terms of taking this route versus that route and that sort of thing.
But there's other areas where AI just I mean.
But yeah, it's also I mean, it's so much more than you know, a GPS.
But it's also even when.
You get down I mean, we're at a tech event, you know right now, you know, preventive maintenance strategies right, and schedules greatly impact you know, when you talk about artificial intelligence. That's that's one thing I mean, but even on that side when when it comes to PM, you know you have the innovation of the parts that you're working on now exactly.
Yeah.
So the limits of of you know, of an oil change just as simple as that. Exactly that have changed, have changed instead of the innovations outline of motor oil and.
Gentlemen, I'd like to continue this on forever, but we're up against clock here and I hate to do this, but I would probably heavy back on the program having some time down the road throughout the year.
Thanks.
Talk about this again.
My guests been Michael Freese, Features Editor, Transport Topics, Washington, the DC Office. Leio Barrows trucknews dot Com, Associate editor out of Toronto.
Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me. I certainly appreciate it.
I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network seven hundred WLW
