During this week’s episode of the Oakley Podcast, host Jeremy Kellett is joined by Robin Parks to hear about some of the things he thought about before coming to Oakley, him making that transition, and what he’s done since he’s been here— all part of the great success story of Robin Parks.
Key topics in today’s conversation include:
- Oakley Update (2:33)
- About Robin (5:27)
- From UPS to Oakley Trucking (7:44)
- Starting at Oakley (12:23)
- Advice on managing money (19:52)
- John Ross’ drift event (27:30)
- Remembering names (29:34)
Oakley Trucking is a family-owned and operated trucking company headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. For more information, check out our show website: podcast.bruceoakley.com.
Transcription
Robin Parks 0:12
Managing your money is the one most important thing you can do long term. You gotta be safe when you’re out there behind the wheel, but you’ve also gotta manage your money. If you don’t manage your money, it’ll manage you, and it’ll manage you right out of business.
Jeremy Kellett 0:26
Welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking, business, and family. This show is brought to you by Oakley Trucking, headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. The purpose of this podcast is to communicate with Oakley owner-operators and their families by giving them up-to-date information concerning Oakley Trucking and the trucking industry. From business advice to safety updates to success stories. Also to give an inside to outside truck drivers that might be interested in joining the Oakley family.
Hi, this is Jeremy Kellett, Director of Recruiting here at Oakley Trucking and I’m your host for this podcast. This is episode 116. So on today’s episode, I drug in one of our owner operators that has been with us for a little while. We’re gonna visit with him on things that he does at Oakley, maybe some of the things that he thought about before coming, him making the transition, and what he’s done since he’d been here. Just a great success story of Robin Parks and I’m interested to hear in some detail on some of the stuff that he has done over here and I think y’all will too. But first, also I want to do our Oakley update real quick and it’s sponsored by Arrow Truck Sales, so let’s hear from them.
Keith Wilson at Arrow Truck Sales in Springfield, Missouri is currently offering $1,000 off your first month’s payment when you finance with transport funding, or $1,000 off the truck price if you bring your own financing. They’re also discounting the cost of an extended warranty by $500. Arrow Truck Sales has been a longtime partner with Oakley Trucking and that’s because they specialize in first-time truck buyers, they don’t do any leases, they have the best-used trucks money can buy (because used trucks is all they do, they don’t sell any new trucks), and the biggest reason that Arrow and Oakley are partners is service after the sale. It is very important to us at Oakley that when we refer you to a company, that they are a good company with good people, they do what they say, and they understand our requirements. So give Keith a call at 573-216-6047 for a good used truck and tell him you heard about it on the Oakley podcast.
One thing on Arrow Truck Sales I want to tell you guys. I know we run that ad all the time, but I had an example actually to this week of just how they performed for us. We had an owner-operator truck was down. Gonna need a motor. He still owed money on it. He was in a bind. He called me Was there anything we could do and I mean, it was just he was at the end of not knowing what to do. And I hooked him up with Troy up arrow and Naiad they bought his old truck towed it up to Springfield found him an 18, or I think he’s 18 model, upgrading quite a bit and is getting the deal done. And it was just a great relief for him. And just a great testimony of our relationship with Aero truck sales. So I want to throw that in there. The Oakley update this week is I was thinking about this what to say about Oakley update. We talk a lot about recruiting drivers and not particularly on this podcast, but all the time, how to help recruit truck drivers and get them over here. But one thing we don’t talk enough about probably is retention and retaining the drivers that we have. We talk about a lot in this office. But I don’t think y’all as listeners get to hear about that from us because it is something we talk about a lot and I just want to reiterate the retention at Oakley and trying to keep every owner-operator that we have. And the way to do that is communication with you. I’ve had a lot of phone calls over the years about a driver would actually call me and tell me about another one of our drivers as here that is having problems. And I’m and every time I say oh, why don’t you call us tell him to call me tell him to call his dispatcher enlist. Air it out. You got to do that. That’s how reteaching works. If you haven’t problems, and you’re gonna have problems at Oakley trucking, there’s just no getting around it. We’re not a perfect company. But you’re gonna have those problems, you got to figure out how to handle and you got to confront them. And because a lot of times, a lot of times people’s big problem is not very big and turns out not to be much to it and it’s solved real quick. And we’re able to do that here. We can solve a lot of problems. You just got to communicate with us what issues you’re having whether it’s trailer, dispatch, payroll, whatever it might be, you gotta communicate that with us so we can get past that because once we get past it makes us all a little bit stronger, and we move on and have a lot better relationships. So remember that on retention. Okay, let’s get to visit with Mr. Robin Parks. How are you, Robin?
Robin Parks 5:11
Great. Thank you for having me.
Jeremy Kellett 5:12
I appreciate you taking time to hang out with us here and do this little bit I like to get a little history of you a little bit about you so our listeners know who they’re listening to. Give me your family, name, where you’re from, and that kind of stuff.
Robin Parks 5:26
My name is Robin Parks. Graduated high school in Vinton, Arkansas. Born and raised in Dallas before that moved here my sophomore year of high school, and I graduated in 84. As I said, I went to UALR and I went to Henderson state. And after that, I got a job at UPS here locally and worked there for 33 years before I decided to cut the cord and go to work for myself. What about in your spare time? I enjoy hunting and fishing. I have two sons and a daughter that I love very much. And I’ve got three new grandkids all grandsons, all came kind of at once. And that’s been a new adventure here the last year and a half, raising them and visiting with them. I see them every night. Oh, yes, I have two that live with me and my daughter lives with me. And then I see my third grandson a couple times a week, weekends and at church,
Jeremy Kellett 6:21
Nice. So that takes up a lot of your time.
Robin Parks 6:25
It takes up a lot of time. I was worried that my shirt would have little footprints on it this morning because my grandson was up before I got to leave the house. So of course I had to carry him around and do all the stuff I have to do before I get ready to leave. And he wanted to be right there with me.
Jeremy Kellett 6:40
How old is he?
Robin Parks 6:42
He’s a year and a half. And then the next youngest is four months old. And then I’ve got one that’s about a month and I owe our three boys, the places lively and it’s lively when they’re all there. Sure. Yeah.
Jeremy Kellett 6:55
That’s good stuff, though. I remember talking to you in the beginning, and you were working at UPS because anytime you have, somebody has a work history lock there, that’s been at UPS for 33 years, it gets our attention up in the recruiting office because we don’t get to see that very often. And we’re like, hey, this guy’s been here 33 years, we need to really try to see if he’s able to make this move. It’s what we’re looking for. How in the world do you go from— A lot of people dream about being UPS for 30 years, that’s their goal, and then you want to make that move to come and be an independent contractor and come to Oakley truck. And how did that happen?
Robin Parks 7:43
I felt like I kind of did my party-ups. I worked out there a long, long time. For what it was it took real good care of me is provided a very solid foundation for me to make this move. And I just I’d worked out there a long time. And I’d kind of had all I could handle with the corporate mindset. And the corporate rules that come down and the mandates and the stuff that they kind of demand you do. And it was constantly changing. There was no stability. And I just got really, really tired of that. And I had enough years in that I could leave with full retirement and draw immediately. And basically when I found that out, I gave him my notice. And I said thank you very much. And I was out. What do you do over there, I drove a feeder truck Forum, which was basically a drive 18-wheelers forum and go where well back up just a hair I did about everything you could do for UPS shot of management. I loaded trailers on loaded trailers, I shifted on the yard, I swept floors, I cleaned bathrooms, I did absolutely everything through my career ups. And it’s a union job. So the ease, everybody gets paid the same practically. So the easier the job is kind of what you want to work your way into. And at one point in my career, I ended up cleaning bathrooms and sweeping. And while that’s not beneath me by any means, I felt like I could do better and I can contribute more. I had a skill set or I had an ambition to do more and do better out there than that. And I ended up in the fader department as soon as they would move up because it’s all seniority based. You’ve got to wait your turn. And as soon as my turn came, I immediately went to faders and they taught me how to drive they helped me get my CDL that was a two-week process when you get to what oh, how old I don’t call out me 2007 says when I got my CDL so I’ve been doing this a good while.
Jeremy Kellett 9:35
Okay, good. Just worked your way up and then you were driving a truck for them for years.
Robin Parks 9:42
Right, driving a truck for them. I was basically on the call board. And that was another thing. You get tired of getting called Sunday at 11 am or 11 pm it’s like, hey, we need you here at midnight or we need you here at 1 am and you never knew how to schedule your sleep. You never knew how to be ready to do the next day’s work unless it was all planned out, and it was very seldom ever planned out.
Jeremy Kellett 10:06
So what made you consider coming to Oakley? You live in here close to Little Rock. I’m assuming you knew about us.
Robin Parks 10:12
I really didn’t. I had a friend who worked for Oakley, he had left FedEx and came to work for Oakley. And we had dinner a couple of times, and he was telling me about it. And I’m like, Man, I just don’t know about that. And then he got to tell me about the opportunities, the monetary opportunities at Oakley and I’m like, Well, you’ve got my attention. Now, you’ve kind of got my full attention, tell me some more. And one of the big things I was worried about was how much time you had to be out on the road. I didn’t want to be out on the road two, three, four weeks, something along those lines and away from home that much. I discussed it with my wife. And she was like, well, working at UPS, we very seldom ever see you. You’re home for an hour or two. They’re calling you every 10 hours to come back in. I don’t know how this would be just a whole lot different. And my buddy told me, he’s like, man, he said, I spent 80 nights on the road last year. He said, it’s not that much. And then I’ve kept track of my, my knots on the road, or my days away from home. And last year was about 75 days, 75 Nights, which is not a big deal, at least not to make Rob Oh, let me know. Yeah. And my wife can certainly handle that. I’m not at the house when the kids are pulling everybody’s hair out so I kind of skate through some of that. And when I come home, I’m new and fresh and they’re ready to visit and hang out.
Jeremy Kellett 11:37
Well, that’s good timing when all that stuff’s over and you can get there and hang out with him and enjoy him. Well, I think it’s a really neat story about becoming an owner-operator because a lot of people worry about making that change. It’s a big, big deal.
Robin Parks 11:54
It is a big deal. One of the first things that jumped readily to mind was if something goes down on this truck, it’s my responsibility. I can’t drive it around to the shop, tell the mechanic and jump in one that looks just like it and go complete UPS’ load. I can’t do that. It’s all on my shoulders. And if I don’t take care of the truck, then I’ve got to send somebody else to get my trailer to finish the load. And I don’t like that. That’s not the way to do business.
Jeremy Kellett 12:22
Yeah. So I know in the beginning, before we started, we talked a little bit about it taking you a while to come over here.
Robin Parks 12:29
It did. It took me about three and a half, four years of you calling me every once in a while and seemed like he always had to call you had the knack to call me when things were really crappy at work. And I was really thinking hard about making that change. And I’d pretty much made up my mind. After the first year and a half, two years, it was just getting my ducks in a row and getting everything all set up. If I left much earlier, I would not have gotten to the drone my full retirement. And that was Keystone and making this move. And I understand I’m a different case than a lot of these guys out here a lot of guys that come to Oakley.
Jeremy Kellett 13:08
What I remember about it in what three and a half, four years ago, he’d been here that long. What I remember about it and talking to you, I was appreciative of how you’re you’re planning and how you were not in a hurry. You’re not in a hurry to get things done. You had I can actually remember getting frustrated at you. Because you’re trying to buy this truck. Right. And you were dead set on this truck that you were gonna get and as I come home, come on, but how long was it gonna take and it took a long time.
Robin Parks 13:44
It did. It took about six months, and maybe I would have been better off buying one quicker I’m not sure but it didn’t hurt me waiting to buy what I bought and I drove all over and looked at him I drove to Ohio to look at one that was actually a former Oakley truck which I really wish I could have gotten but the owner needed to deal immediately. And it took me a couple of weeks to actually get the financing and everything lined out. Yeah, take care of that.
Jeremy Kellett 14:14
Now you still have the same truck. What is it?
Robin Parks 14:18
It’s a 2016 Peterbilt 389. It’s in very good shape. It’s been very dependable and it’s made me a lot of money.
Jeremy Kellett 14:27
And it looks good, too.
Robin Parks 14:29
I like that, too.
Jeremy Kellett 14:32
Now you pull an end dump with us, right?
Robin Parks 14:33
I sure do. I pull a half-round end dump.
Jeremy Kellett 14:36
And you didn’t start out doing that? Did you start out with a half frame?
Robin Parks 14:39
I sure did.
Jeremy Kellett 14:39
Okay, that has been great. So in the beginning you were home mostly weekends or words you get home during the week a lot.
Robin Parks 14:48
It’s interesting because Oakley being based in North Little Rock and I live in Benton. It’s really easy. If you’re coming to Oakley to get a load or you’re coming to 3 am to get a load or someplace like that. It seems like it now ever fail, but you were always either coming to Oakley or you were going through little rock or something along those lines. So I ended up at home a lot. My wife didn’t miss me and I don’t spend so much time in the truck that it drives me crazy. I do actually enjoy being in the truck and spending the night just came back from Mississippi last week spent all week down there in the truck. And aside from the hate, I loved it. It was good.
Jeremy Kellett 15:26
Have you met a lot of friends here at Oakley?
Robin Parks 15:29
That was something else I was concerned about leaving ups. I had a lot of buddies that UPS and I still talked to him over the phone. That’s the beautiful thing about cell phones now that yeah, I’ve got a core group because it seemed like we’re always doing the same thing together. And it’s nice to know that you’ve got a support group there that you can pick up the phone and call somebody and get some advice or get some technical help on something that maybe you’re not familiar with, or you hadn’t run across before. And you’ve got a support group right there. Last week down in Mississippi, I’ve got a little generator, I keep on the tractor, to run my air conditioner, and the local gas station, the pumps went down, they didn’t have any gas. So I carry a two-gallon can. And I was just almost empty. So I had enough to run for about three or four hours, but not enough to go all night. And one of my buddies down there, Andy, and he’s like, hey, I got a five gallon can, I can get you whatever you need. So I borrowed a little bit from Andy and I went to pay him back the next night. And lo and behold, that gas station was down. And the one across town was out of fuel. So Andy to the rescue again, and I’ve got to pay him back. The next time we’re down there, I owe him some gasoline. But it is sure nice having people that you can count on. He was another owner-operator. There’s 10 or 15 of us down there working the same job. And it’s just so nice to have people that you can count on.
Jeremy Kellett 16:57
Yeah. Well, and I’ve heard that in the past of just having that group of people that you get to know once you’re over here and I happy to help you with so many things because I’ve been these places are done this at that customer where you have tried to problems or you. That’s something that I think is real strong it Oakley that doesn’t get out there sure much that we have a lot of people like that. Absolutely. That’ll help us help you.
Robin Parks 17:25
I’ve never had anybody deny me help. They’re quick with advice. We’re in Catoosa, a couple of weeks ago, and we had a driver, his tractor went down, he hit something in a mud puddle and knocked a hole in his radiator. And he needed a ride either back to Arkansas or back to Fort Smith. And there was a lot of people asking him if he needed help if there was something they could do for him. And he ended up catching a ride with another driver to Fort Smith. So it worked out as best he could. I mean, you’re gonna have problems. It’s what you do after you have problems. That determines how bad it really is.
Jeremy Kellett 18:02
You’re exactly right. Now, for a lot of our listeners out there, I want us to kind of switch the subject for just a second. But first, let’s take a quick break and hear from LubeZone.
LubeZone has been a sponsor the Oakley podcast for a long time. They have good people over there. Jeff and Megan do a great job and they provide good discounts for Oakley owner-operators, but it’s also just a great place to go. They’ve got 11 locations in Texas, California, Oklahoma, and Georgia. They’re primarily along major highway exits, which allows easy access. They can do a lot of stuff there. They got full-service oil changes like tractor and trailer grease, air filters, all analysis tire checks, DOT inspections, these guys can do it all and we love doing business with them.
One of our owner-operators went to LubeZone, he said, “Hey, I’m going in here and I going to find out how their service is, if they’re fast and if I get a discount.” I said, “Alright, you let me know when you get out of there.” So he called me back and he said, “I just want you to know that’s a great place to go. It’s clean. It’s nice. The service was great.” He got the full-fledged filters, oil change, the whole nine yards service and he also got his $40 discount. You got to tell them you heard it on the Oakley podcast, that you are with Oakley Trucking, and they will give you a discount.
Just great service from those guys. We appreciate them being a sponsor of the Oakley podcast. If you’re in one of those areas, you go to LubeZone.com and you see where their locations are, and if you’re close by there, go try them out and let me know how your service was because we’ll give the feedback back to LubeZone. And check out the rewards program. That’s really good, too. Just be sure to check them out and let them know you heard it on the Oakley podcast.
So switching the subject: just by knowing you and talking to you, I think you probably manage your money pretty well. And maybe without Because without getting into too many details or your business or whatever, but a lot of people out there wanting to become an owner operator or get people that are already owner operators don’t manage their money well and don’t know how to do it. Do you have any tips that would maybe help somebody?
Robin Parks 20:18
Probably a whole set. I was listening to a podcast one day and this gentleman said, as a driver, you spend a lot of time, I mean, your whole day while you’re working his bond wheel and you’re driving, he goes that might require 95% of your attention, or 50%, probably 95 to be safe. But you’ve got some attention that you could spare to learn something. And he said, with the amount of time we spend behind the wheel, we ought to all be doctors and lawyers. With the amount of time we have to learn something. So I listen to financial books, I listen to financial podcasts, managing your money is the one most important thing you can do long term. You got to be safe when you’re out there behind the wheel. But you’ve also got to manage your money. If you don’t manage your money, it’ll manage you right out of business. Literally. I’ve personally been bankrupt, I don’t recommend it. It’s not much fun. It’s a very trying thing. I paid back everything I owed and my bankruptcy, it basically just got the creditors off my back and gave me gave me enough breathing room to take care of business.
Jeremy Kellett 21:28
And this was a long time ago?
Robin Parks 21:29
This was 2013.
Jeremy Kellett 21:31
Okay, and I don’t mean to laugh. I just say that because I think it’s great that you’re just matter of fact. You say it for what it is. That’s good.
Robin Parks 21:39
When my wife and I were at the bankruptcy hearing, there were a number of people in front of us, and they’re going through this and they’re like, you owe this much money, can you make $100 a month payment? And it’s like, yeah, I think I can do that judge. It’s like, you owe this much money. You don’t? Can you make a $300 a month payment? And, yeah, I think I can judge that most of these people were having or all of these people were having their debt written down. And my problem was, is that I had enough assets that if I theoretically sold everything that I had for 50 cents on the dollar, some nonsense like that. I could pay back everything I owed. But I mean, I would literally be bankrupt again. Because everything and I’d worked so hard for would just be gone and what I needed was time to gather my resources, and to get this taken care of. And my wife and I got up there. And the judge said, you owe this much money. This works out $1,500 a month. Can you do that? And I stood there and lied to that man. And I said, Absolutely. I can do it. I can do it. And my wife and I walked out of there. She said, Can we do that? And I said, I don’t know what we’re gonna try. So we’re gonna give it everything we’ve got, we’re gonna see. I said, But what about all those other amateurs in there in front of us? You go bankrupt over 100 or $200 a month? How ridiculous is that? I mean, if you don’t go all the way go big. We did we I gathered up my two boys, and we started a lawn mowing business. And I picked up as many hours as I could at UPS and We mowed yards. And if you’ve got two good hands, there’s really no limit to what you can do. You just bust your ass and put your nose to the grindstone and get it done.
Jeremy Kellett 23:22
That’s awesome. That’s an awesome story. So you come out of that.
Robin Parks 23:26
We came out of the bankruptcy 100% completed the whole program, which most people don’t do. Most people get so far along, and then they just got to drop out or they never, never finished. But we finished the whole thing. And part of the reason I was in bankruptcy was because of layoffs at UPS. They had cut hours and they had cut runs, and they’d done stuff that I just never dreamed would happen. And it happened and my wife was in real estate, 2013. She couldn’t sell a house, you couldn’t give a house away in 2013 because of the housing bubble. So anyway, we worked on that for five years and came out stronger than we went into it. And when we came out, I knew I wanted to leave ups I wanted to retire. And I wanted to do something else where I had more control and more opportunity to provide for my family.
Jeremy Kellett 24:17
And that’s happening here?
Robin Parks 24:18
Absolutely. Absolutely. My life is completely different since I left UPS, much for the better. Much for the better.
Jeremy Kellett 24:29
Well, that’s a great testimony of managing money because you’ve been both spectrums.
Robin Parks 24:37
The beginning of it how to mismanage money, I guess. But you come to Oakley and if you want to be successful in the trucking business, you’ve got to watch your money you got to pay attention. You get a big settlement that’s not all yours to spend. There are expenses that come out of that.
Jeremy Kellett 24:54
You pay yourself so much a week?
Robin Parks 24:56
I do.
Jeremy Kellett 24:58
And then the rest…?
Robin Parks 24:58
The rest goes into the trucking company and it sits there for an emergency. I’m set up a little bit different. Most people are Subchapter S or an LLC. And I’m a full-blown C Corp. Because of the way I bought my truck, I researched and researched all kinds of stuff in the financial world. And I found out that there was a program that you could use to withdraw money from your 401 K tax and penalty free to start a business. And that’s what I did. I pulled out everything I needed to buy my truck, and a little bit extra in case I had an emergency. And that’s what I use to purchase a truck. So my retirement account owns my truck, basically free and clear. And I simply make payments back into that as I can and the excess money that the truck makes, what would go into your savings. If you owned a, you’re doing it through Subchapter S or something along those lines, he just goes back into my 401k Hmm, interesting way of doing it, it might not be the best way to do it. But you end up with a truck free and clear cut, you don’t have to worry about making payments on this is only if you’ve got the money to begin. Yeah, right. And I had money in my 401k to handle this to cover it. But it saved me the 10% penalty, and it saved me the and the taxes on it by taking it out early before you’re 59.
Jeremy Kellett 26:23
That’s what everybody here says: Don’t ever draw to your 401 K because you got to pay taxes and penalty absolute. So it’s definitely not a good idea.
Robin Parks 26:34
That’s a big hurdle that you’ve got to get over to do this. And you’ve got to look at it both ways. Now, when 401 Or when COVID came about, they had waivers that you could take money out without paying that 10% and I’m here to tell you one of the best peace of mind, things I’ve ever done is set up a way to pay cash for that truck when I bought it, where I don’t have to worry about making a 500 or 1,000 or $2,000 a month truck payment. I don’t have to worry about that.
Jeremy Kellett 27:07
Yeah. Yeah, that is the best way to do it. I mean, debt free is the way to go. Well, man, that’s good stuff to and that’s good detailed stuff that our listeners I think will appreciate and see how your story is successful now you came about it.
I had one thing else I was gonna ask you. Myles brought to my attention and he thought was pretty interesting conversation but it was what your son does.
Robin Parks 27:37
Oh, my oldest son Ross. Ross is— I’m gonna pat myself on the back a little bit maybe takes after his dad. He wants to be an entrepreneur. But my oldest son John Ross has started a drift event where they go slide the cars around the parking lot. And they teach car control and how to drive your car to the limit and what to do if it gets past the limit. Kind of like what you see in fast and furious and Tokyo Drift. They rent the Stuttgart airport, he puts on an event and for x amount of dollars a car, you can go out there and slide your car around. Now, most people have purpose-built cars just for this kind of like what you see in the movies. But yeah, he is the event organizer and the promoter. And he puts the whole thing on and very proud of him for that.
Jeremy Kellett 28:22
Well, yeah. Who would have come up with that to run out of airport to do that. And that’s pretty— How many does he do like a year? Or how often?
Robin Parks 28:33
He’s done about four. And I think he’s going to do for this year. I think that’s his plan is to do for this year. But it’s all over social media. If you go to 501 drift, you’ll see it. It’s on Facebook, his channel is grassroot digital. But yeah, I’m very proud of him for that. And it’s a lot of fun. My wife and I go out there and we run the gate for him helping try and keep his expenses low and we get to watch cars sloshed around and you go to one of these events. If you’ve got a helmet, you can ride with these guys. And it’s just a blast. It’s like a roller coaster.
Jeremy Kellett 29:05
Do they take motorcycles? Myles has a motorcycle— Dirtbike. You’re gonna go take pictures.
Robin Parks 29:10
That’s gonna be awesome. We’re gonna get him in a car and we’ll post his video because they have onboard cameras, and we’ll get him on a car and sliding ramp. Bring your wife or girlfriend.
Jeremy Kellett 29:21
I want a picture of that, of him over there sliding. That’ll be great. Well, my Robin, I really appreciate you doing this. I know you took time out of your day and workday to come over.
Robin Parks 29:32
Well thank you for having me, Jeremy. One of the things that have always struck me as very interesting about you is you’ve always remembered my name. And I’ve always appreciated that whether I see it the fuel Island or I see you walking around or wherever you always Hey, Robin, how are you? Come up, shake my hand. And I appreciate that. I really, truly do.
Jeremy Kellett 29:51
Well, you bet. I’m glad to do it. I wish I could remember more names. I used to remember names, trucks, trailers. I think I’ve told this before on the podcast, but when my kids were little, we’d be in the truck. We’d be going down the highway. And they’d say, Dad, here’s an Oakley Truck. Can I go say hi? I’d say, yep, that’s Robin Park. And they were just amazed because I didn’t know the guy. I didn’t know who it was, whoever was that dime, I’d tell him her name and where they lived. And as I got older, I got dumber, and we would see we made another one coming down the road. Well, at that point, I start making names up. Yeah, that’s John Smith. He’s from Evergreen, Alabama. They never knew. So that’s anyway, I had to do that. Because I used to know so many, but now I don’t but well, good stuff. I appreciate you being here. Man, I really do and helping our listeners learn more about Oakley learn more about our operators that are here, it’d be successful and ways to do it.
Robin Parks 30:58
Absolutely. I’ve recruited a couple of people from outside of UPS, I haven’t got one that ups to bite the hook yet. And I keep trying and try and they keep telling me about all the safety gear and all the stuff they’re putting on these trucks and drivers assist and, and all of this. And when I’m talking to him on the phone, I hear this stuff going off constantly. And I’m like, how do you put up with that all day? How do you put up with that? I said, Listen, there’s a better way. If you would come ride with me for two days. There is a better way and I’ll show it to you. I wish they’d take you up on I really truly do any of them. Listen to the podcast. I spread it around. I mentioned it. I know my buddy that came from Daryl that came from FedEx. He’s had a number of people that he’s managed to recruit and come over here and I’m like, What’s wrong with my ups buddies? They’ve got a golden opportunity. I mean, I told him, I’d come over here and check it out and report back. And that’s what I’m doing. I’ve been here four years. It’s good. I like it a lot.
Jeremy Kellett 31:59
That’s good. And your wife like it, too?
Robin Parks 32:01
My wife likes it.
Jeremy Kellett 32:03
That makes a big deal.
Robin Parks 32:04
Every one of my kids has been in the truck. We’ve all been out overnight in the truck. My wife took about a week and a half trip with me to Florida. And we had a good time. Didn’t make any money. She first three nights in the truck. She said we need a hotel room. Okay, so now we’re on like the frequent flyer list several hotels, but that don’t have that big of bunk so the two of us have to be a bit crowded. But yeah, both my sons and my daughter have all been out with me overnight in the truck and they know what it’s all about.
Jeremy Kellett 32:34
That’s good. They get a taste of it.
Robin Parks 32:35
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Jeremy Kellett 32:37
Nothing wrong with that.
Robin Parks 32:38
I could never do that at UPS. Yeah. Never had father/daughter day at UPS. “Bring your son” workday at UPS.
Jeremy Kellett 32:45
I didn’t think about that. Yeah.
Robin Parks 32:46
And I do appreciate that opportunity here at Oakley.
Jeremy Kellett 32:50
And we’re definitely not a— I don’t want anybody think we’re bashing ups because right now the great boys great company that has a lot of people doing great and loving it over there. That seems like a lot of money, like a lot of money and stuff. So we just want to show him the next step.
Robin Parks 33:07
We sent pizzas to UPS a couple of Christmases ago, 15 pizzas over there, tell them we appreciate the job they do.
Jeremy Kellett 33:15
Good deal. But once again, hey, thanks, guys for listening to the Oakley podcast. Appreciate it. As always be sure to subscribe and like and comment on everything. It helps spread the word out there about Oakley trucking, and that’s what we’re trying to do here. Get good word out about what’s going on at Oakley. And if you guys ever got any questions or suggestions on what to hear, let us know. Send me a text message. Send me an email. Call me up here to office and we’ll definitely try to make that happen. Appreciate you and talk to you again next week. Thanks.
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