This week on the Oakley Podcast, host Jeremy Kellett chats with Doug Voss, Professor of Logistics and Supply Chain Management at University of Central Arkansas. Professor Voss talks about the program at UCA and how it prepares students for careers in the trucking industry. The conversation also includes discussion on the various positions available in the logistics and supply chain management industry, the importance of safety regulations, the role of technology, and more.
Key topics in today’s conversation include:
- Oakley Update: Be mindful of where you park your equipment (2:16)
- Professor Voss’ background and getting into supply chain (5:22)
- The growth of UCA’s supply chain management program (10:30)
- Demand for logistics and supply chain management (11:59)
- Holistic supply chain education (15:00)
- UCA’s management trainee program (16:09)
- Perception of truck drivers (18:04)
- Challenges truck drivers face today (20:10)
- CSA and FMCSA Regulations (24:02)
- Appreciation for truck drivers (31:35)
- Final thoughts and takeaways (33:42)
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
Doug Voss 00:00
I always joke that the state of Arkansas is like the Silicon Valley of trucking, right? I’m not sure how we got so many wonderful trucking companies in the state of Arkansas, but we’re thankful that we have. There’s a statistic out there that one out of every 11 jobs in Arkansas is either with a trucking company or for some firms that support the trucking industry. So there’s a huge demand for students with college degrees to go to work for these firms, be they in trucking or a firm that supports trucking.
Jeremy Kellett 00:39
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 insight to outside truck drivers who might be interested in joining the Oakley family. Hi, this Jeremy kellett director recruiting here at Oakley trucking. And I’m your host for this podcast. This is the Oakley podcast, trucking, business and family. And this is episode 147. So on today’s episode, professor Doug Voss is going to be sitting down with me, actually getting right across the table from me and we’re going to talk to him about the logistics and supply chain management department at the University of Central Oregon. So and the reason I asked him to come in and do this is you know, because I always try to how am I gonna tie this back to our owner operators and their families listening to this episode and to this podcast and you know, I think he’s gonna shed a lot of good light on how he is preparing young college students to get into this industry whether it’s in the office or even in a truck perhaps but I think it’s gonna help you connect as an owner operator and truck driver on exactly what’s going on at maybe this university that you didn’t know even took place so we’re gonna get his thoughts on that and here in just a second but first let’s get it Oakley update sponsored by Arrow Truck Sales. Arrow Truck Sales has been in business for over 60 years and a longtime partner of Oakley trucking and the Oakley podcast. Dre visor and Keith Wilson do a great job at putting you in the right truck to fit your needs and our needs here at Oakley. They carry all makes and models to choose from with on site financing through transport funding. So whether you are a seasoned owner operator or a first time buyer, be sure to contact Keith Wilson at Arrow Truck Sales at 573-216-6047. And tell him you heard it on the Oakley podcast. So here’s the latest update. And it’s not a very good one that’s happened here lately as we had an owner operator park at a truckstop down in the Houston, Texas area. And he’s actually parked there all the time goes home, he’s loaded. Taking his break, I don’t know when they’re starting for work or whatever. But his truck and trailer gets stolen and is gone. I still can’t find it. And this has been over a week ago at a place that he normally parks it and feels secure and actually had another owner operator parked there beside him that was, you know, actually got in his truck while doing a run and called him and said, Hey, are you getting your truck worked on? He’s like, no. This is from the safety departments telling me this and he said, Well, your trucks are not here. And he said, Well, you mean it better be there? Well, it would, and come to find out the truck trailer and load was stolen that day in the Houston area and has yet to be seen. So I guess the Oakley update is Be mindful where you park the equipment, take it home, if at all possible, where you got eyes on it. If you do park it in an area like that, you know, to make some kind of effort. I really don’t know what to recommend other than maybe, you know, as a place that has cameras working that can help you know to keep an eye on if something happens to it. I’m sure all you on operators listening have got great suggestions on this. And that’s what we need. But you know, these things are pretty smart to get stuff done. And, you know, the first thing they do is rip out the ELD and, you know, track this location, that kind of stuff. So we have no idea where it’s at. We’ve had this happen in the past a few times but typically we actually get our trailer back. Now we haven’t on this one because they seem to be just out After, after the truck and Roger and safety specifically said that it has been Peterbilts that have been stolen. So there you go, especially if you’re driving a nice Peterbilt. take precaution. That’s the Oakley update on that. Okay, let’s get started on this episode with professor Doug balsa, the University of Central Arkansas. How are you today? Sir?
Doug Voss 05:22
I’m doing very well. Thanks for having me down here.
Jeremy Kellett 05:24
I really appreciate you coming down here because this is your spring break. It is yeah. And you want to spend an hour with Oakley on your spring break where
Doug Voss 05:34
The students get spring break. That doesn’t mean the professor’s got spring break.
Jeremy Kellett 05:38
Maybe your hardest working time I don’t even know what sometimes I bet it can be. If you would introduce yourself a little bit of background and then we’ll, you know family, hobbies and always like our listeners to know who they’re talking to.
Doug Voss 05:53
Yeah, sure, absolutely. So from Little Rock, Arkansas. And so I spent my whole life there and, and I went to school at the University of Arkansas my undergraduate degree and then came back to Central Arkansas and started out as a fleet manager for a trucking company out of Searcy and went from that trucking company to another one down in Little Rock not too far from where we’re sitting right now. And I started out as a fleet manager there, went into sales and load planning and then went into safety. And then went back to school at the University of Arkansas to get my second degree in logistics, and then went straight from there to Michigan State University for a PhD in logistics, and so I’ve got a wife and two kids. They’re 16 and 11. And so I know it’s hard for folks to stay off the road and our audience. But if you’re in the Greenbrier Arkansas area, you might want to take the bypass if there is one because my son’s driving around,
Jeremy Kellett 06:45
He just started learning. Yeah,
Doug Voss 06:47
He’s pretty good. He’s pretty responsible and actually hid. But yeah, he’s, he’s a bit well, not just starting to learn. He’s been dropped to about 14 or so. So he’s doing okay.
Jeremy Kellett 06:58
It didn’t give me more confidence anyway. Yeah.
Doug Voss 07:00
Yeah, I think so. I think so. But anyway, it does. I’ve been at UCA. Now since 2007. We started our supply chain program there. Well started, I guess you could say when I arrived there, but we started in 2010, what we call an emphasis in supply chain management. And so for those students who are majoring in marketing or management think you get an emphasis in supply chain match by taking a series of courses within their degree. In 2015, or so we actually started a major in A minor, excuse me, a major and a minor in supply chain management. And so now we’re turning out, you know, probably about 40 or so students every single year, you know, that or they either have a major or minor in supply chain management, there are roughly about 70 Students in our program. There’s no shortage of demand for these students. You know, there’s a lot of folks who want to hire them. And we focus on trucking. And, you know, I spend a lot of my time doing trucking stuff. That’s sort of my background is trucking. And so you know, I kind of fancy myself to be somewhat of a trucking specialist.
Jeremy Kellett 08:14
Even when you got your CDL. Are you still me? Yeah, that’s right. I
Doug Voss 08:17
did as a matter if I want to get a little street cred, I guess. Yeah. So yeah. So in 2017, I went to a local community college here in Central Arkansas. And it’s been about a month up there on the gravel lot doing a lot of backing up. And the ADUs successfully passed the exam, both written and driving. And so yeah, I still have the license, you probably don’t want me driving your truck, but I do have the license.
Jeremy Kellett 08:40
So well, that I mean, at least you did that. I mean, you’re in it. You’re teaching a lot about it. So you felt like you needed Yeah, that goes a long way with people? Well, sure,
Doug Voss 08:49
absolutely. You know, we actually spent two classes that I teach. I teach a class called transportation, and, and a second class called Safety and Motor care policy. And so in the safety class, what we actually do is we take the CDL book that you have to study to go out and get your CDL at least in the state of Arkansas, same everywhere else. And so we actually go through that book, and we teach students the anatomy of a truck. And I mean, I mean, they come out knowing what glad hands are in service brakes and they functionally know how to do at least a pre-trip inspection. Really? Yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy Kellett 09:23
Well, that is good, that you’re teaching them all that so they’re getting that side of, of being, you know, truck driver top, on the side that a truck driver has to go through. Right,
Doug Voss 09:33
right. Our students, you know, I don’t think we’ve had any of our students graduate, go be a truck driver, I’ll always tell them maybe they should add. There’s certainly no more important job out there than being a truck driver. And we know these these kids stereotypically will go out into some sort of management trainee program and they’ll start out as fleet managers or you know, in some sort of management role, and they do really good but they’re, they certainly appreciate the role the truck drivers clay, I probably spend three quarters of my time talking about stuff that that is either has something directly to do with truck drivers or
Jeremy Kellett 10:11
perhaps indirectly to do with truck drivers. So, though, does it take two years to complete that degree or that may not? If I’m in a major and supply chain, and logistics, how long is it gonna take me to get that?
Doug Voss 10:27
It’s a full four years. I mean, okay, so it’s a standard four year college degree. Okay. Yeah. So they start out, you know, they take all the classes that really don’t have anything to do with supply chain management. They take all their history classes and the math stuff and all that and they move into the College of Business in their third year, normally, now that they can take a few of our classes in the first two years if they want to, but stereotypically it’s their junior year before they start taking business classes.
Jeremy Kellett 10:54
That’s what I was getting at. Yeah. And then junior senior year, and that’s, yeah, graduate, and then you probably have a path form. I mean, if they really want it, like you said, there’s a demand form. So I’m assuming you know, you’re connected to a lot of trucking companies, including us a little bit on giving these young people a path. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Start a career in it.
Doug Voss 11:16
Sure. Absolutely. So yeah, actually, Justin Oakley was one of our students. He’s one of our main success stories, I guess. And you know, he’s done. Great. Thanks. You guys have a wonderful organization. And we’re certainly proud to be affiliated with y’all in some small way.
Jeremy Kellett 11:30
And I went to your students, former students downstairs a while ago, and we were talking. You saw I saw your foot. Absolutely. I remembered you didn’t he
Doug Voss 11:36
did. I’m not sure if you’re very for good reasons or bad reasons. But he remembered me.
Jeremy Kellett 11:43
Always possible when it comes to professors at colleges. There’s no doubt about it. Yeah, I guess you created that because you were seeing maybe more of a demand for students actually wanting to get into that, Doug, or are you more wanting to tell them about it?
Doug Voss 11:59
Well, so the state of Arkansas always jokes about the state of Arkansas like the Silicon Valley of trucking, right? I’m not sure how we got so many wonderful trucking companies in the state of Arkansas, but we’re thankful that we have them. And there’s a statistic out there that one out of every 11 jobs in Arkansas, either with a trucking company or for some firms support the trucking industry. And so there’s a huge demand for students with college degrees to go to work for these firms, be they in trucking or a firm that supports trucking, and so no, it was something I was passionate about, as someone who comes from a trucking background. And there’s a huge need in Central Arkansas specifically. And you know, it’s there. There was not a program in Central Arkansas to teach this material. And so there was just a huge need for our students and I was passionate about it and it worked out great. It then, I mean, frankly, that demand has sort of grown since then, you know, I mean, one big benefit of the pandemic, if there was one, is that folks have now all heard the term supply chain, right? I mean, it’s supply chain problems, this problems that right, where you add to the problem that we always faced, as those who taught Supply Chain Management at at schools is, I mean, folks would come to a university and have never heard the term supply chain before they had possibly heard the term logistics before, which is part of supply chain management. But that sounds scary, right? They don’t want to major in logistics. And you know, they hadn’t heard the term supply chain. And they certainly didn’t choose it as a major. Right. Well, now. I mean, shoot, if you hadn’t heard the term supply chain in the last three years, you’ve been living under a rock. Yeah. Right. So we’ve seen a lot of enrollment growth in our program. It’s been really good for us, actually.
Jeremy Kellett 13:55
Yeah, that’s a very good point that you make about that language being introduced the last three years, because it really has been, you know, the topic, especially when people can’t get things. So they want to know, why will the supply chain? Oh, that’s what that is. I can’t get what I need right now. I can’t get any part. So, I mean, it’s something that’s drawn a lot of attention to the last couple years. And for good reason. I mean, always, I didn’t realize it either, you know, when I was early on even working here, you know, the supply chain and how it works. And I’ve learned so much work here, you know, because a lot of people sometimes only associate that with trucking, but that’s just one you know, one role in the supply chain. I mean, it’s barge train, you know, ship I mean, he’s only been on for people to put those pieces together is that kind of what you do and your classes and teach that of how those work together.
Doug Voss 15:00
They’re Well, that’s certainly part of you know, everybody just assumed that stuff’s just on the shelf, miraculously, right? It just shows up there, they just know I’m coming. And they’re gonna put my toilet paper up there, right. And that’s not the way it works. There’s this huge behind the scenes processes, your listeners know, right, there’s a huge behind the scenes process of, I mean, what is seemingly a million steps that have to occur for this stuff to go from point A to point Z when it’s actually on the shelf? Who will use it? And so someone has to determine how much inventory to store, where to store it, how to store it, how I mean, it’s, there’s just a zillion different decisions that have to go on. And so yes, that is certainly part of what we teach our students, you know, it’s our goal to provide a holistic supply chain education so that if our students don’t want to go to work in trucking, they don’t have to, they can go to work for anybody they want to go to work for. And we do focus on trucking. But that sort of our niche is to provide a holistic supply chain education to focus on trucking.
Jeremy Kellett 16:00
What I mean is, just to give our listeners an idea of some jobs that come out of taking that class and graduating from what are some examples.
Doug Voss 16:09
So from a trucking perspective, generally, what students will do is go into some kind of management trainee program, and that doing an internship, they certainly can we encourage them to do an internship while they’re in school, I think they really benefit from that, if they’re able to do it, a lot of our students can’t. And so, if our students go into a management trainee program, generally how that works is they’ll spend about six months in a sort of a rotational program, going from department to department to see where the company thinks they fit best, and to see what they like best. And they stick him in that role. From a trucking perspective, that’s in general how it goes. Now, if you’re not going to go into trucking, you could go into some sort of manufacturing planning role, you can go into a purchasing role. There’s, it’s a pretty broad field, right? So we think of supply chain management as being the sum of three different things, right. So it’s a kind of purchasing, manufacturing, transportation and warehousing. That’s four things. But you know, those last two things we consider to be logistics, transportation, and warehousing are sort of summed up into logistics. And so anyway, there’s just all sorts of roles, I always tell students, everyone pitching them on the program, look, you basically get to choose what you want to do. So if you’re a people person, you don’t like math and sitting around doing spreadsheets all day, go out and sell stuff, or go out and be a fleet manager, I deal with people. I mean, this is a people business, right. So that’s a huge part of what we did. But if you don’t like to talk to people, and you just want to sit behind a computer all day, there’s 1000 different roles for you all over someplace, and then in the office, you can do that stuff, too. And if you want to live in a small town in Arkansas, there’s 1000 different jobs for a small town in Arkansas, if you want to go out to Paris, France, you can go find a job in Paris, France, doing Supply Chain Management, it’s everywhere, everywhere, and everything just depends on what you want to do. In what
Jeremy Kellett 18:02
sort of drive your truck. What do you think of the young folks, you know, going through your class? What’s their perception of truck drivers?
Doug Voss 18:13
I would say what are
Jeremy Kellett 18:14
they have been taught already interrupted, you know, they’re kind of either don’t know much about him, or what? Because for years, you know, truck drivers have had a bad rap. So I was kind of wondering what their perception is, you know, coming up in the college, what their perception of truck drivers are.
Doug Voss 18:30
So I will tell you, to be honest with you, I don’t do before and after surveys, right? But I’ll tell you, that my perception is that prior to the pandemic, that they probably started the program. Maybe not even thinking that much about it. But they think about trucks, it’s because, you know, they think they’re big and scary out there on the freeway. Right? And certainly when they get through with our program, they have a very great appreciation for the role that truck drivers play and how important that they are. I had a guy tell me at the start of the pandemic, that he thought that we had solved the truck driver turnover program. And I said, Well, why is that? And he said, Well, it’s not going to be a problem anymore, right? Because now truck drivers are getting so much more appreciation, because people finally see how critical their role is. Right. And I don’t think that we’ve solved the truck driver turnover problem. But I think that the image of truck drivers has greatly, greatly improved. And now it’s always been great. In my mind. It’s always been great and folks that no no truck drivers rider, you’re if you’re involved
Jeremy Kellett 19:46
in a GAME You gotta have that appreciation respect for him, but Right, right. Thank you, Ron. I think that makes sense. I think it actually has reduced turnover in a way because as our hours have gone down, I think it has made people appreciate truck drivers more than they used to. But just because it was brought to light.
Doug Voss 20:09
Well, I don’t think that the average Joe out there on the street truly appreciates what a truck driver goes through on a day to day basis. You know, you started this show talking about a guy’s truck that was stolen out of a lot. Well, I mean, truck parking is a huge problem. I mean, I mean, sure your audience knows better than I do. But I mean, Lord, where do you park out there? That’s safe, right? There’s not going to get you hurt, there’s not going to get your equipment stolen or molested in some way. Right? I mean, there’s, there’s a million problems that these guys and gals go through that the average Joe just doesn’t appreciate
Jeremy Kellett 20:44
and get the idiots to stop putting up billboards that say hit by a truck call me Oh, man, don’t
Doug Voss 20:49
get me started. I
Jeremy Kellett 20:49
I mean, come on, that drives me insane. Right there. I was. I actually had a while back, Shannon Newton was on here. And we were talking about that a little bit, you know, as I can I pass something, I mean, where they, you know, prevent them from doing that. Automatically hit by a truck, he’s guilty. Come see me talk to you. I mean, that’s what it’s what it perceived. But that’s what a lot of the kids are seeing out there. Right. And I don’t understand why. Well, and
Doug Voss 21:19
I don’t think the general public appreciates the fact that if you sue a trucking company, right, and just just say that you win or you settle, or whatever the case may be, that’s going to cause that trucking company’s insurance rates to go up. It’s also going to cause the rates for lots of other trucking companies to go up too. Right. So that means that they have to charge more to haul stuff, right. And then the shippers that they haul stuff for then have to charge more for the stuff that they sell. And so that means that all the stuff that we buy on the shelves is now more expensive, due to the fact that there’s always lawsuits out there. Right. And they talk about this too. Oh, absolutely. That’s Yes. Yes. And the truly sad part about it is that it’s a regressive tax. Right. So So if it’s a gallon of milk, or whatever it is, and if they have to charge you know, 10 cents more because of all the lawsuits out there. That 10 cents hits the poor folks harder than it hits the rich folks. And I don’t think folks appreciate that.
Jeremy Kellett 22:27
Yeah. Yeah, I don’t think the long time I mean, not to get sidetracked on on that because that can be its own episode but it is frustrating to see that because that’s what a lot of the public don’t know You know, they just these people that put up these billboards run these commercials hit by a truck I mean, they’ve got they have actually put it in people’s mind the general public’s brain that hey, this happens to you, you’re gonna make some money. Right? And that is wrong. That shouldn’t be illegal. I mean, it’s a problem. Yeah, today you know, but a whole nother issue. See, miles you let me get sidetracked to get to talking about that. The wrong system. How the system does this
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Jeremy Kellett 24:02
Don’t get into the five basic categories, you know, the unsafe vehicle maintenance? The FMCSA rate of trucking companies?
Doug Voss 24:14
Oh, the basics. Absolutely. Yes. Yes, yeah, absolutely. We’ve got a whole section of my motor carrier lecture, we talk about CSA 2010. That actually came out in 2011. And yeah, the seven basics and yes, and yeah. Oh, absolutely. That’s a big part of it.
Jeremy Kellett 24:30
That’s good because that has been an ongoing education to not only us in the office, but also to our owner operators and how that works. Because if you know, when you get a violation, it can be you get it on your record. Now, when you used to could, you know, because now you can run these pre employment screening programs that show if you’ve had a stop in the last three years, and it tells exactly what it was for withdrawal out of service or whatever. So that is very educational to understand. And, you know, do your students understand that the truck driver can get written up for a lot out or break out? Oh,
Doug Voss 25:16
What did they do to get what? Well, I don’t think that students in general understand how heavily regulated Trucking is from a safety perspective. Of course, you know, prior to 1980, it was heavily regulated from an economic perspective. And they told you prior to 1980, you know, where you could run and what you could haul and how much you can charge and a lot of trucking companies like that. But it’s changed since 1980. Obviously, now, it’s primarily safety regulation. And it’s a big old, thick, green book out there, you know, and there are folks that have spent their entire careers writing that book and studying that book.
Jeremy Kellett 25:52
They’ll talk about technology. And yeah, it’s come. What do you talk about on technology was
Doug Voss 25:58
safety technology, primarily, of course, and we discussed the difference in active and passive technology, you know, the technology that you can use that will actually stop the truck. Right. And, forward facing cameras and driver facing cameras. I know, a lot of those are not very popular. And, and we talk about, oh, simple stuff, too. You know, I mean, the, I mean, types of lights on a truck, you know, clearance lights versus ABS lights, I mean, I mean, there’s a whole gamut of technology out there. And, um, these trucks are amazing these days, and how much information they collect. And I’m not so sure how much your audience, you know, has that stuff on their truck, if you go to work, you know, for if someone’s a company driver, you go to work for a large company, now they’re tracking every single thing about that truck. And for safety purposes, a lot of times,
Jeremy Kellett 26:55
sure, yeah. We’ve heard all kinds of that. I’ve had guys come over and actually build trucks that have all these sensors on them that you can’t take off or shut off or anything for ya got some company do that. I think that’s good. Do you have any? What about mechanics out of it? Here, we get much of that? Are you introducing much of that to the people coming through? Probably not.
Doug Voss 27:17
So. So through the process of talking about what you need to look for in a pre-trip inspection, we’ll get into just kind of scratching the surface on some of that stuff. You know, I mean, like, how thick your brake pad needs to be. I mean, just really scratched the surface. I’ll be honest, and say, That’s not my forte. Yeah. So it’s not something I can teach very well.
Jeremy Kellett 27:36
Yeah. Which I wouldn’t, you know, I wouldn’t think that big need for it other than just knowing, you know, the basic Well, there’s
Doug Voss 27:44
a huge need for diesel mechanics out there. It’s just not the focus of our program. Right.
Jeremy Kellett 27:48
Right. Yeah. Because you don’t have to have a college education to get that position, typically.
Doug Voss 27:55
Well, that’s true. And, there are lots of jobs out there. You don’t have to have a college degree for and I think, I think that we need to be truck drivers. Yeah, well, true. Of course, of course, there are lots of truck drivers out there to have a college degree. Right. And I’ve said for a long time that there are lots of college degrees that probably aren’t worth a whole lot. And those folks, you know, maybe should consider, you know, perhaps being a diesel mechanic or going to drive a truck. You know, I mean, there was actually a guy who did a survey a while back and he was he actually did this in college students, it said, so how does it sound if somebody came to you and said, Alright, man, look, you want to get a job where you can see the country? Oh, yeah, that sounds great. Hey, man, do you want to get a job? Or somebody’s not looking over your shoulder all the time? Oh, yeah. That sounds wonderful. Hey, man, do you want to drive a truck? No. Oh, my gosh, you know, I mean, I mean, I’ve always thought driving a truck would be so much fun. As a matter of fact, my favorite job I’ve ever had, I grew up in the heating and air conditioning business here in Little Rock, my favorite job I’ve ever had was in the heating, air conditioning business driving a delivery truck. And because my dad wasn’t looking over my shoulder, you wouldn’t know about it all the time, right? It was fantastic. And so I thought when I graduated college, I thought, oh, my gosh, I’m gonna go drive a truck and never did it at the time. And I’ve always kind of wanted to as a matter of fact, one of my long term goals is to go drive a truck for a while, and then to write a book about, because there have to be some great stories out there that you could tell right and put in a book and that that would help people to understand what really goes on out there. I
Jeremy Kellett 29:29
I think that’s a great idea. I mean, that is that would be you know, to be able to tell your story to you. And I think, kind of full circle. You’ve taught this supply chain logistics course. And now you’re gonna go drive a truck. And of course you got your CDL years ago, and I mean, it just seemed like, write a book about it. Yeah, I think it’d be interesting at URI. Oh,
Doug Voss 29:53
It’d be fun. Maybe I’ll do it someday. Yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 29:55
You know, it’s just, it’s refreshing. was always try to tie this back to how this can help our owner operators and their families and, and I think just just by listening to you, and what you do at UCA is so much appreciated, because there’s not enough guys lock you dog that that are passionate about introducing trucking to the younger generation, or even the public. You know, we need more than that for sure. And it’s a, it takes a lot to do it. Because it seems like there’s a lot of barriers and a lot of negativity to that sometimes that kind of keeps that from happening. But, man, it sounds like you got things going in the right direction at UCA, and it’s sure to appreciate you doing it. And showing the respect of truck drivers I think makes a huge difference. Our owner operators realize that one thing is that, you know, some of these, they call them kids that come in with some of these kids we hire that, you know, you think don’t know anything, or actually have an education in this stuff. I’m not saying they’ve got experience, but man, at least they’re not. Like I was when Binney hired me just, you know, not knowing a thing about trucking, and then having to learn it the hard way. And I have to learn it from an owner operator’s experience trying to teach me a lot of times. At least some of these guys, people you’re putting through it, have that knowledge, which makes a huge difference.
Doug Voss 31:35
Well, they’re certainly going to graduate, the greater appreciation for how hard it is to be a truck driver, what a truck driver has. They’re not going to graduate knowing how to drive a truck, unfortunately. And there, they have been trained to take care of truck drivers to try their very hardest to meet the drivers needs. And because there’s no more important employee at a trucking company. Yeah.
Jeremy Kellett 32:00
Yeah. And I think it is great, too, that, you know, now we know, Justin Oakley went through your program. I heard he was borderline passing, I’m not sure that I’m not allowed to that. No,
Doug Voss 32:14
he was a great stupid, there is an old joke about that. I’m not sure if the story is triggered. But it’s one of those old stories that gets passed down, right, there was some guy giving a graduation speech at some big fancy University, right. And he, you know, he’s standing up there, and, and he’s, you know, kind of finished his speech, he’s sort of wrapping it up. And he says, in conclusion, I would like to thank all the AIA students in the audience for all the contributions they’re going to make to science and scientific discoveries. And I’d like to thank all the BS students in the audience, you know, for all the contributions that you’re going to make, to sort of be a manager, right. And all the C students we’d like to thank for all the contributions you’re going to make to the university in the future. So look, I was a C student, too. And, and I’ve not given back as much to university but you know, what, there’s, there’s room for everybody. I think that sometimes we focus a little bit too much on grades and, but it really matters how hard you’re willing to work, and are our students. I always tell people, right, the one great thing about UCA students is we turn out kids with a great work ethic. And our students fit well in trucking because they’re ready to work. They know about trucking, they’re passionate about truck drivers and what it takes to do a good job. And so, I mean, I think that they’re, it’s a it’s a good fit for the trucking industry, and I’m really happy to see Yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 33:42
awesome. Awesome. Thank you. I love it, man. I love to talk about trucking and introduce it to people that don’t know about it. Yeah, good job. Thank you, professor Doug. Doug Voss with us from UCA. We thank him so much for coming up here on his spring break and telling us about what’s going on there at UCA. And we appreciate everybody listening to the Oakley podcast. Of course, if you have questions for Doug, we’d be glad to take them. You guys can send them to us. Of course through the website, the Oakley podcast website, just search the Oakley podcast. We’ll be glad to pass them on to me. You can call me here at the office. I’ll be glad to pass them on to him. I bet he’ll give us an answer too. So thanks, everybody for listening to the Oakley podcast. Be sure to share it with a friend. Tell people about it. That’s one way we were able to get out there to other people. Where you subscribe, comment, like on all those platforms wherever you listen to it and pass it along. appreciate y’all and we’ll talk to you next week. Thanks. Thanks for listening to this episode with Oakley podcast, trucking, business and family. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate or review the show in the podcast platform of your choice and share it with a friend. We love hearing from our audience. So if you’ve got a question, comment or just want to say hello head over to our website, the Oakley podcast.com and click the leave a comment button. We’ll get you a response soon and may even share some of the best ones here on the show. We’ll be back with a fresh episode very soon. Thanks for listening!