This week on the Oakley Podcast, host Jeremy Kellett is joined by Olof McTaggart, one of our Owner Operators at Oakley. During the episode, Olof shares his journey in the trucking industry for over 50 years. Jeremy and Olof chat about working end dumps, setting yourself up to be successful financially, a crazy load story from the road, and more.
Key topics in today’s conversation include:
- Oakley Update: High praise from a customer (1:35)
- Olof’s family and hobbies (3:36)
- Getting started in the trucking industry (5:42)
- Working as a company driver (11:56)
- Joining Oakley as an owner-operator (14:29)
- Working end dump at Oakley (20:32)
- Crazy stories from the road (24:09)
- Olof’s semi-retirement plan (29:38)
- Setting yourself up for success financially (31:09)
- Why Oakley? (36:05)
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
Olof McTaggart 00:12
One of the things I tell other people that are interested in coming over here this is the first place that I’ve ever worked that I didn’t have some my feet man line of bull about the way it was gonna be straight shooters could be you know, everybody talk to you down here, but hey, it’s dirty work. That can be really hard work. I get out of the truck and have to work a little bit every once in a while.
Jeremy Kellett 00:36
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. There’s 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 podcast is for our owner operators and their families here at Oakley trucking and we try to give you good information every week. You know to help you be successful and learn more about this company. And on today’s episode, we actually have one of our owner operators. His name is Olivia McTaggart, and he has such a great story, that it’s not just a success story, but it’s more of a life story of him being in the transportation industry for 50 years. Great story. I hope you tune in and listen to it. It’s really heartfelt and honest and thank you. We’ll enjoy it but first before we get to him let’s do an 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’re 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 on today’s update, it is all about customer service. And I want to give you first let’s start out with an email that a company sent one of the operation guys. And it’s from a company called Theo Caolan company out of Rennes, Georgia. And I’ll just read this email, too, that was sent to Bradley Bradley in our pneumatic division. But it says the collective review of all of your drivers from those they interacted with Theo last week was an outstanding exclamation point. Great communication, timeliness, and all around pleasure to work with one quote from the foreman over the process was Oakley is the Chick fil A of truck lines and always has been. I hope you take that compliment with the high praise intended the customer service and product you supply are second to none. I just want to say thank you for your availability to help our customer out in a pinch and ensure their satisfaction. You help Mike and often stressful situations. Go seamlessly. Tom, being an operations manager at the old Caolan company, remains GA. Now how’s that for a pat on the back to be our owner operators that take care of that customer. I can’t say enough that customer service is huge at this company. If you don’t believe it, just stick around for about an hour and you’ll know he has it because that’s what we preach here. And it’s so important to take care of our customers because they’re your customers. That’s how that’s how we get paid. That’s how the owner operators get paid. So I can’t stress enough about customer service. be presentable, where you go into these places, take care of your equipment, look, look and play the part and it goes a long way. So we appreciate all you do out there when it comes to customer service. Okay, let’s get started with the story of Olive McTaggart and his 50 year career in trucking. So, first of all, you know, introduce yourself who you are, where you’re from, and then I’ll start drilling with some questions. Okay, so let me name where you are from and your family and hobbies.
Olof McTaggart 04:51
I’m McTaggart. I currently live in a birch tree, Missouri. Born and raised on a dairy farm in Kansas As you know, as far as hobbies, I guess Trucking is about. I used to ride my motorcycle on loan and get time to fix it where I can write.
Jeremy Kellett 05:10
You still got one? Yeah,
Olof McTaggart 05:12
I’ve got an 83 Goldwing sitting in the garage at home and
Jeremy Kellett 05:16
family, family.
Olof McTaggart 05:19
Well, between my wife and I, we’ve got six children. And I left. Take my shoes off. Last count of 16 grandchildren, but six of those kids were children from another family. Two of my son’s hot married ladies had these children. Okay, already so. And we’ve got four great granddaughters. Nice. And another one on the way. I don’t know whether she’s gonna be a granddaughter or grandson. But anyway, big family. Yeah, yeah. It’s quite an event when we get together, how long you and you went up and might be 20 See, not be 27 years in my 11. Okay. So, like a lot of folks, you know, we tried and failed a couple of times. Before we got together. This one worked.
Jeremy Kellett 06:23
This one stuck together on this one. And how old are you?
Olof McTaggart 06:27
I was 69. On February 4 this year.
Jeremy Kellett 06:31
Congratulations. Happy Birthday six. Yeah, you don’t look 69 consolation. Pretty good shape to be 69.
Olof McTaggart 06:39
Well, it’s my old back. I’ll hold out. I’ll bear it.
Jeremy Kellett 06:44
So tell our listeners how you got into the trucking business? How long have you been in the trucking business
Olof McTaggart 06:51
all together? Since February of 1970. Two’s first time I got in a tractor trailer of any kind. Wow. I got out of high school. kind of bummed around for a year or so. And got married. Less than a year after I graduated, I had to get a real job. So I went to work for a modular housing company. And the guy that runs the setup and delivery crew. He was kind of a character, say the least he grabbed me at 4am and finished filling out the application. I thought I was gonna do good work in the plant building houses. And he grabbed me up and put me on his crew. And a few months after, got started, there was a student chauffeur’s license. You know, I was just barely past my 18th birthday when I went to work for the people. But being a private carrier, everything we got away with was hauling those modular houses around. So my first experience with a tractor trailer was pulling a 12 foot wide path of the house down the highway, taking up the whole highway. Course we had escort vehicles and everything. But yeah, I just knocked around. I work for a couple outfits, running dump trucks and stuff and, you know, things like that.
Jeremy Kellett 08:24
Well, had any of your family been in trucking before that man who was new to the whole family?
Olof McTaggart 08:30
Yeah, we’re all farmers. You know, I mean, my dad, all we’ve ever done is farm out. One of my brothers had gone off after he got out of high school and joined the army and then came back and went into forestry. But yeah, none of our family ever close to saying I got to that. I’ve got a cousin in Kansas City, Kansas, who has been a sign painter for years. And he got into lettering trucks. And he’s got a couple of pretty good sized customers at Burke and can sit here. He’s 80 years old, and he’s still putting decals on trucks. No, good. But, yeah, no, it was no, no truck experience at all.
Jeremy Kellett 09:22
So you initiated the family into the trucking business and you took off from there. Yeah. For better or worse. You were telling me downstairs earlier that you’d gotten into the office work a little bit. So you got a little bit of an office environment or dispatch environment. Before you became I guess an owner operator, of course. Well, no,
Olof McTaggart 09:46
It was after I actually had three trucks leased to the company that I went to.
Jeremy Kellett 09:53
Okay, okay. That’s your stuff. That’s right. You had that you were telling me you had the bright idea. You want to be a fleet owner.
Olof McTaggart 10:00
Yep. And I, the gentleman that helped me become a fleet operator. You know, he also gave me the job in the shop office and you know, I stayed there 15 years. Oh, did you in one capacity or another? I started there in 1976 and I didn’t leave until 91. So yeah, that was one of those adventures
Jeremy Kellett 10:28
15 years.
Olof McTaggart 10:30
It worked for a while so well, I was on the road firsthand on that, you know, moved up from an old cab over Kenworth that I bought from the company there and had three new trucks. Two of them that I bought for myself to drive and then the last new truck that I had before I got off the road were not bought. It put a driver in. And that was a wild, crazy deal, but I just had no Peterbilt. The cat that was my baby. You know, I kept driving it. My second wife, I taught her how to drive on that truck. And really, yeah. Anyway, the company that I was with at that time, like I got into financial difficulties, and just a few months after I parted company with them, they were no longer in business. Right. So what do you do? A bunch of the people that I’ve gotten really close to and one of them was a former hot Missouri Highway patrolman that was our Safety Man for quite a while at Byrd tech company, had gone work for TransAm at Kansas City. And, you know, the day I left that company, I went home and called this highway patrolman. And I said, Hey, man, I need a job. Like, quick. And the following Monday, I was there for orientation. What tall mate for TransAm? Well, what do you do with your three trucks? Well, those three trucks had gone to five trucks. And then I was back to four after my old baby got wrecked, and sold it. And they, those four trucks were on an investor deal with the company that I was working for. And when they got in financial issues they went by before I left the company. Okay. So when I left here, I was basically back where I started. No truck. So you didn’t need a job? Yeah. But anyway, I worked for trans I am for four and a half years. 91 Nice. Yeah. It’s the company driver. Yeah. And I met my current wife while I was working for TransAm and took her out of the nursing field and made a truck driver out of her. Oh, did you? Yeah. Yeah. She drove with me for 12 years. Well,
Jeremy Kellett 13:24
I didn’t know that. Yeah.
Olof McTaggart 13:27
She was still on the truck when I started talking to Oakley about coming down here. And one thing led to, you know, one thing and another man. She retired because I made the switch. And that was 13 years ago. Yeah, 13 years ago, I came over here. Basically, all I’d ever done was after up, mess those houses and drove dump trucks off and on there for a little while. Right after my 21st birthday, I went to work for a gentleman who had three trucks hauling farm machinery. And I’d known this guy all my life. I mean, he was used to filling the silo for his dad. I mean, it was like a neighbor. But anyway, I worked for him for most of the year. And we parted company and I went to work for insulation planet Barrett home Ahlen insulation out. And then this guy from back in 72 when I had to have my first got mold two trucks in first place. He was in the circle, you know, he had two trucks at the time called me up one evening, spring of 1976 and he said, Hey, son, my brother quit driving for me. My truck was set in Olathe, Kansas which allowed going to California. He said, I need you to go to Fulton, Missouri, if you can, and get qualified and everything and take it to California. So I talked to folks at the installation plant and I said, Well, springtime, things are slowing down. You know, if you want to go do that for a while, we’ll leave the door open, you can come back. I never went back.
Jeremy Kellett 15:29
Yet in that truck and and now the rest is, yeah, is trucking every day.
Olof McTaggart 15:36
Yep. But, and that was with the company that
Jeremy Kellett 15:40
that you were with for 15 years. Yeah. Okay. And then you went to, after that you went to TransAm. You were there for my
Olof McTaggart 15:48
house at 91 to 95. So just a little over four years. And from there, I went to all freight systems in Kansas City. And then where your wife drove with you for two years. She went with me. She didn’t have enough experience yet to get out to go on her own so forth. Right. So anyway. Yeah, we drove a team for all freight for two and a half years. And that’s when we got back to the owner operator. January 98.
Jeremy Kellett 16:26
So you were an owner operator at all freight?
Olof McTaggart 16:29
Yeah, part of the time I was an owner operator, part of this time I drove a company truck, started on company trucking, and we bought our first trip together in 98. What was that truck 97 Western Star? It had belonged to a good friend of mine that passed away. And his widow, although she could have taken the truck and done anything she needed to do. She didn’t want to do it on her own. She didn’t want to fight the drivers. So I stepped in and took that truck over. That’s how we got started.
Jeremy Kellett 17:04
97 Western Star How long do you have it?
Olof McTaggart 17:07
We got it in January 98 and swapped it off on a new western star in April of 2000.
Jeremy Kellett 17:16
So about that, I guess now. When did you start looking at Oakley
Olof McTaggart 17:21
2006 Okay. I was wanting to get out of the reefer business. And there was a small, dry box company in St. Joe, Missouri. That was hiring. And some friends of mine had gone over there and seemed to be doing pretty good. So my wife and I tried that out for a while and figured out after that little company got swallowed up by Cornhusker at Omaha, Nebraska that we kind of went from bad to worse there. And I went back and bought a trailer of my own and went back in a reefer business at that point that was 2002. And I stayed at seaboard transport. They’re part of seaboard foods of fame by four processors. And we stayed there until I came here in 2010. But I just got to the point was the whole bracket of Holland meat and produce and dealing with grocery warehouses and meatpacking plants. And then they got in trouble there. Because they put people’s net systems in the trucks, but we weren’t using them for logs. And I told him I said, you got this thing. You know, DOD comes in here. You better be able to match it to the IRS. Oh, we don’t keep those records. I said somebody does it. So after they paid a pretty good sized fine for log falsification. They decided we were gonna go on electronic logs and in 2000 That would have been December 2009. And I’d been talking to y’all for a little bit in there off and on. And just had never made general
Jeremy Kellett 19:32
Did Mark stack introduce you to Oakley or was that?
Olof McTaggart 19:36
Yeah, he did. I’d been hearing your advertisements on XM. Okay. And got me interested in it. And I talked to some of your drivers, so forth, and I can’t remember anyone’s name except with the exception of Warren Calder. Yeah. I got to talk to Warren because I heard him on Radio One night was Steve summers Yeah. Anyway, I finally made the move and 2010 got over here. I just saw handwriting on the wall, I wasn’t gonna be able to do what I needed to do on electronic logs, pull that refrigerator trailer, just, I didn’t even want to try, you know.
Jeremy Kellett 20:20
And he got over here. And later we introduced Yeah.
Olof McTaggart 20:26
I told Roger Frazier the day they were putting Qualcomm in my old truck. I said, you know, I said, I quit my last job because it was going to put us on electronic clogs. I quit another job, basically, because they were going to put a Qualcomm truck and charge me for the use of it. And Roger says, What are you going to do now? So I can’t. I haven’t got a place to run. Now. It’s
Jeremy Kellett 20:57
back to the corner. I finally got you.
Olof McTaggart 21:01
Yeah, finally got me. Well,
Jeremy Kellett 21:03
you know it. I think it’s a great success story. And you’ve been in trucking for so long. And one that you’ve been pulling an end up for Oakley for 13 years, that his? That in itself is pretty awesome that you’ve been able to do that for 13 years? You know, because not, it’s not always great days, you know, at any place. You have ups and downs for sure. But definitely talk a little bit about pulling in and off. Because I’m assuming you mean, you had a little dump truck experience way back but a lot of people come here and I’ve never pulled an end up. It’s different. I mean, what I mean, as a recruiter, I know what I tell them that is different. Be prepared. This kind of stuff is gonna work. But what if I’ve been doing it for 13 years, what do you tell somebody what they need to expect?
Olof McTaggart 21:58
Well, first off, if you’re faint of heart, have a problem with heights with standing a 40 foot trailer up to dump it, you know, this ain’t the place to be. I mean, heights have never bothered me and I never thought about it until here. All been a year or so ago. One of my friends over here said that he helped to get a new operator started here. And the guy was afraid of heights. Whoa, you know,
Jeremy Kellett 22:34
I mean, I’m afraid of heights while watching the trailer go up there. I
Olof McTaggart 22:38
mean, getting on the truck climbing on the trailer. Doing what we have to do, some of the scrap loads and Foundry coke and so forth, putting the bows back in and getting that leveled off where you can get tarp over that term chart but the guy who’s scared him to death to get his feet that high off the ground. And so he didn’t work out but yeah, that I’ll never forget that first. Let’s tell him miles while you first load out. You guys weren’t sending this out with somebody to help us get started at that point.
Jeremy Kellett 23:15
There was no training back then. It was so self-train.
Olof McTaggart 23:19
The only experience I had putting that trailer in the air was at her own yard with Mr. Randolph has shown us how to do it. And I got up in the Pittsburgh area with a loaded scrap stainless steel. First off, we punched a hole in the floor of the trailer first load. You know when a heavy piece of stainless steel fell from where they had it loaded in the trailer, hit flour and punched a hole in it. And then that load was squirrely that the guy up there in Pittsburgh didn’t want to let me string it out which is what I would have done with it. So while I got it standing up in the air he’s back there the grapple dragging it out of the trailer Oh mile and we run a piece of stainless steel tubing through inside the drive tire. This was your first week for first load first load first load so anyway it kind of got off to a rocky start. But now the only thing I would tell somebody if if you’re free to get in dirty the certain place to be you know
Jeremy Kellett 24:39
how do you maintain cleanliness every time I see your time you come into the office you’re
Olof McTaggart 24:44
well I’ll make it a point when I come around here cleaned.
Jeremy Kellett 24:49
You always looking at your
Olof McTaggart 24:50
you know I don’t. I’ve given up trying to keep the truck as neat as I used to when I was pulling reefer and running long miles and get laid over and go California weather weather is nice and polished and clean and all that kind of stuff. But no, it’s just something you got to do.
Jeremy Kellett 25:09
What are some of the craziest loads you’ve hauled, or been to some of the places you’ve been to?
Olof McTaggart 25:16
Well, I’d say the craziest one was, Nick Crisco was my dispatcher. And it was coming up close to Christmas in December. And he said, got a cow and all through all deals here. He said, We got to load down here at Weber’s falls, Oklahoma, go on to Afton Wyoming. Oh, okay. Yeah. Wyoming’s always nice and wintertime. So, he gives me his phone number. He said, I don’t know what the deal is. He said this morning. He’s off the wall loads we booked so and he told me it was antimony. antimony, you know, what’s antimony? I looked it up. And it’s a mineral that’s used in the processing of gold. My instructions were to call this guy from the loves are at Weber Sol’s, and they’d come get me. Well, the guy comes and gets me and takes me about six miles out in the country. And around the end, he said, right, there’s where we’re going to load. But he said, I need you to come up and around and come in from the top side. It’s just a pit. He’s got an excavator sitting up there. He takes me up through his farm and around and down off the hill so that I was coming in there the right way to get loaded, be headed out back on the road. What was weird, and I asked him, when he was taking me back over to the truck there. I said, What are you shipping out of here? They said, What Oakley told you? I said antimony. He started laughing. He said, It’s gold. Add on, like I said, gold in Oklahoma. Yep. He said, We got some digging around here and we’ve got gold in here. When he got me loaded now, and he got me loaded. He swore up and down the terrorists $5 million worth of gold ore in that trailer. And I said, Did you tell them that? It was? No, I saw I’m not sure we got insurance to cover 5 million. What if I scattered this thing all over Wyoming. He just laughed. He saw me pick it up. So this was the other end that made this thing. So screwy, and I asked Nick about it. After we got loaded. And I got back out on my phone where I said you know what? We talked it over. He said, how it pays to be sure you collect checks with cod delivery. This load went to a dairy farm that was no longer milking cows in the country of birth outside Afton Wyoming. But I had a phone number and I called people. Yep, yep. Okay, that’s how you get out here. It snowed at night, when I loaded that stuff. In Oklahoma, it was mud and rocks. It’s down in the single digits at Bear and Afton. Wyoming when I get there, and about six inches of fresh snow on the ground. So I’m kind of wondering, because one of my experiences had been with a load of frozen cold. If this is even gotta come out of the trailer. And while we were beating and shoveling and getting the last of it out of the trailer, it came out pretty good. I said, What is going on here? And he says What guy in Oklahoma says it was? I see he told me about $5 million worth of gold ore in that trailer and one guy looked at the other and he said, Well, I said the only thing I would argue the point is how much it’s worth. And he took me in what had been the dairy barn and they had a smelter setup in there. He showed me some of the gold. They’re getting that out and I said, Okay, why are we doing this up here in the middle of nowhere while he said well, he said we’re trying to figure it out. He said we got stuff coming in from several different places. We’re trying to figure out what’s going to be worth going after and what’s not. And he said nobody thinks anything about big trucks coming into the farm. And patients are up here doing our thing.
Jeremy Kellett 30:01
That is a crazy load.
Olof McTaggart 30:03
But I mean other than that, every load is different, you know? Not that extreme though. Yeah. I told one guy that asked me if I was interested in coming over here. You want to know what we hold and see. It’s all over the country I go to. I’ve hauled everything from human waste to gold over it. I will try.
Jeremy Kellett 30:24
That covers quite a bit. It’s hard to explain a lot of times to people what we do and what it consists of, but obviously, you’ve enjoyed it. You’ve been here 13 years lease on with Oakley trucking America’s drop off call. Our owner operators are the top paid in the country and we will prove it to you. We offer steady year round freight as well as a yearly annual bonus and increase each year your lease to us. Oakley has multiple divisions and dumps Hopper bottoms and pneumatics. So we are sure to have something that works for your schedule and hometown. Check us out on YouTube as well as our weekly podcast or give us a call today and see why Oakley trucking was everything you had been looking for. Let’s talk a little bit about this semi retirement plan that we were talking about earlier.
Olof McTaggart 31:14
Well, I’m old enough that I don’t want to work real hard. And my wife’s after me to give it up completely. So anyway, at this point, try to work two or three weeks and then go home for a while. And that’s working. It seems to be Mr. Ryan, seems to be alright with it. So well,
Jeremy Kellett 31:43
we ought to be I mean, you’ve put your time in here with us for sure. And I think he’s great that we’re able to do that. And that you’re willing to stay on here and do that? Well.
Olof McTaggart 31:54
I’ve been fortunate in a lot of ways. And I told Paul, this 13 years ago, when I started, I said, you know, I said, I’ve got my bills knocked down where I don’t have to go out and run myself in the ground anymore. And I’m not going to, you know, but I like to work steadily. When I’m out away from home, I don’t like laying around a lot. I absolutely hate doing a 34 hour reset somewhere, you know, especially if I’ve got any hours left to run a rat. But, you know, when I go home, I like to go home and just get away from you know, get out of the truck.
Jeremy Kellett 32:39
How are you? How does somebody set themselves up like you already know you’re talking about, you don’t have to work? I mean, that takes a lot of planning, probably a lot of work hard in the beginning to get you know, you’re stuck, but your bills are knocked down to where you can relax a little bit more.
Olof McTaggart 33:00
Well, my financial advisor, guy, I’ve got most of what little I’ve got put away with. He keeps asking me when I’m gonna retire. I’ve got kind of a standard answer. I said, I’ve made so many bad decisions in my life personal and business that I’ll probably have to work on was Good Lord, let me but that being said, I’ve I came to the realization when when my wife, Frieda and I got married, that we were far enough along in life that that some of the big dreams that I had when I was younger, were probably not going to happen. Because we were both broke. I mean, we were both flat broke when I met her in 2020 Whatever it was 93 has been 30 years or this fall ago. And I mean, I had 89 Iraq, the Camaro had been beaten to death. And she had a 83 Chevy Celebrity. And I had nothing put away as far as retirement, no savings, no nothing. She did have a little bit in an annuity that she’d been working on. We’ve just been blessed since she and I got together and started working as a team. We bought our house and bursary in 2004 and it’s an old house that needs a lot of work. By that time we had a little bit of money put away and where we could do a few things with it. I’d gotten back into being an owner operator in January of 98 and I had some ups and downs there, you know, the things that happened in early, around 2000, you know, finances and stuff. But once we got lined out, and really started working together, she drove with me for 12 years. You know, we started being able to put some money away and buy an old house like that because we didn’t have big house payments, like a lot of folks saying, yeah, there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, if that’s what you want to do. So when she got off the truck in 2006, I really started looking at it and making some decisions that I had to do something else other than trying to run myself to death, about running out west all the time. And so we made a decision to come over here. That truck was four years old, little over four years old, and we came over here, so it was pretty well paid off. wasn’t done completely. But it paid off. It had been good to me, but a new truck. And fortunately, young people got over here and worked steadily. I mean, you know, it’s just about taking it to the bank. I mean, we had weeks that were so good. But yeah, get the house paid for everything. It’s kind of like my health. I told the guy in 2009 it was getting me prepped for back surgery. And he was bragging on how good a shape I was in. I can’t take credit for it. I’ve done everything possible to destroy my health. And, yeah, I mean, you can let your imagination run with that. And yet, here I am. Yeah. But a lot of that is just faith in God. And knowing that no matter what happens, it’s going to turn out.
Jeremy Kellett 37:19
It sure is and it’s turning out great for you and for us, for you to be able to do what you do here and stay with us. And keep going. It’s just a testament in itself that we appreciate for sure. Well, you know, and like we talked about earlier, there was one exception. I’ve had good dispatchers work with.
Olof McTaggart 37:43
You know, I want to say I figured out what I was wanting to do. And everything. That’s a big key to it. And oh yeah, yeah, you’ve got to develop those relationships.
Jeremy Kellett 37:53
Yeah. And then they’re not going to always be cheerful every day that we all gonna have problems and have to work through some of that stuff
Olof McTaggart 38:03
for sure. Yep. But folks here and one of the things I tell other people that are interested in coming over here, this is the first place that I’ve ever worked in my life that I didn’t have some of my feet in the main line of bull about the way it was gonna be, you know? Yeah. Can’t Childers when he took me over from Russell. You know, he was just straight shooters, you know, everybody I talked to down here. Hey, it’s dirty work. It can be really hard work, you know, especially to get the system figured out how to load a trailer. I told my older brother I sab and shoveled this much crap since we sold the dairy cattle.
Jeremy Kellett 38:54
That may be but what you know, sometimes we call that the Oakley workout program. keep in shape, you know, getting up in that trailer doing some of that stuff.
Olof McTaggart 39:02
My wife says probably only things get me up and running. As long as I have it, I get out of the truck and have to work a little bit every once in a while, you know? Yeah. Anyway,
Jeremy Kellett 39:15
You made some good friends at Oakley. Oh, yeah. Bochum. What would you say? I mean, you know, I don’t know because I don’t. I’ve never been out of the trucking companies. But how are a group of owner operators compared to another company of owner operators? I mean, I feel like we’ve got some of the best owner operators in the business, don’t you?
Olof McTaggart 39:36
Yeah, I do. I do. You know, the last place I had to truck least. I made a lot of good friends. Every place I’ve been, you know, I just have some of those guys I met in the late 70s. When I was just getting started as an owner operator. Most of them die. All
40:05
right.
Olof McTaggart 40:06
But as far as the owner operators here, I just got a great bunch of people working and people in the office. I mean, you guys all just make it happen. I mean, it’s just, you know, I see some things that that probably need little attention here and there, you know, some of the training the way I see guys still, even though you send this out, send the new guys out with an old hand, I see guys getting out here by themselves. And they just make mistakes. Yeah. And dumb mistakes. I mean, that’s one thing about POLIN Endo, I don’t care who you are, or how long you’ve been doing it. Don’t ever get in a hurry. Just take your time, get your system set up so that you go through the same steps every time. As far as getting ready to dough, getting ready to load, whatever. And don’t let people push you in a hurry. And because you will make a mistake she gets in a hurry.
Jeremy Kellett 41:13
We’ll all good advice from man has done it for a long time and done it for Oakley for 13 years, we see appreciate you being over here and doing what you do for so we appreciate you sitting down with us, you know and all this was you came in here you had put struck shot and then we can hit you up to Hey, you want to go over and talk about your story. And, you know, I think it’s good to hear because I think a lot of people, a lot of people and a lot of our listeners can associate their career with your career. And hey, you know, we started out like that, too. I’ve done dumb things, too. And finally here we are, you know, towards the end where you’re able to semi retire, work when you want to? And I think that’s a great place to be.
Olof McTaggart 42:00
Yeah, it is. It’s a great place to be, you know, some of the things that have happened over the years, and things that I’ve watched happen and participated in, you know, just, it’s just nice to be in a position where I can work legally. When I’m working and you know, it’s to doctrine up a logbook and try to make things match. Go on with it.
Jeremy Kellett 42:33
Enjoy your semi-retirement. Okay, spend some time with that wife. Sounds like she’s wanting you to Yeah, she does need to do that. Thanks for visiting with me, man. We appreciate what a great story it is. I really appreciate all of sitting down with us and just telling us how he feels. And really about his story in the transportation industry. And I bet you get you know it hits home with a lot of people out there that have had a career lock him to and you can just tell how much it means to him. And what he’s done his whole life in the transportation industry and it means a lot to us at Oakley trucking. We’re so proud to have a guy like him doing what he does and, and sticking with us for the last 13 years. Doesn’t sound like he’s done yet either. Hey, as always, I appreciate everybody listening to the Oakley podcast, please spread the word about it. You know, that’s one. One thing we stress it really helps is if you’ll share it with a friend, if you’ll tell somebody about it, if you will forward it to if you’ll like and subscribe. Give us some comments. All that stuff helps, you know with algorithms with YouTube and Google and and help spread the word about Oakley trucking and we’d appreciate it if you do that for us. And as always, if you got any suggestions on something you’d love to hear, just give me a call at your office and we’ll see what we get to recite your licks. Listen to the Oakley podcast. We’ll talk to you next week. 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 but 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.