This week on the Oakley Podcast, hosts Jeremy Kellett and Megan Cummings welcome Randolph Rochell, the Orientation Coordinator here at Oakley Trucking. During the episode, Randolph shares his journey from truck driver to an office role, emphasizing the importance of relationships and integrity. He reflects on his early days in trucking, the camaraderie within the industry, and the challenges of his current role. Randolph highlights the need for a people-oriented successor with strong moral values. The episode underscores the significance of community, support, and personal growth within Oakley Trucking, and so much more.
Key topics in today’s conversation include:
- Previewing Today’s Episode and Thank You to Our Sponsors (0:45)
- Randolph’s Background and Family (2:13)
- Trucking School Experience (7:19)
- Early Career and Getting into Trucking (8:27)
- Randolph’s First Truck (12:29)
- Joining Oakley Trucking (14:12)
- Randolph’s Transition to Office Role (17:19)
- Winning the State Trucking Competition (20:34)
- Competing at Nationals (23:35)
- Transition to Recruiting (25:29)
- Orientation Responsibilities (27:02)
- Setting the Tone in Orientation (29:59)
- Future Plans and Retirement (36:49)
- Hobbies and Side Hustles (37:50)
- Making New Hires Feel Important (39:22)
- Randolph’s Words of Wisdom (40:16)
- Advice for the Future Orientation Coordinator (42:53)
- Final Thoughts and Takeaways (44:30)
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
Randolph Rochell 00:12
Always love what you do. I work for good people. Everybody wants to feel important. And that’s one of the things I do in orientation. You got to make those guys feel important. You are, yeah, they are, they are, and you don’t you just throw them in there like they just you gotta make everybody feel important. You want to feel important. You want to feel important, yeah, if you can make them feel important and keep a smile on their face. And though I have done my job because we want them to be successful. We want you to be successful here at Oakley. Welcome
Jeremy Kellett 00:45
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. Hey, welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking, business, and family. I’m Jeremy Kellett and I’m your host for this podcast, along with Miss Megan Cummings, my co-host, good morning. What’s happening with you today?
Megan Cummings 01:21
Just happy to be here another day in the neighborhood.
Jeremy Kellett 01:25
We got a great episode. Yeah, lined up here. Lot of people have been, I know, waiting for this one to come out, because I’ve got my good friend, orientation coordinator, consultant, advisor list, and a few other things. Expert on lawn mowing, great grandpa and a good husband, Mr. Randolph Rochell, is joining us, and we’re going to visit with him a little bit on his life story, his story at Oakley, some of the things that are important to him, what he does on a daily basis. And you know, I also think it’s good for a lot of our listeners or recruits that are coming in, and they get to, you know, talk to Randolph, or listen to Randolph a little bit about what he does here and what to expect in orientation. So a lot to cover Randolph, Rochelle, coming up here in a minute. But first, as always, you know, Megan, we gotta thank our sponsors, aero truck sales, lubezone, do a good job. Hey, do we have any questions? Did you grab those questions? We were asking people to, you know, have you had some questions we wanted to answer them. Do we have a national tire account? Was one of them? I think it’s similar to that. So, okay, good question. Good question. So the one is the national tire count? Yes, we have a national tire account, actually, right? I probably know a little bit about it too. But with Goodyear and with Michelin, we have that we get to actually put your, you put a credit card on file with us. That way you get those discounts when you’re out on the road, for your truck, for sure, and it, it’s a great discount too. We can save you a lot of money by doing that, but it’s good. We’re having a good year at Michelin. In that all Randolph, you’re in Michelin. Good year at Michelin. So a good question on that. Y’all keep the questions coming. We want to try to, you know, incorporate some of that into the episode and do a little something different. But what’s going on with Megan Cummins?
Megan Cummings 03:14
Well, you know, you ask me this every week, and every week after you ask me, I’m like, Okay, next week I have to start thinking about I just have to make something up really quick. I’ve got a week to do it. And I always forget just everything’s going the same, same. Good, good.
Jeremy Kellett 03:30
How about at your desk here? Anything different?
Megan Cummings 03:32
I got a new keyboard, no, a couple weeks ago. Yeah, that’s new. It’s always something nice to see whenever I come in. I got a birthday next week, I got a birthday next week. That’s
Jeremy Kellett 03:41
What’s your new birthday?
Megan Cummings 03:42
Thank you. I expect a happy birthday. That’ll
Jeremy Kellett 03:44
probably this will probably be coming out then. Oh yeah,
Megan Cummings 03:47
This is a birthday episode from Megan.
Jeremy Kellett 03:49
It’s my birthday gift, slash Randolph, yes. Keep taking your glory here.
Randolph Rochell 03:54
I know Megan got a chance to do some recruiting this week. Let’s try it. Yeah, that’s awesome.
Megan Cummings 04:00
I have a couple of. I got a couple bites, nice, yeah, working on some applications. Now,
Jeremy Kellett 04:05
you got a couple that are here? Yes, well,
Megan Cummings 04:08
I got one. Got one. Okay, great. He’s still here. He’s a great guy. I’m biased, of course, obviously, but I think he’s pretty great. Well,
Jeremy Kellett 04:16
Randolph is the one that he gives you the grade. Oh, as they come through orientation, he tells you whether
Megan Cummings 04:23
I didn’t even think about it, but remind me to get with you after the episode to get your initial grade.
Randolph Rochell 04:28
I’ll let you know all about
Jeremy Kellett 04:31
but anyway, hey, you know. Back to the listeners, back to the questions. Keep them coming. Y’all check out our sponsors. Do your best to take care of them and use them. They’ve been with us since day one, and share our episodes with everybody we have. If you haven’t seen the Luigi episode a couple of weeks ago, it blew up, completely blew up. It’s a great episode. Got a lot of 1000, 1000s of views on it, and it’s really getting out there. Y’all need to share that you need to listen to if you haven’t, and why? Watch it, I would recommend you watch it. Yes, on YouTube, it’s really good. And if you haven’t shared it with everybody and spread the word about us. So you got questions, you can ask me and Megan questions on any social media platforms, Facebook page, Tiktok, whatever, YouTube videos, yeah, on YouTube channel, you can comment down there and ask us questions, and we’ll do our best get best to answer them for you, a
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Jeremy Kellett 06:10
Let’s get started here with Randolph Rochelle, also known as double R, yes, oh yeah. And I bet I’m the only one who knows this. Ana, what’s your third what your third name is?
06:23
Yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 06:24
slow motion, slow motion. And, well, since you knew that, I didn’t know that was that your handle, your CB
Randolph Rochell 06:30
handle. Justin Oakley knew about it, so he called me slow motion, Aaron, slow motion, oh, Justin dot, but he’s okay.
Jeremy Kellett 06:37
How’d you get that CB handle?
Randolph Rochell 06:39
Oh, I got it. When I was going to school, I went to Trucking School, when the guys over in the truck school tried to give me a name, and the name they gave me, I didn’t like so I said to No, you got to come up with different names. I don’t want to. I ain’t going to say that name on the radio. Go. Miss Vicky might be listening, so she will. Anyways, we come up with slow motion. That’s where I got it from, going to school, Trucking School. These guys always give you a name over there. So they gave me slow motion. It kind of fit me. I liked it. Yeah. I
Jeremy Kellett 07:13
remember their slow motion. Dave, yeah.
Megan Cummings 07:16
When did you? When did you go to Trucking School? Randolph,
Randolph Rochell 07:19
oh, back in, back in 9292 I went over to Kentucky Bowling Green. Kentucky did three weeks of trucking. Great.
Jeremy Kellett 07:29
What made you get into trucking?
Randolph Rochell 07:31
Oh, man, that’s a good question. Jeremy, I don’t know. I used to just work a factory job. And you know, I wanted to do something more for my family. I wanted to make some money where I can do some things for my family, invest, buy a house. So outside me and my wife decided that it was okay for me to go dry a
Megan Cummings 07:54
truck. So you’ve only been doing it since 92 No,
Randolph Rochell 07:57
the year, wrong. Oh, 86 oh, because I started with JP hunt in 86 went over and talked to JP, and they sent me to Trucking School. Now, trucking schools in Bowling Green went for three weeks, came out, drove for JP hunt for six years, finished up with JP and said, to become my own. Operator, wow, oh. Operator was something I always wanted to do, too. Now,
Jeremy Kellett 08:24
you mentioned family a while ago, right? Tell us about your family. Oh, that’s
Randolph Rochell 08:28
a good thing, family, then we’ll get on with you. Career, yeah, family, I’ve been married for 40 years. Vicky, we end up having three boys, three grandkids. I have a great family. We, I mean, we love to just sit around the house and watch television.
Megan Cummings 08:51
You guys just got a new house a couple years ago, didn’t you? Yeah, we’ve been
Randolph Rochell 08:55
buying too many houses. It’s my downfall. We’ve been buying all kinds of houses. Yeah, I just got a house two years ago, though, for sure, we used to live over and we always have kind of lived in Scott over the last 15 years, but we built a house. That’s a long story. I’m not going to talk about this, but we built the house, moved out of it, and signed up for another house, stayed in it for a couple years, and later went, not late, it went, but decided to buy another house, and that’s the one we’re living in now, but we’ve been living in this house now for about three years, which I don’t know. I think that’s going to be our retirement. I’m not planning on moving anymore. I’m going to stay right there. But back to the pony family. I have a great family. Miss Vick. It’s a great, I mean, beautiful wife and lady. I love her. And we got three beautiful grand kids and grandkids at the pride and joy. Yeah, oh, man, they can’t they just,
Megan Cummings 09:55
I hear that’s the best part about having kids, yeah, is the grandkids. Grandkids.
Randolph Rochell 09:59
Is not my boy. I love my boys. They are all doing great.
Jeremy Kellett 10:04
Well. You came from a big family. Oh, yeah.
Randolph Rochell 10:07
I come from a family of 10, six boys and four girls with steel clothes, all the same, mom and dad, you know, that’s a rare Yeah, Mama, still all. 10 of them are still alive. No. Two of them passed away, two of my sisters, but eight of us are still here. Eight mom’s still living. Yeah, my mom is 87 years old. Just talked to her this morning. She called me Shanky.
Jeremy Kellett 10:35
She wondered why, why you ain’t headed that way?
Randolph Rochell 10:39
Too hard to know why I’m not headed that way. She really, she asked me, my mom is great, you know, she said, shaking. I just want to know what y’all headed to Dallas today. I know I heard you were going to Dallas, and I want to know what you’re going to do. I said, Sure, Mama, we’re going to leave about one. She’s okay. I’m just wondering. I’m still checking up on you. Yeah, since you come back and say, I got a little work for you to do, but I can do it today. But yeah, that’s my family. I have a great family. We are very close.
Megan Cummings 11:12
Are they all in? Are y’all from Arkansas? Yeah, okay, Star
Randolph Rochell 11:15
City, Arkansas, okay, about 70 miles south of here.
Jeremy Kellett 11:19
Mama still lives there.
Randolph Rochell 11:20
Mama still lives there.
Jeremy Kellett 11:21
You got a brother or two down there. Brother.
Randolph Rochell 11:23
I got a brother and an assistant. Okay, that’s where I graduated from. Went to high school, graduated, bragged almost, and played football. I’m just a really good football player. Yeah, some people don’t even know that I play football. Yeah, got a couple offers in college.
Megan Cummings 11:38
Randolph, yeah, you just been keeping all this stuff to yourself,
Randolph Rochell 11:42
yeah, baby. But after that, I came up here and went to some school, you know, a couple schools trying to get my career together, but I decided to, you know, just get a job. And
Jeremy Kellett 11:53
were y’all you and Vicky married when you went to truck driving school, you said you were doing,
Randolph Rochell 11:57
yeah, yeah, with me. I was working for a plant over here by the name of Tarko, and believe it or not, I took a three week vacation just to go to this school. Oh, it took three weeks. And I told him I needed three weeks to get myself to jail, and I went to this truck driving school. Got out, came a truck, wow. And the
Megan Cummings 12:17
The rest is history. Oh, now
Jeremy Kellett 12:18
back on that so, so you got to JB Hunt, right? And you decided to become an owner operator, right? What kind of truck? What was your first truck you bought?
Randolph Rochell 12:29
Bought either a six mile freight line, believe it or not. Cowboy had a 400 Cummins. You
Jeremy Kellett 12:37
know what a cabo is, sure,
Megan Cummings 12:40
absolutely, I was just gonna go with that. You
Randolph Rochell 12:43
know, what a camera with? Oh, oh, my goodness. I don’t even know how to drive a cab over. They don’t have the long hood on. Okay, that’s kind of like a flat front. Oh, what? Okay. Well, just the box stand truck
Jeremy Kellett 12:56
flat front. You sit on top of the motor, basically, yeah. Oh, okay, got
Randolph Rochell 13:00
it all right, that truck was only getting me four miles per gallon. And
Jeremy Kellett 13:03
when you have an accident, you’re the first one there. Oh, first
Randolph Rochell 13:07
at the scene. You know, it’s kind of dangerous, because you’re sitting right there on everything on the motor, and you’re just right down in front of you. Wow, yeah, I kept that truck for a couple years. Oh, fine. And then I bought mine. Did you go to Oakley when you bought it? Or, yeah, I bought that truck to ring tow.
Megan Cummings 13:26
Was Oakley the reason you made the decision to become an owner operator. Yeah, I
Randolph Rochell 13:30
I just wanted to be an owner operator in a way. You know, did you hear about him? That’s Scott. Asked me that question earlier. How did I hear about Oakley? That’s surprising. I did some ain’t too much research you can do back in my days of driving, but I still saw y’all shorts running around the local area and you on the CB radio. So you asked another driver, hey, what y’all doing? And they would tell me, Hey, come up with an open all they gonna run you is five states you could be home almost every day. I thought, yeah, that’s what I want. That’s what JP, hunt, you know, you stay out a week or two, and I want to be home with the family every day. Family is very rampant. So who hired you over at Oakley? Oh, Lord, we’re the only
Jeremy Kellett 14:18
one that gets at so but anyway,
Randolph Rochell 14:23
Mac Holliman. Mac was my Huey. That’s who you talk to. Yeah, Mac hollyman, I walked in there, and y’all don’t know Mac. You know Mac? I think Jeremy knows Mac, real good. But Mac is the one used to sitting down and he looks old on glass. I mean, my wife came down to open Whitman when we first started the process, and Mac would look over those glasses, and my wife said, Mac Tobin, hey, walk over that affiliate application. Now he was thorough, just like that. I need you to work with that feeling that the application now in Victor was. Over there filling the application now. And you know how lady, though, she flips one, she said, I don’t like that guy. You don’t work here. If I hold on, why, it’s gonna be alright, yeah. And I filled it out on Mac and told me to get it with me the next day or so. And, matter of fact, the next day or so, he called me. Matt called me. I went over the internet and got the truck, bought a dagger, and put me on the load, no orientation,
Jeremy Kellett 15:29
no nothing,
Randolph Rochell 15:30
no training, just one guy. I ran with one guy, though he ran. He went with me to Kansas. That’s my first role load, the roofing range, pick them up at 3am, take them to end forever, and that was in what year I was in 92 now that’s the year I started with, okay, 32 years of open. I will be 33 in March. Awesome. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. But that’s how I got started. Mac Carlton,
Jeremy Kellett 15:59
Can you believe that I can, yeah, that’s how I got started.
Megan Cummings 16:05
How long? Okay, so were you, Jeremy, did you come on after Randolph? Yes. What year were you? I
Jeremy Kellett 16:11
was 94 Oh, okay. I dispatched Randolph. So, yeah, really, yeah. So I would use I set in when somebody goes on vacation, his dispatcher, Don Griffin used to be his dispatcher. When Don was on vacation, I’d set in and dispatch Don’s trucks for him. And of course, ran off with one of them. He was hit back then he was on the gravy train by the end. Wasn’t, yeah, doing that stuff down the Louisiana and
Randolph Rochell 16:39
back. That’s great. Yeah, that was Green Hill. Won’t they stay? You know, a great hall.
Jeremy Kellett 16:44
You did that for a while, yeah, three or four years. How long do you drive at Oakley?
Randolph Rochell 16:50
Eight years. Okay, eight years.
Jeremy Kellett 16:53
And then what happened?
Randolph Rochell 16:56
You know, people ask me this all the time. They asked me, Randall, how you get in the office, and I got the one that has the most words, it’s not weird, it’s the coolest. I don’t know the word for it, but anyway, I got into the office. I got from the truck to the office. People admin that so much I wonder, do I belong in the office?
Jeremy Kellett 17:22
Come on. Yeah. I don’t ever get asked that
Randolph Rochell 17:27
question. I get that question all the time, yeah. So about the little bump anyway. So I say One day I used to always haul fertilize over too. You know, I was their main fertilizer guy, and always pulled in on them scales. And back in my days, their little gathering room was always right around the scale. What do I mean? The fertilizer guys and Dennis Oakley and those type guys. Anyway, one day, I jumped out of my truck to give me a ticket to go pick up another load, and Dennis was standing there. And I said, Hey, Dennis, how are you doing? You know me and Dennis had that kind of relationship. And he said, Hey Randall, what are you doing? And I saw nothing. Pick up another little fertilizer. And they were sitting there talking about having got another port. And I say, hey Dennis, you know what? The next time you get a port. I won’t run it. He said, Oh yeah. Well, good Randolph. Know what he said? He said, I look into that. And I left it alone. It’s kind of like a joke, just kind of talking. I left it alone. And I bet about three months later, less than three months later, I pulled on the scales to pick up a load, and he was standing pretty much in the same location. He said, hey Randolph, guess what? I need to talk to you about something that’s okay. He said, pull around the line and come off as I need to talk to you. He said, hey Randolph, I got a port. I want you to run, he says, I want you and your wife to go look at it next weekend. This weekend, let me know what you think about it. And I went down and looked at the port, came back and he was standing just in the way, and he threw me some keys, and I caught the key. He said, Hey, you are the man for the job. I went down and ran a port for him for six years. Wow. Came back up here, and they stuck with Jeremy
19:22
even over the the board ever since
Randolph Rochell 19:27
That’s where I got into the office. Of coincidence, you know that a man would get a port,
Jeremy Kellett 19:32
well, that port, the something, the lease come up, or we didn’t release the Yeah, property, and so
Randolph Rochell 19:39
somebody, they had proposals on it, something like that. And guy, what port was it yellow in? It was the Chico D shape county port down in McGee Lake, Venice area, okay? And we were leasing that port, and it came up where you wanted to make a proposal on it, you know? And the best proposal was, it wasn’t Oakley Dennis. Made his own, but then he said he wasn’t going any different. So the guy made a better one, and they took his. Yeah, I made an offer. We can say offer.
Megan Cummings 20:07
So, they didn’t stick you back in the truck. No, okay, so I
Randolph Rochell 20:13
was too good to get No, I ain’t gonna say I’m good. Turkish is okay. Now don’t, don’t get me wrong. But, well, there’s
Megan Cummings 20:20
a picture. I did want it before we stopped talking about you and the truck. There’s a picture out there of you and a hat out by the doors going out to the yard. Do you know anything about that picture? That picture was taken. That picture.
Randolph Rochell 20:34
I wanted to look at that picture again, but that picture is when I was also in a trucking competition in Arkansas. Have an Arkansas truck driver and championship every year. Or they take certain drives from different companies, and you go down and compete with one another in different divisions. So I like
Jeremy Kellett 20:55
an optical course. Yeah, really that they drive the tractor trailer and they grade you on the optical course and how good you’re doing. And there’s also Yeah, and then there’s also a written test, and there’s also an inspection test. So it’s yeah, it’s done every year. Arkansas truck and Association does? They
Megan Cummings 21:13
still have it going, Yeah, every summer, yeah, every
Jeremy Kellett 21:15
year. And we did? We go ahead and tell
Randolph Rochell 21:17
it, we did. We didn’t enter any more. I wish we would, though it was a very great and good thing to do. But I entered back in 90 about the second year I was here at Oakley, Ron Davis, or someone asked me to Eric.
Jeremy Kellett 21:30
No, it was probably 96 seven. It was somewhere in there, because I was here and Ron Davis was here. He came just a little bit after me, so it was like a 96 or seven somewhere in there. But yeah,
Randolph Rochell 21:50
got a lucky, oh man, got lucky, and I won on first place, really, that was awesome too, because you go this the convention center over here, and you don’t really know who I want until they get up and they call your name, the president of a Trucking Association get up and call, you know, third, first, second and third and and, you know, Ron had told me, run up. I think you did pretty good in it. I said, Yeah. And I was a rookie, my first time in it, and went over there, and they got to call the names, my wife said, No, you didn’t win. You
Megan Cummings 22:28
third place. And they say, or isn’t she? Yeah, you
Randolph Rochell 22:32
she was thinking, you know, in second place, I didn’t. And then they say, and now we have our first place winner, who is a rookie from Oakley trucking, Randolph Rochelle and my wife jumped up at the house on tape and my wife was with me. Man, that was one of the greatest, Best feelings of my life to win that championship, Arkansas truck and championship war, and my kids were so happy, because I had always, always told my kids, hey, I’m in first place. I don’t want no second and third. So when I was over there competing, they were going from every obstacle, dad, you know what? You told off, we want first place. And I won first place. And they was excited for that DAG, and I was too
Jeremy Kellett 23:19
excited. We should have been that was a nice, big deal. I
Randolph Rochell 23:23
ended up going to Tampa, Florida, to the nationals, nationals. I ended up finishing about 15 up there out of 52 drives, definitely. Yeah, I had a good time.
Megan Cummings 23:34
Do you still have it? Did they give you any kind of a trophy or anything? Ma’am, excuse me, did they give you any kind of a trophy,
Randolph Rochell 23:40
not in the national but yeah, here in the state, you
Megan Cummings 23:44
I still have it, yeah.
Randolph Rochell 23:47
Oh, my, I got a plant. I got a plant. I took it home, stayed up here for a while. I also had something we had in the orientation room, a picture, a million orientation rooms, and substrate. Well, he
Jeremy Kellett 24:02
also had, yeah, I don’t know where, because we also, they did an article on you, yeah, yeah. Now that was, that might be with the picture. That was a different deal that, yeah, that didn’t have anything to do with the Arkansas truck driving Association. Oh, my Megan. We had an owner operator profile for a magazine. I think it was overdrive magazine,
Randolph Rochell 24:27
yeah, Arkansas, yeah. Overdrive one Arkansas overdrive
Jeremy Kellett 24:31
magazine. He did an owner operator profile that they came to interview him, took pictures of him.
Randolph Rochell 24:39
Oh, yeah, man, I’m you. You’re in
Jeremy Kellett 24:41
the presence of a, this ain’t no, this whole time I was this ain’t no Orientation Coordinator. You’re in the presence of somebody here. Oh, man, yeah, I
Randolph Rochell 24:53
won. That was great, though it later came down from, they originally from Alabama. Yeah, they were. Came down. They we fed all day taking picture, yep,
Megan Cummings 25:04
and that’s hard being a celebrity, isn’t it?
25:06
Oh,
25:07
What’s your heart?
Randolph Rochell 25:08
I’m proud of myself, though you always think to be proud of yourself. You know I don’t boast on myself, but you already feel
Megan Cummings 25:15
good. We know you don’t, because I didn’t know how everything that you just said is news to me,
Randolph Rochell 25:20
yeah, it’s awesome. I have a great life.
Jeremy Kellett 25:23
So back to the port clothes. We’re gonna do Randolph. Yeah, what’s Randolph gonna do now? I told you, okay, here Benny came up to me and said, Hey, you think you use Randolph at recruiting? I said, Well, sure, I’m sure I can somehow get him to work with you. I said, fantastic.
Randolph Rochell 25:47
You know, I asked Ben, I want to be a dispatcher. Did you kind of ask me? Well, right now, he thought about sending me to New Mexico. You don’t want that rent. You know, you don’t want that. So I said, I kind of want to build dispatch. I always felt like I was a people person, you know, I can relate to the drows finish, man, you ran downs. You don’t want to be stuck behind that computer, you know. So, okay, so what I’m doing, he’s got some fudge, I guess he had already talked to you, Jeremy, is I’m gonna put you over here and recruiting. He put me through my recruiting. Not been over there ever since. What year was that? I think about 10,006
Jeremy Kellett 26:34
Okay, yeah,
Megan Cummings 26:35
so at that point you had been here. When did you say you started? 1992 okay,
Randolph Rochell 26:41
eight, I drove eight, ran to port. Six, came up here and Oh, 618, years, I’ve been recruited. Okay,
Megan Cummings 26:50
so you were recruiting as a recruiter, whenever you first started. Was there? Okay, so was there? What was orientation like before that? Was there.
Jeremy Kellett 27:01
Oh yeah. We had orientation. Okay, we had it going on. The recruiters did it basically for me, and I don’t remember who we had at the time, Russell. Russell was recruiting. At that time, Russell trained me. Okay, you probably didn’t know Russell was a recruiter. I had no idea, yeah, oh yeah, Russell for a while,
Randolph Rochell 27:22
but that’s a good story, because Russell dreamed and, you know, however really became an overall orientation guy . Jeremy kind of had the same feelings. Do you remember that Jeremy, because I was almost asked him, could I do it? And he almost asked me, Did I want to do it? So we kind of crashed up together and every so I really been doing that for about 10 years, the overall orientation.
Megan Cummings 27:45
So how did that happen?
Jeremy Kellett 27:48
Well, it got, I mean, it really, we needed some stability there every week of somebody that was responsible for these guys during orientation, and to help guide them of what’s going on, instead of us. You know, back then we were just seeing somebody who’s next, you know, I’d be watching if that door was opening, and who’s going, who’s going in there next to talk to them. And then we just give them the keys, and they go get ’em sandwiches somewhere. And, you know, we gave them the keys one time, and they were gone for like two hours. They went to some buffet down in Benton,
28:26
brown cafe. Down there, browns cafe. I
Jeremy Kellett 28:28
was like, man, we got to get a handle on this. So, you know, it just worked out good. And I believe it or not, Randolph was a little timid in the beginning. Amen, you know, to work with these guys. And we had, we had many conversations, because when you get a room full of truck drivers, I mean, love them to death, but they can take over real fast. You know, if you’re not careful, they’ll just, they’ll take over the conversation. And what we’re trying to get done here. So Randolph had to, he had to really toughen up. I would say, in the beginning, I kept saying, Randolph, you’re going to have to get control, right? First thing when you get them in there, you remember that? Yeah,
Randolph Rochell 29:11
exactly, because those guys, I can leave her on Friday evening, and that’s technically two days to recover. I mean, I just wore, you know they will take over and they just, I was trying to do too much, I think, yeah, wasn’t relaxing, and wasn’t just taking over. You got to let them know up front, exactly what’s going on, so they can know that. You mean, in business, I put it that way, yeah, because you don’t, they gonna beat you down. Do you down. Do
Megan Cummings 29:41
you usually establish that on Monday morning? Yeah,
Randolph Rochell 29:43
exactly you have to. Yeah, Monday morning is just being straight up with everything. What’s
29:50
okay? I
29:51
tried to So
Megan Cummings 29:51
pretend like me and Jeremy are our new drivers. What’s the first thing that you say in orientation on Monday morning?
Randolph Rochell 29:59
Good morning. And how are you doing? Do
Jeremy Kellett 30:03
you give like, well, one of the first things is, is he, he has them introduce themselves, okay, and to tell a little bit about them, and that that helps. I guess, before that, you probably Yeah, before that,
Randolph Rochell 30:16
kind of just let them relax. And how, how would you stay at the motel? Guys? We have several things to do, but I just want y’all to relax right now, and here in a minute, you get a chance to meet your recruiters, cuz they are awesome. They always want to see who they’ve been talking to for the last three months. I said here in a minute, you’re gonna get a chance to meet your recruiters. But in the meantime, we got paperwork to do too, so I gave them a few minutes to relax. Then we go into doing paperwork. You also, by that time, your recruiters come in, and you also have to do you and Jeremy, y’all got a physical, not all so a physical, but we do in house drug tests. So if you need some water, let me go. No, if you’re ready to go, I will go get someone to do your drug test. Yeah, that’s pretty much how I start off.
Jeremy Kellett 31:08
But he’s really good now at setting the tone. First thing should be, he’s got it down to a science now. I mean, it’s, you just gotta set the tone of this is, you know, this is how we’re going to do things. This is our program. And, you know, it’s a whole lot smoother if you buy into it than it is to fight
Megan Cummings 31:28
the fear of God in them. On Monday morning,
Randolph Rochell 31:32
I tried to, I really do. He
Jeremy Kellett 31:34
tries to, and he does a good job. So, because you can tell, you know, by the end of orientation, they all love him, and they don’t even, they don’t even, they don’t even want to leave. They just want to hang out.
Megan Cummings 31:43
Randall, I didn’t know, so you only, you said you’ve only been doing it for 10 years. No orientation. Orientation. You have only been doing orientation for 10 years. You were recruited for a few years? Yeah,
Randolph Rochell 31:53
I was recruited for about eight years. A long time I was recruiting and doing orientation
Jeremy Kellett 31:57
and going going to truck shows with me, and, yeah, everything, my whole
Randolph Rochell 32:01
The purpose was, since I drove Ben and wanted me also in recruiting, because, you know, I could go outside and work with him, yeah, hooking up and demoing in the trellis. So it was my purpose. My recruiting part was just giving me something to do up to that certain point of going outside, working with these guys, but my whole job purpose is then
Jeremy Kellett 32:24
we kind of just incorporated him into the everyday, all, all day, every day, orientation.
32:30
I love
Megan Cummings 32:31
it. Good job. Yeah, I couldn’t have picked a better one. I mean, I mean Randolph and orientation, just to me, it’s synonymous, yeah, they just,
32:40
Thank you, Megan, you’re
Megan Cummings 32:41
welcome
Jeremy Kellett 32:42
it. I mean, he’s found is, oh,
Megan Cummings 32:45
the niche absolutely always gets so upset whenever you’re on vacation. I’ll be talking to the new hires on Friday, me and Wendy, whatever, and it’d be like Randolph’s on vacation next week. I’m very remote, like you’ll have to come in the next week and meet Randolph.
Jeremy Kellett 33:07
He pulls all those no Absolutely,
Randolph Rochell 33:08
there’s no doubt. I tried. I enjoyed meeting new people from week to week. And Jeremy stated earlier, know more about them. They always introduce themselves and you’d be surprised. Or some of the things the guys go through and come from and what they doing in life, they have big farms, they have other business that they been running all their lives, you’d be surprised what they do, yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 33:36
I mean, they’re, they’re, they’re people just like, we are, man,
Randolph Rochell 33:40
a lot of people, you know, look at them like, are they just truck ramps? These guys got corporations, yeah, had business before.
Jeremy Kellett 33:49
Well as average, smart people, yeah.
Randolph Rochell 33:52
Well as, yep, we have had football, professional football players, yeah. I mean, it’s pretty wild. That
Megan Cummings 33:59
I remember that was a big deal. I told my dad about it.
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Jeremy Kellett 34:53
So now you’ve been doing that for a long time. What’s the next chapter? Looking like a randolph road? Shit. Oh, man, first of all, for before you answer that, first of all, I gave him a hard time. We sat down. Usually on Tuesday, he’ll come sit down with me, because Monday, he’s busy all the time, and Tuesday, he’ll come sit over by me and we we check on his health that, and I’ve yet to get him at 100% he always gives me percentage, you know, it’s either 6575 you know. Well, there, I can’t get him at 100% we’re working on it, yeah,
Randolph Rochell 35:31
Leila, haven’t gotta wait in any I’m trying, though. So he gotta keep
Megan Cummings 35:36
up your I meant to ask you this, do you keep up your physical, your DOT physical. Some of the guys will say that, you know, if we ever have, like, drivers that retire and come into the office or whatever, they’ll keep up their physical health after it expires, I didn’t know. I’ve always wanted to ask you that.
Randolph Rochell 35:53
No, I don’t. I have doctor’s appointments where they keep up with my health, yeah, physical, wire, taking physical every year, every two years. But you
Jeremy Kellett 36:03
Do you still have your CDL? Yes, sir, yeah,
Randolph Rochell 36:06
I have my CDL license. That’s another man here who has helped me out a lot. Oh, my last Kirk recruiting years. I’m about to give up my CDL. Jeremy told me one day, no, you need to keep that CD so I kept it, yeah, so I still have my CDL, but you just made a good point. I really do need to start taking physicals at least every year just to see if I could. I wanted to go back in the truck and something like that. Yeah, I have not been but I still have my CDL. And that’s a German question. What is the Nate chapter? Who knows? Yeah, you know, you come to work, or you wake up in the morning and you say, oh, man, Imma go there. I’m very retired, you know? And then the next morning you might wake up, I ain’t going to retire. I feel too big. I can do this forever, yeah, so really, I don’t know, eventually, I probably still have a few more years. You know, people ask me every day, when are you gonna retire? Do you think they don’t look old? I
Jeremy Kellett 37:13
don’t know why they would ask you.
Randolph Rochell 37:14
We talked about her, about why. You know, if they asked me every day when you’re gonna retire, I’d be like, Why did you work? I’m not trying to be smart, but I
Jeremy Kellett 37:25
I don’t think you look old enough. No, no,
Randolph Rochell 37:28
I probably don’t look old enough to you know your body is going to be definitely based on my body and my wife and my family, yeah, but when I return,
Jeremy Kellett 37:40
If you retire, you’re just going to work harder. Oh, my God, because tell them what you do on the side sometimes. Well, yeah, we didn’t get into your hobbies. Yeah,
Randolph Rochell 37:50
my hobbies, I love. But what I do on the side is I mow three yards. I motor yards. Kind of exercises my wife helped tell me all the time. Why are you mowing the yard? Mm, hmm, that’s something. Why are you going at the morning yard harder than it was running off. But Vic, I need some exercises. I need some peace. Yeah, lawn mower, give me some peace. Believe it or not, more in a yard. Just
Megan Cummings 38:17
ain’t got zero turn. Ma’am. You got a zero turn? Yes, fancy ones. Oh, I don’t have a turn. You don’t?
Randolph Rochell 38:25
I don’t do a whole lot of Yes, he
Jeremy Kellett 38:27
does. Oh, he’s got two or three of them. Yeah,
Randolph Rochell 38:32
I get two or three of them, but I don’t use one most
38:34
time. No,
Jeremy Kellett 38:36
He talks like he does it for exercise. That’s not true. What do you do for Randolph? Cash in the pocket. Oh,
Megan Cummings 38:44
Those aren’t pro bono yards. You’re charging people for them.
Jeremy Kellett 38:47
Randolph likes to have a little cash side hustle.
Randolph Rochell 38:51
And my grandkids, yeah, you know, like today, I’m gonna have some cash for them. They don’t know it yet.
Jeremy Kellett 39:00
Oh, they know it.
Randolph Rochell 39:03
That is, that is, I don’t know, but I gotta, I’m thinking about it. I don’t know when I’m gonna eventually,
Megan Cummings 39:12
sometime in the far, far future,
Randolph Rochell 39:15
I love you guys. I enjoy it, and you got to always love what you you should, yeah, I love, you know, work for good peoples back when Dennis offered me a poor job, make you feel like she was important, everybody want to feel important. That’s one of the things I does in orientation. You got to make those guys feel important. Yeah, they are, yeah, they are, they are. And you don’t just throw them in there like they just gotta make everybody feel important. You want to feel important. Nuts. You want to feel important. Oh, yeah, if you can make them feel important and keep a smile on their face, I know I have done my job because we. Want them to be successful. We want you to be successful here at Oakley.
Megan Cummings 40:04
I think you’re a testament to success at Oakley. Started out as a driver. You ran a port, started recruiting. Now your orientation coordinator, yeah,
Randolph Rochell 40:14
That’s awesome. That’s a big deal. Yeah. And I want them to be successful. Believe it or not. They don’t notice. But, you know, I get close to those guys, like they get close to me. So I keep working on them sometimes. So one, one, I look on there, he’s been terminated, or he ‘s kind of touched you sometime too, you know, yeah, you hate to send Lee, but you got to do the right thing regardless. Yeah, and that’s one of my pet peeves. And no intention to do the right thing, because it’s the right thing to do. Yeah, in life, not just in this orientation in life, you can do the right thing. Words
Megan Cummings 40:49
of wisdom, yep, from Randolph first show himself. I’m
Randolph Rochell 40:52
getting Lee Randolph from preaching all that, yeah, but that’s so true. Yeah. Hey, I’ve been blessed. I’ve really been blessed, just 65 years old, three kids, beautiful wife,
Megan Cummings 41:06
but great co workers. Yes, don’t forget about the co-workers. That’s actually the one thing I haven’t heard you talk about at all. I mean, co workers,
Randolph Rochell 41:15
I’m just working with great people to work with who have always been used to dispatch me. Don Griffin, German Scott just be dispatching so they all were great people. They all have helped me through. Roger Carlton, shout out to him when I was driving a truck, I was driving down Interstate 75 Roger below at a rest area somewhere that pulled in there, and he asked me, Hey, you want to run with truck drivers to become buddies? Oh. He said, you want to run where you’re going? Driver, so I’m going up Oak Hill. He said, that’s where I’m going. It’s my first load. I know I’ve been up to this. He’s all I’ve been up for. Come on, follow me. That’s how I got to know Roger. So you and Roger were driving at the same time. Yeah, wow, that’s awesome. That’s my life. What a great story. Yeah,
Megan Cummings 42:17
we had you in here. I did want to ask you, Randolph, so if the day ever comes that you decide to hang it up and retire, which it’s going to be very hard to let that happen. Just going to give you a warning. No one’s going to want it to happen. What do you think the future orientation coordinator needs to have? What are they? What’s that position going to look like? You know, you’ve been doing it very well for a long time. So, you know, the ins and outs of everything. What kind of a person would you feel comfortable passing the torch to
Randolph Rochell 42:53
People with a good attitude? He got to be a people person. Somebody could relate to all cancer attitudes, and he had to have a good attitude. Can’t just know what I mean by that. He can’t do anything to cause him to get frustrated. Another thing you need to have, you have to have Christ in your life to be an orientation. That’s something we need to put in the handbook. Anyway, you need to have Christ in your life, or even come to open but, yeah, you need to have Christ in your life. Go to church, get some more wisdom about life and about the Word of God, because you’re going to need that deal with different peoples, because you don’t know what you getting every week, but you ain’t got an attitude, and you got some Christ in your life, you going to blow up yourself. You’ll lose it. So if I had to pass a torch on, yeah, but people, personal, personality, attitude with Christ in your life? Hi, somebody that, yeah, I go to church. I love God. Because you don’t. They don’t blow up. I think that’s my personal opinion.
Megan Cummings 44:06
That sounds great. Yeah, absolutely. That’s
Randolph Rochell 44:09
what I would pass it towards somebody that is not in Christ somewhere.
Jeremy Kellett 44:14
That’s a good, good word to end it on right now. Yes, good advice to end it right there. So thank you for sitting down with
Randolph Rochell 44:21
Hey. I really enjoyed it, man, visiting with us. We got to tell your story. We got scouted a little bit. That’s a good story. Yeah.
Jeremy Kellett 44:30
Thank you. Just another testament of what Oakley has and what Oakley does for people, and what Oakley trucking plays a part in, in so many lives and makes a difference, you know. And everybody’s, you know, we’ve been working together for a long time, yeah, and it’s, it’s made a difference in my life, for sure. So, all right, I need a tissue. Well, I appreciate everybody listening to this great episode, Randolph Rochelle. And his life and his story at Oakley truck. And we really appreciate everybody listening every week. We have a new one coming out every Wednesday. If you got suggestions on some content, some things that you want to hear, or you want to talk about, let us know. Man, we were glad to do it. Questions, yes, questions again. Send us some questions. We’ll be glad to answer them and appreciate everybody listening. We’ll talk to you next week. Thanks. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Oakley podcast: trucking, business, and family. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate or review the show on 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, theoakleypodcast.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.