This week on the Oakley Podcast, hosts Jeremy Kellett and Megan Cummings chat with Adrian Guillot, one of our Owner/Operators at Oakley Trucking. During the episode, Adrian shares his journey into the trucking industry, discussing his transition to pneumatic trucking and the challenges he has faced along the way. He highlights the importance of communication with dispatchers and reflects on his family life, including the emotional story behind his business name, “Scruffy Transportation.” Adrian also addresses public misconceptions about truck drivers and shares his future plans in the industry. The episode underscores the rewards and complexities of being a truck driver and so much more. Don’t miss it!
Key topics in today’s conversation include:
- Welcome to Today’s Episode (1:02)
- Megan’s Back to Co-Host (1:57)
- How the Podcast Has Grown (3:59)
- Adrian’s Background in Trucking (6:21)
- Family Dynamics (7:59)
- Pneumatic Trucking Insights (9:42)
- Unloading Process Duration (14:15)
- Starting Trucking Journey (18:18)
- Finding Good Eats on the Road (19:33)
- Adrian’s Wife’s Flea Market Adventures (20:03)
- Truck Purchase Experience Through Arrow Truck Sales (22:39)
- The Story behind “Scruffy Transportation” (26:21)
- Challenges of Owner-Operator Life (32:00)
- Discovering Oakley Trucking (35:04)
- Importance of Dispatcher Relationship (37:43)
- Enjoying the Journey (41:12)
- Public Perception of Truck Drivers (43:59)
- Future Plans as a Truck Driver (46:09)
- Audience Question of the Week: Strategies for Parking as a Driver (48:03)
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.bruce oakley.com.
Transcription
Adrian Guillot 00:12
She had cancer, stage four or five tumors. That’s what was causing the labor, breathing and stuff like that. And with her age and everything, I mean, it was just best to put her down. You know, of course, we took that hoard very hard, and it just so happened I hadn’t come up with my business name yet. So in the process of trying to think of a name, I came up with, you know, Scruffy Transportation and sent my stuff to the state and it was approved, and I had told my wife anything about it. Oh, really. So when they sent me the email stating that it was confirmed, I am now an official business owner with the title, I showed my wife the email. And I mean, she just lost it. Nice surprise. Yeah, yeah. So
Jeremy Kellett 01:00
Scruffy lives on. 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 that might be interested in joining the Oakley family. Hey, welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking business and family. I’m Jeremy kellett, Director of recruiting, and I’m your host for this podcast. And in this episode, we are sitting down with one of our owner operators again, and we’re going to visit with him and talk about his success story. Looking forward to that, because I got some interesting things to discuss. He says he doesn’t, but, you know, we’ll determine that after it’s all said and done, it always is good. Got Megan Cummins back in the seat helping me out today. What’s going on?
Megan Cummings 01:57
Are you living the dream? Where were you the last one? Which one was the last one? Oh, there
Jeremy Kellett 02:02
was Marlin, lindo.
Megan Cummings 02:04
Okay, so can we just agree to blame Corey Huey on that one? Is that what it was? Yeah, honestly, that’s a good idea for any future blame Corey. Yes. Okay, pretty much, yeah. So we’ll let Cory. We’ll let Corey take the ball on that one.
Jeremy Kellett 02:17
I tried to cover for you a little bit, you know, and because a lot of it was probably my fault, actually it was, I think, part Annabelle, she said, We got ta get this done. Let’s get up there.
Megan Cummings 02:27
We can do a three way blank. That’s fine with me.
Jeremy Kellett 02:31
No, but good. Everything is good. Over in your world, everything’s
Megan Cummings 02:33
good. Business as usual, absolutely busy.
Jeremy Kellett 02:36
I know it’s been, it’s really picked up. Been a lot better here lately, Yes, last couple weeks. So things are looking good. Looking up, for sure. Well, things we’ve got, of course, our sponsors, we talk about every week arrow truck sales. Matter of fact, did you buy a truck from Arrow? Yes, hey there. Okay, we may touch on that a minute to talk about those guys and how they’ve been partners for years now, and taking care of people after the sale on the trucks and during it. And Keith does a great job. And I know you deal with Keith and Amy a lot too. So the paperwork process is,
Megan Cummings 03:10
like butter. Like butter, yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 03:12
it is good. And lube zone, you know those guys, I really don’t hear from a lot of our owner operators that use lube zones. Have you ever used them? Adrian, no, sir, I have not. I know there’s not that many locations, but those guys have been. I’ve never heard anything bad about everything I hear is good about the lube zone and, you know, don’t just don’t think there’s enough of them. Yeah, they need to step it up and get some more locations maybe. Anyway, check out our sponsors. Those guys have been good to us since we started this podcast. You know, almost four years ago. I mean, we’re on Episode
Adrian Guillot 03:44
Two, 215 two, 216,
Jeremy Kellett 03:48
so, I mean, we have come a long way. If you’ll go back and look, I was actually going back and looking at our old podcast years ago and trying to just get some different ideas. You know, maybe some revisit, some people, of different things that we might all do again. I was like, Oh my gosh, this was terrible. And I’m probably a year or two from now, we’ll look at this one and go, that was terrible. That was stupid. Why? But it, you know, it just makes you realize how far you’ve come with this podcast, and it’s just been a great tool for us and recruiting and retention, and more than that. You know, the best part of this is when we do one with our owner operators, and we can put out their story, because it’s their actual story that you’re hearing, and it relates to people, you know, other truck drivers can relate to it. And it’s just been, it’s been really good. I’m afraid, though, what’s going to happen, Megan is truck drivers are going to quit coming to the yard, because we soon as you we hijack
Megan Cummings 04:50
you’re the first one as soon as you come in the door, too. Adrian’s
Jeremy Kellett 04:53
like, I wished I’d never come in here today. But, you know, we start to, I mean, we see people and we. Think it’s a great story, and we try to get them on a podcast, and it works out almost every time. It works out great. So
Megan Cummings 05:06
a lot of interesting people that you work with every day, and you just have no idea. So I
Jeremy Kellett 05:10
told Annabelle, said, You know, we got 920 owner operators. You can’t tell me there’s an endless amount of stories there, just getting them to sit down here.
Megan Cummings 05:19
I wanted to mention that as well. I know we kind of talked about it last week, about comments and stuff like that. We’re always looking for ideas for your podcast as well, guests on the podcast. But you know, something that you’d like to hear about? You know, we haven’t really gone over this, or we don’t really talk about this, enough stuff like that. Yeah, comments, that comment form that we were talking about, Facebook, YouTube comments, stuff
Jeremy Kellett 05:44
like that. Need to put some of that out there, give us some of that information. We did. We did ask a question on the last episode. Actually, it’s coming out today, so we have, we haven’t had a chance for it to hear replies, because we’re recording this before we that one comes out, asking that question. But we’re going to try to do that on every episode, to ask a question to our listeners and then kind of encourage them, enticing them to respond.
Megan Cummings 06:08
Comment of the Week, top comments, stuff like that. Yeah, shout out.
Jeremy Kellett 06:13
All right, let’s get right on into what Adrian Geot said, right? Didn’t yes sir from Louisiana, yes, sir.
Adrian Guillot 06:21
Little town called Iowa, Louisiana. It’s spelled just like the state of Iowa, but we pronounce it Iowa.
Megan Cummings 06:28
I figured that out the hard way. We had an owner operator A couple months ago, and I was calling him Friday before he came in for orientation. I said, and that’s Iowa, Louisiana. And he said, actually, it’s Iowa. And I was like, and then we had a discussion about it next week whenever he came in, is that where you’re from, originally, not
Adrian Guillot 06:46
originally, originally. No, I grew up about 15 miles from there in the country, out in the middle of a bunch of rice fields, and then just grew up out there, and we ‘ve moved there probably since one or 2002. Well, I’ve been living there ever since then.
Megan Cummings 07:03
Your country boy,
Adrian Guillot 07:04
yes, ma’am, I had no
Megan Cummings 07:06
idea, Adrian, I thought you were Yankee.
Jeremy Kellett 07:09
Why would you think that? I don’t know. I really did. Why did you whisper that?
Megan Cummings 07:16
I had no clue. I thought you were from the northeast corner of the states. Maybe it’s maybe, I don’t know. I have no idea that’s bad. I’m really sorry
Jeremy Kellett 07:26
you’re still learning all your accents, I guess.
Megan Cummings 07:28
I guess maybe I got a little
Adrian Guillot 07:31
Louisiana accent like most people. That’s
Megan Cummings 07:33
true. That’s true. Maybe, yeah, yeah, that’s
Adrian Guillot 07:36
true. There’s people I don’t understand. And although their whole life. I don’t understand them, the ones that are deep in them, Cajuns, Cajun culture, yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 07:48
yeah, that’s a whole nother deal there. Yeah, I’m not familiar with that either. I’ve heard some of it, but I don’t know what, what’s going on in your life right now? Just
Adrian Guillot 07:59
a lot of work and keeping up with my grandson. I have a wife. I’m 42. I’ve had a wife with three kids, a grandson, an awesome daughter in law, and my grandson’s three years old, and he runs the house. Whenever I’m home, we, you know, try to go see him or have them come visit us, and they live close by, oh yeah, like, 15 minutes away, yeah. So my wife used to watch them a lot when my daughter in law was working, but luckily, they’ve made it to where she didn’t. They were financially able, where they didn’t have she didn’t have to work anymore. So she’s a stay at home mom now, so we don’t get to see him a lot, you know, just once a week now, instead of a couple times a week like we used to. So
Jeremy Kellett 08:46
He tried to get him for the day. He liked to climb up in that truck.
Adrian Guillot 08:49
He does, uh, matter of fact, I was telling you earlier, I had my truck in the shop this past weekend. So when he came home, it wasn’t there, and he was kind of looking forward to seeing it. So I told them when I come back home, I’ll make sure. I’ll bring it home so you can climb in there and hold on to that steering wheel. Yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 09:07
already asking about it, right? Yes, yes. So you’re an Oakley owner operator. How
Adrian Guillot 09:11
Have you been here for a long time? Almost a year and a half. Okay, so started in April of last year in the pneumatic division. Pneumatics. Started in pneumatics. You
Jeremy Kellett 09:19
had prior experience in pneumatics. We came here. So that’s good. Pneumatics is a whole different world. Lot of people ask about that. Can you get somebody on the podcast that’s doing pneumatics? Because we don’t get a lot of that right, because we don’t have just a whole lot of them. We got about 200 pneumatic owner operators out there on the road. So the pneumatic business is a little something different
Adrian Guillot 09:41
in it. It is, it is. I had my old job. I kind of swore it was something I would never want to do full time, because I was kind of a multi purpose employee. I did dumps, crude oil, motor oil hauling, and they started a pneumatic division. And I was one of the only people who had experience already. So I would train, like four or five people, and then I went back to Holland crude oil, which I was already doing. And I was like, oh, you know, it’s not something I want to do full time. And whenever I decided to come over here, I was looking at how the pay was and everything. And I was like, Well, I guess it is going to be something I’m gonna do full time, because I’m coming in straight into pneumatics, and we’ll see how it goes. You know,
Jeremy Kellett 10:31
What’s the difference between pulling a pneumatic tank? It’s
Adrian Guillot 10:35
you really have to, you really have to think a lot when you’re, especially when you’re loading or unloading, really unloading, for sure, there’s pressure you have to keep an eye on the customers. A lot of them, they’ll have a limit of eight psi, 12 psi, knowing your products, certain products you can unload better at eight psi, even if that particular customer does it have a limit on their line? You can push it 15 if you want, but it’s not going to load as well as if you keep it at 10 or 11. It just flows better for our
Jeremy Kellett 11:11
for our listeners out there, we say pneumatic, and sometimes that’s a foreign word, you know, to a lot of people like, what are we talking about? It? I’m just trying to visualize, for people that don’t understand that. I mean, it’s an enclosed tank, right that you put dry product in. It’s all dry, whether it’s catalyst, catalyst, whatever, sand, sand, it’s all dry product that you put in this tank through the holes at the top. So, yeah, the other’s one right there, and you put the product in the hose at the top well. So now you got this product inside this tank, and how are you gonna get it out there? So you have to have a blower on your truck right to run that off of your transmission with gearing up, you know, a certain RPM right to create pressure in the tank. So it just creates so much pressure in the tank because you’re blowing air into it. And then you open the valve, and it lets the product fall down into the product line, correct Adrian, and then you’re blowing it. It’s blowing air out through this. How big are the two it’s
Adrian Guillot 12:20
like a four inch line. It’s chemistry , it’s almost like a science experiment. You have air coming out of the blower, and once it comes to the trailer, it can go three different ways. You can have it run straight into the tank. You can have it run to your aerators or vibrators on the cones. Or you can have it run to your product line that actually pushes the product out. The trick is to learn where all three of those valves need to be every load you have, because different products require more top pressure. Gotcha, some products you don’t really need any top pressure. You just let the gravity of the weight of the product blow it out. You don’t want to, some of us, like, real fluffy, so you don’t want to put a lot of vibrator pressure or aerated pressure in there, because it keeps the product moving too much at the bottom where it’s trying to come out, and you’ll be there all day just playing around. It
Jeremy Kellett 13:14
takes some experience. It does. It does, because you’re when it comes out the back of the trailer, out that line. I mean, there’s no telling how far you’ve got to push that product through that line, right? Whether it’s like a customer’s facility, they don’t want you going more than a certain psi because you’ll mess something up on their end,
Adrian Guillot 13:33
correct? They have dust collectors. Lots of places that have those low pis. It’s because it messes up their dust collectors, or it’s because you’re pushing so far, you’ll have your product that may be like a 25 your valves have four notches. You gotta call them 20 a quarter, a half and three quarters and wide open. You’ll add the product at a quarter, and another customer, you can run it at 100 and unload it, no problem. But because of that one customer, you have to pump the product so far. You have to unload it at a quarter so you don’t fill up the product with so much product. You want more air in that line to keep it moving so it doesn’t get clogged up. How long does it take you to unload? On average, an hour and a half. Some places it can get to be three, and a half hours where I’m going. When I leave here, it’s notorious for taking four hours to unload. Yeah, that’s a very long process, and you want to be extra careful you don’t plug up. I’ve had other operators there. Tell me, last time I went, that one of our drivers had plugged up and he was there for 24 hours. They had to get the maintenance crew involved and start taking lines apart to try to get those loads you want to unload on the side of caution, and just take it nice and
Megan Cummings 14:52
slow. Is that just plugging up your line? Or that’s their line?
Adrian Guillot 14:56
Yeah, it’s that particular place. It’s like. Probably 75 yards from the trailer where it tends to want to plug up. There’s 15 turns in the pipe at this refinery. So
Jeremy Kellett 15:09
for those people that we just lost that are thoroughly and confused me, that we you know, thought about, what am I listening to this episode? I did get off the rails there a little bit, just because the pneumatic tank is, you know, I mean, we kind of know we are talking every day, but our listeners, a lot of our listeners, have no idea what a pneumatic tank is. But, you know, to the point it’s you got to have somebody that is sharp, that’s paying attention, that knows what’s going on, and able to deal with our customers, right? You know every time, because it sounds like it’s different every place you go. So it is back on the rails here on the episode and talking about your success story. How’d you get into trucking? In the beginning,
Adrian Guillot 15:51
I grew up with my dad. My dad was in the Navy when he got out of high school, and then when he got out of the Navy, started driving trucks. So as long as I can remember, even as a little kid, he was always a truck driver. And we would go, not on some trips, not very long trips, shorter little runs, where he could come back that night or whatever, or stuff like that. But sometimes he’d bring his truck home. He was a company driver, and he still drives to this day, but back in the early 2000s I had a job, and I was the independent distributor selling cookies and potato chips to grocery stores, independent distributor like The Little Debbie guy and stuff, and they decided they wanted to buy all the routes back. It was for Kellogg’s Keebler, and so they gave us a buyout option. We were pretty much forced to sell it back. And so I got my check and tried to figure out what I wanted to do with life after that. You know, I was already married, and my daughter, you know, my youngest one was born. And so I said, Well, I guess I’ll go to truck driving school. So they had one about 30 minutes from the house at a state run Community College. And it just so happened they were having it for free. You could go for free. You just had to pay a $25 registration fee that they end up refunding it to you the next week that you had to pay it that date of registration, and then you get a check back the next week, about $25 so it was truly a free course, and six weeks. And after week number five, I got my CDL. At that point we had to go back for one more week, when we truly took the trips. We went to Texas, Shreveport, Mississippi, and I got a job. It was the week of Thanksgiving. We didn’t have class, and I got a job, and the guy wanted me to start that Monday of Thanksgiving week. Did they help you line up a job? No, sir. I got this on my own, and it was the local yard by the house, and the oil field, hauling oil field supplies to drilling rigs and stuff on land. And I knew the manager. He used to work with my dad, and I went and met him for an interview. And the next day, I was at work, working on my week out of class. And so when it was I told him, I said, I gotta go back to truck driving school. You know, he goes. There’s no way you can get out of it. I said, I don’t know, I can call the instructor and ask. So I called the instructor on a Sunday evening and told them, ” Look, I’ve been working all week. I’ve been driving all over and then I said, Do I have to come back to class? And he said, “If you can get me a signed letterhead stating that you’ve driven, you know, how many hours have you driven us?” I’ve been driving 910 hours a day all week, even on Thanksgiving, I was working, and he said, yeah, just have them send it to me. He goes, You don’t have to worry about coming back. And I didn’t.
Jeremy Kellett 18:52
They send you a certificate or something. They
Adrian Guillot 18:54
did. They sure did. Yup, that’s so it’s been in a truck ever since. That’s 1000s. Oh, seven.
Jeremy Kellett 19:01
So you’ve been doing it a while. Yes, sir,
Megan Cummings 19:03
getting close to that 20 year mark.
Jeremy Kellett 19:07
Yeah, what I never did get back. Also, I know you are talking about your family and stuff. What do you guys do in your off time? Y’all take vacations. We hang out the house, or,
Adrian Guillot 19:16
Yeah, we do a lot of hanging out at the house. We’re kind of, kind of foodies. We’ll take a trip two, three hours away, just to eat lunch somewhere. My kind of people really just, you know, a lot of times it’s not really worth it. You know, you did all the hype. How do you find out about them? Just from watching TV shows or on Facebook, social media, okay, you know, especially if it’s a town we’ve never been to, or, you know, the family hasn’t been to I’ll pass through almost everywhere but, or I’ll see one somewhere, and I’ll tell my wife about all my that place looks like it’d be a pretty cool place to go eat. So we’ll plan on a Saturday just to drive over there and check it out. And then not doing that, I like to hunt, try to do a little fishing, where. I can, but mainly hunting stuff. Okay,
Jeremy Kellett 20:02
the main thing my wife does that, I need to give her a little plug on this, because she has a Liz and Leah day, her friend Leah, yeah, and they go, like, once a month, or once every couple months, they take a Friday and they go to some place in Arkansas, they’ll have it mapped to the Golden One part of the state, and they go do their flea markets and find places gold, places to eat that are supposed to be good. And they, they, Oh, yeah, she does. Always taking pictures of Liz and Leah day, so y’all need to look that up. Yeah, they need a podcast. But the best part about this part is she has found me the best chocolate chip cookie I’ve ever eaten in my life. Really, I can’t stop there. I can’t tell you it was made by this lady. She is fantastic, this older lady. It’s this little antique store, and she’s always got them in that glass bowl over there, and they’re about all that big around, and they
Megan Cummings 21:05
tell us where they are.
Jeremy Kellett 21:06
I’m a little afraid too. I went up there the other day. We went through there Saturday because we were on a little trip. My wife and I bought 10 of them. And she says, Oh, you like for me to heat that up for you, honey. That’s all right. She says, Well, I’m gonna have to make another batch, I’m telling you. So what we gotta do now is put in our order before we get there, if we’re gonna, if we’re gonna buy,
Megan Cummings 21:30
just like a, like a one person operation, yeah, I think it
Jeremy Kellett 21:33
is. It is fantastic the most. I’ll narrow it down for you. It’s on Highway 65
Megan Cummings 21:39
towards Harrison. Okay, that does nothing for me, but I’ll look it up
Jeremy Kellett 21:45
whenever it’s close to the town of Pendle. Okay, that’ll really narrow it down for you when you look up Pendle. Okay,
Megan Cummings 21:54
I’ll do that. I was just gonna say the most interesting part of that story is that you got 10 cookies. What was that Saturday? And you didn’t bring any of them,
Jeremy Kellett 22:03
not bringing any of
Megan Cummings 22:06
them, you could have lied and told everybody that you I
Jeremy Kellett 22:08
I mean, they’re two hours away. It’s not like I can just go pick up another 10. My wife did. She had to save two of them for somebody. But I’m like, I’m not. I’m not. I don’t want a good thing. Adrian, you, but you said you like to fish or something. You don’t want to give up the next thing you know, everybody’s in there and the fishing is not ain’t good anymore. That’s right, yeah, you know. So kind of keep it a little close to the right. Anyway, off the rails again. What? What kind of truck do you go to?
Adrian Guillot 22:39
I got a 2018 Kenworth t8 80. Oh, yeah, got
Jeremy Kellett 22:44
it from Keith. Keith, did you how’s that experience?
Adrian Guillot 22:47
It was very easy. I knew when I had applied to come here, it was eight months before I even wanted to actually come here, so I had plenty of time to look and I told them what, you know, what kind of truck I was wanting. And I kind of gave them some very narrow parameters on certain issues that I wanted my truck to have. So it took them a while. I mean, some parts, you know, and like, I didn’t really want to start looking so early. There’s no sense in trying four months out, you know, because you’re not going to buy a truck for four months and just have it sit at the house. So yeah, I kind of told them what I was looking for, but also told them what I was when I was actually going to get it, not to waste anybody’s time. So when it finally came down, time to finally start looking. He found that truck. They hadn’t even bought it, yet it was still at his scouts, or whoever he has that goes to buy trucks, send him that picture. And he sent me a text message at seven o’clock at night on a Monday afternoon to ask me if that was something I was interested in. And I said, Yes, it is very much. I still need a little bit more information about it, because he didn’t have any information. He had just a picture. No idea what the interior was, the engine, transmission, nothing, just the truck from the outside. So about three days later, he finally got the information that I needed, and I put it. I put a small down payment on it to hold it for that 30 days for me to be able to get it before somebody else got it. Yeah, I’ve been having pretty good luck with
Jeremy Kellett 24:27
it. Yeah. Well, it’s a truck, yeah, right, you know. And you were talking about some, you know, maintenance. We were talking about it before we come up here on just how expensive stuff he was, and you’d got some bad death in your deaf tank and just, you know, frustrating, very unfortunate when it comes to breakdowns and maintenance is, is trying and, yeah, what’s
Adrian Guillot 24:50
that on your cap? That’s, that’s my company’s name,
Jeremy Kellett 24:53
scruffy explained to explain that one,
Adrian Guillot 24:56
um, Scruffy was our dog. We had you. My old job. She was a stray dog, a feral dog. Me and a couple other other employees would put food out for everybody, wash out for she was just the yard dog, no, but you couldn’t pet her. She wouldn’t come to you. She’d just hang around. She loved to lay in the middle of the parking lot. She’d lay in the street. Didn’t care. Trucks go around there. She didn’t move. She just did not care. She lived her own little life. And we were in her world, you know. And she survived hurricanes, floods, ice storms, everything we had down there in the last 1012 years, down around Lake Charles and sulfur, Louisiana, and all of a sudden she came missing one day, and me and the drivers got to talk to each other. Have you seen her? No, I hadn’t seen her at all. Well, something must have got her. Nobody’s seen her for a while. Fast forward another, I don’t know, two months. I guess we’ve seen on Facebook that the local pit bull rescue there in Lake Charles was looking for a foster home for a dog. And everybody was a man that looks scruffy, that looks scruffy, and she had an ear that would flop over. It stayed like that, but they had cleaned her up, they cut her, shaved her down, and she was just a petroleum coke yard behind where I used to work at so that’s very dusty, black dirt. It’s nasty. And she would lay in that stuff and just run around in it and just did whatever she wanted to do, right? And so they were looking for a foster home. And everybody I was talking to, they’re like, man, you ought to get her. You ought to get her. And I’m like, No, I don’t know. I don’t know. So I asked my wife about it, and she’s like, if we do, we’re not going to foster her. We’re going to get her, to keep her, we’re going to adopt her. So we got in touch with the animal rescue, came to find out. I knew a lady, or my wife, knew a lady that worked there, and I sent them pictures from my phone of her that I’ve taken over the years, of her just laying on the ground, walking around. She’d bring her little food bowl with her around and just set it down. And so when they saw that. I’m like, I know this dog, you know, I really want to adopt her. I don’t want to foster her, whatever. So they said, Okay, you know, we’ll do the application for everything. They waived the fees. They came to check our house out. You know, they did their due diligence of when they were gonna let somebody adopt the dog. They come check your house out and stuff. So we passed all that, and I think it was two or three days later, the lady who actually was fostering her lived in the town I live in, just five blocks away. We never knew all this time that’s where the dog was really the whole time. So we got her, and, you know, had to because she was scared. I was scared because she was a feral dog, and now all of a sudden, she’s in our house, in a cage, and she’s really terrified of people, but it was slowly over the time she would get easier to work with, you know, not work with. She never growled at us. She never showed aggression at all. Never would bark. We made her a nice little bit out of an old comforter. It was, you know, that thick, and she’d lay there, and she would learn, she learned very quickly to go outside to use the bathroom. I mean, I was shocked at how fast it is to live outside for 12 plus years on your own. Now your house trains very fast. And so that’s all she would do. She would lay in her bed, go use the bathroom, and eat. We tried to love on her. She never knew what affection was right. You would hold her and pet it on her and love on her, and she just lay there. She wouldn’t look like she was enjoying it or anything, but she wouldn’t fight you, and as soon as you let up, she’d take off and go back to her bed. She was done, and we had her a little over a year, and she ended up, well, I’ll never forget I was in the shower. It was late, 10 o’clock, 10: 30 at night, my wife came and told me something’s up earlier that day. She had an accident in the house, which was not like her at all, and she was panting, very tricky labor breathing. So they have an emergency vet there in Lake Charles. We brought her in, and they did tests, checked this and that, and it was basically she had cancer, stage four or five tumors. That’s what was causing the labor, breathing and stuff like that, and what her age and everything. I mean, it was just best to put her down. How old do you think she was from? We were. Estimating between 12 to 15 years that we know of the people I was at that job for 10 years and she was already that size, and the people that were there longer than me always remembered her that size, and that was like 15 years was the longest anybody could really remember her being around.
Jeremy Kellett 30:18
What kind of dog was it? No, no, no. It
Adrian Guillot 30:21
was just, I think the vet kind of said what it was, but I don’t remember right, what it was. So, you know, of course, we took that horde very hard, and it just so happened I hadn’t come up with my business name yet. So in the process of trying to think of a name, I came up with that, you know, scruffy transportation and sending my stuff to the state, and it was approved, and I had told my wife anything about it. Oh, really. So when they sent me the email stating that it was confirmed, I am now an official business owner with the title, I showed my wife the email. And I mean, she just lost it. Nice surprise, yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Kellett 31:02
So scruffy lives on.
Adrian Guillot 31:03
She does. I got her paw print tattooed. My wife has her other paw print on her forearm, and, yeah, she actually looks pretty close to the logo I have on my truck. The graphic designer I hired to do that, had me send in photos of her, and really got the cartoon to try to match the color scheme and everything. And he did a really good job. Good, yeah. And I never met the man. It was all online. I don’t even know where he was from, but he did a very good job.
Jeremy Kellett 31:35
Well, it stands out on your cap. There’s asking. I had no idea, right, right. Good story, though, really good story. Yes, sir, being an owner operator. Now, I guess were you an owner operator before you came to service? My first time, first time, yeah, because you bought your truck. So first time, owner operator. There’s some challenges when it comes to that, making that step from company driver to owner operator. What’s some of those biggest challenges? Adrian, the biggest
Adrian Guillot 32:00
The challenge is really for me, just knowing that you went from a job where you were almost guaranteed hours every week to being at the mercy of the freight world. One thing that I was happy or not stressed too much about was knowing that I didn’t have to find my work. Oakley was going to handle that for me with the dispatcher. So, you know, I know with some of them guys running on their own authority, you kind of need a spouse or somebody to be looking at load boards while you’re driving to try to figure out where you’re going to go next. And I am glad I didn’t have to worry about that, just trying to make sure you have enough money saved up before you get started. You know, sometimes it’s just as simple as what kind of tires you want to run on your truck, you know, some are more expensive than others. Some last longer, just, you know, try to keep it maintained. Keep your truck maintenance up and try to, you know, pray that you don’t get broken down. That’s the main thing for me.
Megan Cummings 33:07
That seems to be pretty, a pretty common theme with everybody. Especially people that have never done it before. Maintenance
Adrian Guillot 33:13
maintenance will hit you in the pocketbook, very fast, breakdowns, average shops, repair shops. Now are double hourly rates than what they were just a year ago. Some of them, especially the dealership shops, they’re very expensive.
Megan Cummings 33:31
What would you do on this side of things, you’ve been an owner operator for about a year and a half. So what would this year’s Adrian say to two years ago, like this is what I’m giving you, the deets, the lowdown on becoming an owner operator. And here’s what I’ve learned so far. I’d
Adrian Guillot 33:48
I waited, I’d have waited to buy my truck the way the market was when I came in. It was not a very good time. You know, realistically looking back, had I held out six months, or maybe bought one six months earlier. I kind of caught it at that weird window. Used
Jeremy Kellett 34:05
truck prices escalated, right, and now they’re tanking. I’ve found
Adrian Guillot 34:10
trucks not that I’m looking but just as on line pop up and a truck that is only mine’s a 2018 I’m seeing 2020, ones for sale for less than when I bought my truck with the same mileage, same engine in a nicer truck, I mean, just a nicer, nicer model and everything. And I was just like, Wow. Just, you know, that’s a
Jeremy Kellett 34:35
good point of the market being like that, because there was a time there where used trucks were just hard to come
Adrian Guillot 34:41
the last two weeks of it. Yeah, prices started going down a week after orientation. I was still looking, just to see what prices were doing. And they were starting, already start going down right after I bought my
Jeremy Kellett 34:52
truck. Yeah, and they’ve continued to go down. You can get a good used truck now, yeah, at a reasonable price, right? Sure. So. When you were looking at that, what made you look at Oakley? How didn’t world? Did you know about us?
Adrian Guillot 35:04
Well, I’ve always, you know, being on the road, you always see trucks on the road. And growing up around trucks, you always get to see the eye catching something shiny, something pretty, you know, whether it be the truck or the trailer. And you know, one thing about some of these guys at Oakley, they got a very shiny truck and trailer. You can’t miss them. I mean, they’re very dedicated to keeping their truck and trailer very clean and polished and just very clean. So I always knew the company didn’t quite realize they were owner operators at the time, you know, years ago. And then once I found out that they were, at that point, years ago, you know, I didn’t even have a dream of coming over here, because I was like, Oh, I’ll never be an owner operator. I mean, there’s no way. And then as time goes on, start looking around just constantly, kind of just looking for a company driver position, just seeing what’s out there. I’ve seen an ad on Facebook and for Oakley through like, a third party site, and I just commented, I think I commented like, if y’all are leasing on in my zip code, and like, I don’t think the next day, a friend of mine that I used to work with it called me, and we hadn’t talked for almost, probably six, seven months, and he said, Man, are you interested in coming to Oakley? I’ve said I don’t have a clue. Man, at this point, I have no idea. And he goes, I’m starting next week. And I said, Oh, really. He goes, Yeah. He goes, I’ll let you know how it is, you know. So I said, Okay. So he went through orientation and all that, and I just kept in touch with him. And I think the second week after orientation, we were talking, and I gave him my my name to give to Dustin and recruiting, and it was on after that, yeah,
Megan Cummings 37:05
always helps. When you have somebody on the inside, right? You can make some, you can make something sound really good. But whenever you have someone who’s right,
Adrian Guillot 37:12
and that’s what he was telling me, I’d mentioned the unit when I was in orientation, as soon as my buddy came over here, he had told me about the podcast, you know. So when I came to orientation, I was already up to date on every podcast there ever was through Oakley before I walked through the doors, you know, and learned a lot of how things operate and stuff like that before I even got here. So I felt like I was kind of already a step ahead on certain aspects of the job. Yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 37:43
good. You mentioned earlier, one of the reliefs was it was up to your dispatcher to find loads. You didn’t have to have somebody you know. You didn’t have to do that. Your wife didn’t have to do that, right? Talk about that. This dispatcher relationship you have? Yeah, yeah, I have, because I think a lot of people, you know, are, that’s one of their big worries before they come to a place, is, you know, dispatcher is going to have control of me, is going to tell me where I need to go, and all this stuff. And people worry about that, right? I think it’s an unnecessary worry, but they do worry about that, and they’re, you do have to have a good relationship, right? Right?
Adrian Guillot 38:19
You do one thing I’ve liked when I came over here, or even before I came here, I learned that the dispatcher is however. I don’t know how it’s set up, but part of their income comes from their trucks, or however it’s I might not be wearing that, right, but so they have it in their best interest to keep you moving, keep you rolling, and as long as you stay in communication with them, let them know when you’re broke down or hey, look, when I come in, I always if I’m coming home for the weekend and I have to have my truck in the shop, I let them know on Wednesday, don’t even start planning anything for Monday morning, Because I don’t know if my truck’s gonna be ready. Yeah, so I don’t want him to waste his time to get me a load thinking that it’s going to be ready on Monday. I always make sure I call them Monday morning while I’m sitting in the truck. Already paid for, got my receipt. Okay? Now we’re ready to go. Now, you can look for me alone, and generally, you know, it’ll take them, you know, 1015, 20 minutes. Sometimes, first thing seven, I call them at seven because he hasn’t sat down yet, and that phone’s ringing. Hey, my truck’s ready. Where am I going? Yeah, I’m ready to go, you know. But it is very good. I think, like this morning, I think it might be the first or second time I’ve ever even gone and talked to them in person, just because I don’t get up here too much. But I also know how busy they are. It’s just the
Megan Cummings 39:54
two guys, you know, for how many drivers, how many pneumatics do we have? Did you say Jeremy? We got 200 Yeah, there. Between just,
Jeremy Kellett 40:00
no, we got several dispatchers for
Megan Cummings 40:03
new for what? Oh, never mind. I was thinking of a vacuum tank this whole time. No, we
Jeremy Kellett 40:10
don’t have many of those. Okay, well, just,
Adrian Guillot 40:13
I call them every morning. As soon as I can, it’s Good morning. What you do on Mondays is, Hey, good morning. How was your weekend? And then it’s down to business. Hey, look, I’m loaded now, or I’m gonna, I should be there at one o’clock to get loaded, you know, and I’ll be there tomorrow to unload at this time, around this time, or anything that’s going on, if I need to pass through reserve to get a little maintenance done on the trailer. That’s typically kind of where I run a lot towards that yard. But other than that, it’s, you know, it’s short and sweet and and, you know, he’s got a lot of stuff to when I realize how much stuff they have to do, the paperwork, our paperwork, yeah, all our loads, all the drivers they have, I don’t tie them up on the phone very long.
Megan Cummings 41:01
Yeah, busy, fellas. You go to Canada occasionally too, with that,
Adrian Guillot 41:06
those tanks, right?
Jeremy Kellett 41:09
Well, it’s obvious, I mean, it’s obvious to me. I mean, you’re proud to be a truck driver. I mean, yes sir, you enjoy it, or you wouldn’t be good. I enjoy it very much. And what, what do you enjoy so much about being a truck driver,
Adrian Guillot 41:22
mainly just getting paid to Site C. I mean, there’s so many places, um, but you can’t stop at them. It doesn’t matter, like, matter of fact, going back to the bad, contaminated def problem, I was in Bainbridge, Georgia last week. I was washed out. I was parked up for the evening. I had an appointment early the next morning, 20 minutes down the road at the customer, and that phone rings, and it’s not my dispatcher. I looked at the clock, it’s two minutes to five Central. I’m from the East. Oh, man, this ain’t good. So he goes, Hey, man, got a little change of plans for you, I said, really? He goes, Yeah, we need you to be in Savannah in the morning. Okay, never been to Savannah before. I’m not sure how far it is away from where I’m at, okay, yeah, go ahead. That’s cool. More miles, you know, and it was still heading right back towards the house. So I got off the phone with them and got everything I’d cooked supper in my truck, and picked everything up and got on my phone, started looking up the address of where I needed to go, and took off and stopped for the night. The next morning, I got there, going through Savannah. And I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more beautiful city, really it is. So I told my wife on the phone. I was like, we’re gonna come over here and spend the weekend or two, or weekend or extended weekend. It’s so pretty in Savannah , Georgia. It’s Savannah, Georgia. It is a very old town. And I love history, okay? And the old buildings I went to the one of the ports they have over there, and you drive straight through, I mean, four or five story buildings that are, you know, I couldn’t even guess how old they are, but they’re definitely not new. They’re very old, and the businesses nowadays have moved into them, where there’s a building that looks like it was built in the early 1900s but at the bottom, the first floors of Five Guys Burgers in it, and it’s not decorated like the normal storefronts, right? And it’s just beautiful trees along the water. You can take trolley tours. And when I saw that, I was like, oh, yeah, we’re gonna make the trip, you know, just to go over there. Get it planned. Yeah, exactly. You know, there’s plenty of places to eat. I
Jeremy Kellett 43:44
got two more questions for you, all right, and then we’ll wrap this thing up. One is, what would I’ve asked this of several on rompers I’ve had on here. What do you want the general public, people that are out there to know about? Truck drivers?
Adrian Guillot 43:58
Okay, that’s a lot of several answers, truck
Jeremy Kellett 44:02
drivers and trucking companies kind of have a bad reputation, right, right, right, you know, which is
Adrian Guillot 44:07
a lot of a lot of times. First off, you know, we’re all human beings and in general, no matter what you’re driving, you need to respect one another. We don’t want you to cut in front of us more than you want to get behind us or whatever, because we’re not moving the same speed you’re moving. But we do have blind spots. Yeah, sometimes you can get into one. I have mirrors on both sides of my hood, where mine are pretty minimal, but every once in a while you’ll catch one all of a sudden. You know, whoa, where they come from, you know. But just give us a lot of space. Know what the merge lanes are, the acceleration ramps on the interfer that’s for you to get up to speed, not to come on the interstate at 35 if you’re in a. In a pickup truck. That’s not good. Very good point. That’s not good. We can’t always move over. And sometimes you think we can move over, or we think we can move over, then at the last minute if somebody cuts us off, so now we can’t move over. And now we really got to get on our brakes, because you already cut in front of us, you know. And that’s where a lot of accidents happen. Construction zones are another one. Don’t ever ride on the side of a truck in a construction zone, and barricades Just please don’t do it. We’re not comfortable. You’re not comfortable. And the room for error is very minimal, you know? Yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 45:40
That’s very true stuff, right? Yeah, it is.
Adrian Guillot 45:43
Construction zones are the number number one thing. When wrecks happen, they happen quickly and very badly. In construction zones, there’s nowhere to go, so you could have been a two vehicle wreck on an open inter 12, yeah. You know
Jeremy Kellett 46:00
last question, what does unless Megan’s got one last question is, what does the future look like for Adrian guy, my future and scruffy trucking right,
Adrian Guillot 46:10
my future, playing on, I’m 42 playing along, probably staying in pneumatics till I’m around 60, and then just get an old Hopper bottom and run that thing out till I’m ready to give it up.
Jeremy Kellett 46:26
There you go. Good plan,
Adrian Guillot 46:29
yeah, yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 46:31
That’s a good plan.
Adrian Guillot 46:32
They still got a lot of I’ve seen some pneumatic guys out there that, you know. I’ll talk to them, especially the old, the older guys and I hope I can get around like they do at their age, climbing up on that trailer. They take their time, yeah, they move slow, but they get it done. Yeah.
Jeremy Kellett 46:53
Fantastic episode. Adrian, appreciate you taking y’all come up here and visit with us a little bit, and letting our listeners learn another success story about Oakley owner operators. And just for the record, we just called you this morning, right? This was not rehearsed or set up or anything. Yeah,
Adrian Guillot 47:11
I saw the email pop up. I didn’t even leave Sawyer’s desk yet, and there was already an email. Hey, does he want to do the podcast?
Jeremy Kellett 47:19
I mean, it’s, you know, it’s a part of, like I said earlier. Megan, we probably won’t have anybody coming to the yard anymore because they’re afraid to go. We’re gone.
Megan Cummings 47:27
We need to have everybody sign. An NDA, it’s like, you don’t talk about this, right? Well,
Jeremy Kellett 47:32
thanks everybody. I really appreciate everybody listening to the Oakley podcast and every week. And you guys. Oh, one other thing we asked a question about last episode. I was going to do another one. I want to try to get some comments from our listeners out there to let us know what you think. And the question that we’re going to put out today is, what is your strategy? I probably should ask you this, what is your strategy for finding a place to park every night? So hold that, Adrian. So you know that’s, I know that’s got to be people that are not truck drivers are like, What is he talking about? Why is it a strategy to find a place to park? But it isn’t. It is so lovely to hear from everybody. What’s your strategy? How do you find a place to park? What’s your little routine that you figure out when you’re in a different place every day? So thanks everybody for listening to the Oakley podcast. We’ll talk to you again 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 and 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.