This week on the Oakley Podcast, host Jeremy Kellett chats with Nick Dulaney, Nick Crisco, and Ben Huminski around the company’s new ventures in hazardous and non-hazardous waste hauling. The group explores the processes, safety measures, and adaptability required in this sector. Former owner-operator Ben shares insights on health considerations and the importance of personal protective equipment (PPE) at certain job sites. The episode emphasizes the significance of compliance, communication, thorough trailer inspections, Oakley Trucking’s commitment to quality service, the promising opportunities in waste management, and more.
Key topics in today’s conversation include:
- Previewing Today’s Episode (0:12)
- New Business Opportunities (3:03)
- Regulatory Processes (4:41)
- Customer Reactions (7:03)
- Experience in Waste Remediation (9:29)
- Flexibility on Job Sites (12:26)
- Importance of Trailer Preparation (14:59)
- PPE Requirements (18:14)
- Trailer Cleanliness Procedures (21:33)
- Dumping Conditions at Landfills (24:15)
- Industry Competition and Opportunities (26:02)
- Feedback from Drivers (29:39)
- Final Thoughts and Takeaways (32:04)
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
Jeremy Kellett 00:12
Thanks for tuning in to the Oakley podcast, trucking, business and family. My name is Jeremy Kellett, and I’m your host for this podcast, which is brought to you by Oakley trucking, located in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Our goal is to inspire, educate and provide resources for our owner operators as well as outside truck drivers that may be interested in becoming a part of the Oakley family. So sit back, relax and keep your eyes on the road as we start this week’s brand new episode. Hey. Welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking business and family. My name is Jeremy Kellett, Director recruiting here at Oakley trucking, I’m your host for this podcast, and on today’s episode, I got a full house and a full table on this topic we’re going to talk about, because we’re going to talk about some good, good things happening at Oakley, opportunities that that’s happening, new freight that’s happening specifically with some hazardous, non hazardous waste that we’re dealing with, some stuff we’re learning just we feel like this is a good opportunity to communicate to our owner operators, and that’s kind of what this episode is. A little bit more to that. Now, the beginning of it here, I think is going to be good for all our listeners, but when we get off here in the weeds a little bit with with this stuff that we’re doing, it may not be but anyway, we’re gonna get to that just a second first, and we’ll talk about my sponsors, Central Arkansas, truck and trailer. These guys have been awesome coming out of the gate as a new sponsor. And I went down there two weeks ago, I guess, went down there and visited them, and looked around the shop. I mean, they are running a clean place. They’re running an organized place. We have gotten guys there. We sent a guy from Oakley down there. They’re on the spot, getting you in, getting you out. Also, they’re doing that special too. If you get a light on to check engine light, or whatever it is, they don’t charge you to check on that, like a lot of places will have a diagnostic fee. They don’t do that there right now. So running a special for Oakley guys. Y’all get down there and check them out. Central Arkansas, truck and trailer. They’re on exit seven, I believe, yeah, the England highway, exit Scott England, exit seven, on 440 so check them out there. Also Arrow Truck Sales. You guys know them. They’ve been with us forever, getting closer to this location being open here in Little Rock, so that they got a new place opening up here off of I 40. And that’s getting real close to getting done too. And talked to Keith about it the other day. They’re lining people up, so it’s going to be really helpful for our own operators around here. It’s just going to be truck sales, though not, not really service. I think they get their own bays to service the trucks that they sell. But other than that, great sponsors. Everything’s going good. But I want to get to this subject, because this is kind of spur of the moment, by the way, and I gotta apologize. Right out of the gate, we did not have an episode last week, so we got a lot of main looks, a lot of questions, what’s going on? We just didn’t have time to do one. We just got away from us, and I didn’t wish I just didn’t put one out. To put one out. I always wanted to bring you guys some good information that I feel like is going to help you and be successful as an owner operator and working at Oakley. So we skipped last week, but that’s alright. That gives us a little momentum for the next few weeks. So apologize for that, but we’re back on track now. So got Nick Crisco, Ben humans, Nick Dulaney sitting in with me. Both Nicks are in operations and dealing with this frayed Ben’s safety. The former owner operator has some experience with this stuff too, so we’re going to pick their brains a little bit. I think I’d like guys to start off. I don’t know, maybe all of you do, Laney starts off with you on this new business, yeah.
Nick Dulaney 04:04
So kind of a new industry that we got into. What would you say? Nick little, over a year ago, it was a fall of 23 okay, so fall of 23 we got involved with hazard not or not, excuse me, hazardous waste hauling, so mainly dealing with a lot of remediation projects. So going out contaminated soil, companies go out, they’re cleaning up the sites and basically utilizing Oakley trucking to load up the contaminated soil and haul it off to different landfills across
Jeremy Kellett 04:36
the country. Is this something that just came about, or we actively pursued it. Well,
Nick Crisco 04:41
We’ve gotten calls and gotten wind of work for years on this type deal, but it’s just there’s a difference. There’s a process of obtaining an EPA ID number that took some time that we’ve just had that we had never done. I guess the timing was right. The. It is higher up. I felt like it was a good decision for a myriad of reasons, having been ready as a company, maybe having manpower to handle the business and what all comes with it, because there’s a lot more to it than just booking a load and dispatching from point A to point B, as we’re still learning. So we were getting wind initially, it was late summer of 23 of a job out in Arizona, going to Colorado from a broker was just calling here looking for trucks. And we kind of long story short, that ended up being our maiden voyage on hauling waste. So even with it being non has waste is the has waste, which we can do both still have to have the EPA ID number, which we had never had. So that kind of initially opened the flood gates, and then it was kind of both. I mean, we once we got that to that point of being able to haul the waste, now we’re actively pursuing more, because it just really opened our eyes on what AWS out there? It’s just a whole other world of opportunity that we’ve never been equipped to service
Jeremy Kellett 06:10
well. It’s something that we have to learn as we go, I guess. But always, I mean, you guys are always looking for more opportunities. I mean, freight, what lanes, type of freight? I mean, this is just something else to get off in. And it definitely,
Nick Dulaney 06:28
and that’s been the big thing. It’s been a good fit for Oakley just because of our footprint across the country. Think a lot of people in this business that are out there, they’ve been impressed with our availability and our coverage across the country, and our ability to react quickly, it’s played a big part in our success so far, because some of these jobs could be one or two trucks, some of them could be 20 or 30 trucks, and I think we’ve got an ability to react a lot faster than most companies out there. So so
Jeremy Kellett 06:59
you got customers going, what now you’re in this really, I didn’t know that. You
Nick Dulaney 07:03
bet. You bet. And it really gets a lot of compliments on our owner operators out there and the calibrary guys that we have on the job. I mean, I’d say about every job that we’ve done, we’ve gotten multiple cop compliments on the face of Oakley and our guys that are out there so,
Jeremy Kellett 07:21
Well, it’s because, I mean, we are top of the line, you bet, when it comes to owner, operator, company, I mean, everybody else is, no doubt, behind us. Yeah, it shows so and yeah, and then you start, we start showing up against the competition, and we’re looking a lot better. It ain’t gonna be long until we’re gonna be the wanted person to all these jobs. I’m assuming we got more and more of these coming up. Yes, sir, all the time.
Nick Crisco 07:49
Yeah. I mean, it’s just more and more opportunity. Create an opportunity just like that. I mean, you start getting your name out there, and people realize what kind of manpower we have, response time, the number of guys we’ve got with 40 feet in dumps, and you get into, like he said, there, there’s their range. Some of them are, might be 10 loads to 500 loads our manpower, that can be a huge feather to have on this side. So, but yes, to answer your question, I mean, we were getting reached out. We get contacted nearly daily for quotes to say there’s a lot that may be jobs that aren’t anticipated for a year and a half from now, dealing with EPA and who wins the job. But yeah, we’re getting more and more calls, emails. Are
Jeremy Kellett 08:35
These typical jobs? Nick that has a start date and a completion date? Yeah, we do it until it’s over.
Nick Crisco 08:42
Yes. I mean, a lot of times the customer, or the company that’s actually doing the loading excavating yellow iron, they call it maybe, sending out a crew for X date. And then once they get a crew on site, they have a target date that they’re wanting to try to get it done. Or they have a target date if you have to have it done. I mean, we’ve seen lots of different scenarios so far. I mean, we’ve done some that were a couple 100 times, and we’ve done some that were 1015 trucks a day for weeks. So it’s just that they vary.
Jeremy Kellett 09:19
Okay, Ben, what’s your experience when it comes to this waste stuff? What do you bring to the table here?
Ben Huminski 09:28
Before I came to Oakley, I’ve done waste remediation up in Alaska, in the oil field. When I was an owner operator here, I got placed on a few jobs. I was lucky enough to be placed on a few jobs, and as Oakley had me out there doing it, I was just communicative back with my dispatch team to communicate things that I saw. And so it’s kind of transitioned to when I took a position in the office, bringing my experience from both as an owner operator here at Oakley and previous. Experience to make sure that we grow together and we’re doing things the right way. Yeah, my job, but the way I feel is I just want to support these guys and make sure that they have all the information that they need to do their job. Yeah?
Jeremy Kellett 10:11
Well, that’s because these guys, I had never done it. Any help is good, but we’ve I mean, how many times have we done stuff we didn’t know what we’re getting into, but, man, we succeeded. Do we know? Yeah, I can’t count the number of times. I mean, we’ve done it, alright? So let’s, I think we should talk a little bit about some of the details. I mean, to help, I guess, what I’d like to do is help prepare our owner operators that may come into this. I’m not saying, and I don’t guess. I don’t want owner operators to think this is blown up and this is all they’re fixing to do. And because that’s not the case, this is just a very small part of a business that we’re adding to what we already have. We just know if we’re not really comfortable or not, we shouldn’t be comfortably knowledgeable about it. We need to tell those guys, if they happen to be in the right position to get a job, what do they need to know to help them? So let’s just start maybe with that. What do they need to know before going to the load? I
Nick Dulaney 11:11
The first thing with this type of work is that every job is different. It’s constantly changing. So generally, whenever we start a project, we kind of have an outline of what the customer is expecting, what the requirements are, what the permitting is, kind of a checklist that we go down to make sure that that we’ve got all of our bases covered, and then we kind of get that to dispatch so that they have the information that they give to the driver. So I think that’s one thing to know, is every job is different. So just because it was one way on the first job you worked on, maybe totally different on this it’s different materials, there’s different different regulations, different things that you have to do. So I think that’s one thing to understand, is that you need to focus on whatever job it is and the instructions that were given with that job, because they’re kind of specific to each situation. Yeah, if you happen to be
Jeremy Kellett 12:04
on a previous job, don’t bring that to the next one, because it could all be different. 100% okay, so I understand. I get you what some of the some of the small things maybe being that you would tell a guy that’s starting on one of these jobs and what he needs to know or be prepared for.
Ben Huminski 12:25
One of the biggest things is being flexible. A lot of these job sites, especially waste remediation, things flex, things change, and you just have a good attitude to flexibility and communicate back so that the people in the office know what’s going on out there on the job site, like sometimes they may shut down for a few hours because this happened or that, or they may be moving how they’re loading things out. And so really, just not getting into your feelings and getting all up tight about things, and just knowing that if you communicate, we these guys on the dispatch side can communicate with who they need to make sure that everything stays lined out. Things pop up, whether it be a mislabeled thing on a waste manifest or whatever, but everything’s fixable as long blood pressure stays low and just stays professional.
Jeremy Kellett 13:16
That goes with everything. And I mean, that’s every day and every load for sure. So we had some notes on some of this stuff. I mean, you guys brought up some things lying in the trailer, PPE, requirements, placards, Bill lighting, some of this stuff. What do y’all don’t want to dive off into that with some examples, or some what you get into
Nick Crisco 13:37
maybe again each job, it varied on what they would have on site, as far as placards, if we would need to send them, if they would have them, if we would need to pick some up, which, generally, if we’re doing a hazmat load, it’s the shipper responsibility to respond. But in some of these jobs, we’ve had to bring our own, or
Jeremy Kellett 13:59
probably, yeah, I guess Nick, not to interrupt you, they’re probably bringing all the equipment to this location and making a Yeah, and it can loading location out of
Nick Crisco 14:10
the middle of nowhere. Okay, so it’s a little different than picking up a load of ammonia nitrate at an established fertilizer where they’re having placards. So there’ve been some situations there where we’ve had to do some extra leg work on getting placards. And so that seems basic, but if it is, it is paramount that we have the right placards and that they’re on the trailer before leaving. And then when you’re empty, go back to take them off. I know there’s something that’s not always talked about. But then if you’re going back empty, you gotta take them off. Oh, good point. So those are, those are a couple situations that we’ve encountered along the way. The lining of the trailer is key. I mean, every load we’ve done, we’ve had some sort of liner, either that we’ve brought or the customer has already had on site, like. A plastic liner, or, yeah, most of the time, like our non has soils that we’ve been hauling, just plastic we’ve bought from Lowe’s Home Depot, Amazon. We did a big job last summer where the customer actually had to spec liners built to our trailers, which was really nice. But yeah, most, I mean, 95% what we’ve done is just plastic we’ve bought most of the time we have to get, we have to arrange that on the front end. We have to get our guys to stop and get some we pay for. They pay for it. We pay them back. But the actual lining of the trailer, that sounds, you know, real simple, but we have had some issues on the non has dirt. It’s maybe not as key. I should say if, I mean it’s key, but if you’re hauling, we had an instance up in one of the jobs up in the northwest, we were hauling some waste, and the liner broke and got the material actually exposed into the trailer. And I don’t so I think that’s very key on guys having a good understanding of how to line the trailer. And Ben, probably could speak better to that, maybe how I’ve got in my head how I would do it, but I’ve also got an input on that. Ben, yeah,
Ben Huminski 16:14
when it comes to line the trailer, one of the first things you want to know is whether it’s a full line all the way up through the dog house, or sometimes they’re just putting a pile in the middle, and you’ll roll the liner out up both walls, but from the base of your dog house to the back door. So it’s important to understand which way the expectation is that you’re going to line that trailer, and if it’s covering the dog house, I mean, it may involve tape or some clamps, because you want to actually cover everything up. A good way is to use your bow pockets, like you take your bow out and then stake it through the plastic. You know, hold the plastic up. You want it to flush if there’s air gaps in it, when they start duping in, it’ll pull the liner down. And that’s typically how the walls and some of the floors get exposed to these materials. And it’s just it’s taking your time. Sometimes, if you have a buddy there, sometimes, if it’s windy, it’s key to have two people tackle it at a time, and you roll from the front to the back, or from the back to the front, and then cut your plastic off where you need and then start it at the tailgate and work your way forward, one line, one side of the trailer first, and then go back and do the other side is typically the best bet having coverage over top of your tarp, because sometimes they end up loading with clamshell buckets or other things where they’re loading over that tarp. And you don’t want to have products sitting in between the tarp and the trailer where it gets stuck and missed and now you’re just carrying waste around that you don’t know about.
Nick Crisco 17:39
Just take some paying attention to detail. Yeah, I mean, it just all things that we go over ahead of time, like he’s talked about, but it’s just, it’s still we’ve that is one scenario that we had, yeah, and that it just, and the better you the more time you take doing that, the more throw you are on that. It helps when the job’s over, clean, it’s a trailer, etc, right? So just taking time to do that right, and understanding how to do that right.
Jeremy Kellett 18:06
PPE, you run into any issues with that. I’m assuming on a non harzist site, they probably have rules.
Nick Crisco 18:13
We have, most of the jobs we’ve done, our standard PPE has worked, but we did the job. We did up, and we’re hauling them up in Oregon. We had to have some Tyvek suits and some extra things. But, yeah, that’s another and we get into the PCBs. We’ve had to do some reading on that, on more extensive PCB, poly, chlorinated bi fields. So saying that wrong, I’d rather you say PCB, yeah, yeah, sure. So those can have that’s a different world inside of the world, if that’s the right way of putting it. Of waste. Has waste that there’s some different PPE requirements on that, depending on the levels. But Arlan has waste. We call it pretty much the standard PPE. But those are all things that we’ve been trying to research ahead of time,
Jeremy Kellett 19:08
right? So you know what to tell the owner operator to go pick up. I mean, in case he’s got to have something, yeah, that he don’t have, he’s got a he got a chance to go buy it or
Ben Huminski 19:18
and it’s gone really good figuring out what PPE is actually required and it I’ve seen them Oakley do a great job at communicating, like, not just the PPE to wear, but like, if they’re a question on how to wear it, getting that appropriate information out to them, so that we’re protecting ourselves along those lines. Well,
Jeremy Kellett 19:36
We were talking about placards earlier. We’ve discussed placards on this podcast a couple times, actually, because we’d gotten over the threshold there at one time, and it was an issue. But, you know, you made a good point earlier, Nick before this podcast that goes anywhere all the stuff that we do Holland nitrate on these customers, if it’s a place. Record load. You got to know it. I mean, we got to do things right, not just on this stuff. I mean, on everything,
Nick Dulaney 20:05
definitely, definitely. And we kind of, when we went over the threshold, it brought it to everybody’s attention. But, you know, just things like making sure your placards are secure, checking every time you stop walking around on your pre trip, making sure your placards are still there stuff that kind of goes without saying, but, you know, it’s kind of been brought to my attention a lot more making sure those little things are taken care of, and making sure you’re following all the rules that go along with hauling ammonia nitrate or any of the other hazardous products that we own.
Jeremy Kellett 20:36
That’s right, and the owner operator is responsible for that. Can’t stress that enough that can’t rely on dispatch to tell them every thing they gotta know they’re going to hollow load. That’s got to be a placard. I’m getting a little bit off subject, but, I mean, they got to know that. They got to know what’s required with a hazmat load, right? Being
Ben Huminski 20:55
absolutely and there are resources available. I mean, if you can’t remember anything, you can call. I mean, call safety, call your dispatcher. We’ll get you the information if it’s been a while since you’ve followed it. But you got to know the placard requirements. Clear tape, a pebble inside your placard holder, something to secure that placard so that if it does try to blow out. But you know, if you stop to use the bathroom, do a proper walk around and make sure that everything’s still secure. Nothing has wiggled out of space where air is going to rip things out, all these small little things like they add up and can snowball really quickly.
Jeremy Kellett 21:33
So let’s talk about the cleanliness of the trailer. What are we doing? What are we doing after the jobs are over to make sure we’re back to a clean trailer and can haul anything.
Nick Crisco 21:45
We’ve been very thorough on that, especially the slow way that we haul, and going back to lining the trailer, that obviously helps. I mean, most of the time for lining the trailer properly, trailers are coming out clean. But we’re still internally monitoring minimum of the next five loads on what they’re on, what we’re hauling, no no feed grade, scrap metals, tire chips, things like that, and then bringing the trailers back in here for an inspection before we go back to over the road. Okay, day to day hauling. So you’re pretty much getting a direct route back to North Little Rock after one, after the job’s over. Yeah. I mean, based on whether it’s not has or has, we’re keeping a close eye on when those loads are over, on what we’re hauling, and then coming through here after we’ve hauled the minimum five loads, and inspecting the trailer, washing out before we go back to the the Oakley, doing our system, doing
Jeremy Kellett 22:47
our due diligence, and making sure this where our reputation is upheld, we get definitely, yeah, we’re gonna bring you the product that you bought. We’re gonna deliver it for you.
Nick Crisco 22:57
Yeah, for sure. I mean, we’re being, I think we’re being overly cautious at times, but that’s the way we’re going to do it, so the
Jeremy Kellett 23:06
the way we’ve always done it. Yeah, nothing wrong with that. What about being I think you put health considerations on here. What was that? What were you talking about with that?
Ben Huminski 23:13
So when it comes to health considerations, like if we put out the PPE, I mean, we’re putting it out there because we care about your health. You got to look at it like we’re not just telling you to wear something because we’re checking a box. We care about you. We want people around long term. And with some of this stuff that’s hazardous, it is hazardous to your health, and just because somebody else isn’t wearing something doesn’t mean that we’re not giving you information that’s relevant to protect your health. And so that’s why I put it with health considerations. It is, look, hazardous. Is it hazardous? If there’s a PPE requirement that we’re putting out there, it’s to protect yourself. Got
Jeremy Kellett 23:55
you? Yeah? So nothing to do with the owner operator’s health prior to coming to do that, you know, not in August, just that we’re trying to help him with the proper PPE coming in. Sure. What about duping conditions? I would assume this stuff is a waste. It’s going to landfill somewhere. Yeah.
Nick Dulaney 24:15
So depending on what type of waste it is, there’s certain landfills across the country that deal with different levels of waste, so and so since we started this, we’ve run into several different situations and different landfills. A lot of the major ones we’ve been into, and we kind of know what to expect and know what we’re working with on those. We have several jobs where we’re going to new landfills, just like local waste management facilities, and that’s one thing that we always cover with the customer up front, is, where are we going? What’s the duping situation? We explain to them what’s needed to safely dump. We’ve got to have a level place. It’s got to be small. Tooth. It’s got to be solid. We can’t dump on top of the face of the landfill with the trash trucks. There’s certain requirements that we have to have. And we’ll send guys there to go and inspect it. I’ve been to several landfills to personally inspect them, try to do the groundwork so that we know, hey, here’s what the situation is. We know that they know what we need to safely dump, and so that we know what we’re
Jeremy Kellett 25:24
we know. We know before that first load gets there to dump, we know what their conditions are, yes, okay, do
Nick Dulaney 25:31
everything that we can do now. With that being said, a lot of these landfills, it’s ever changing. So when you go in today, you go in a month from now, and it can be totally different. So I guess everybody needs to know that we try to do our due diligence to make sure that we have a safe situation. But at the end of the day, when you go in there, if it doesn’t look right and it doesn’t look safe, then stop. We don’t want to take any chances. And we’ve done real good with that. We’ve had to try to communicate that. And if guys see a problem, I don’t have a problem, shutting a job down until we get it safe. So
Jeremy Kellett 26:04
Is this, is this business or this little industry? Is it pretty competitive? Y’all finding out?
Nick Dulaney 26:10
Yeah, how do you answer that? Nick, it’s definitely competitive. I mean, there is competition out there, but
Jeremy Kellett 26:17
you see a need for us to be in this, yeah, I mean,
Nick Crisco 26:23
there’s always going to be a government -related EPA, I mean, and there’s going to be, there’s always going to be plants that have busted pipes, or busted diesel pipes, or a BP gas station busted pipe. That’s one we did. We hauled a bunch of diesel contaminated soil. We hauled a bunch off of a beach from years ago. They had sand that was technically contaminated, just enough from an Old Navy setup. I mean, there’s just, there’s a million scenarios and things that are going to happen and continue to happen like that. Clean up soil contaminations. I mean, you go, you just, if you ever want to go down a rabbit hole, just go look at super fun sites on Google and see how many different scenarios there are out there. Some of the jobs are stagnant and heavy. But, I mean, that’s, yeah, I think we’re just scratching the surface on what’s out there, and we’re going about it the right way, on trying to be cautious. Go learn the right way without just going guns blazing and yeah, and then find out. Whoops, yeah. Well, we shouldn’t have done that. Might have shouldn’t look into this a little bit more. I think there’s no doubt there are a lot of opportunities out there.
Jeremy Kellett 27:49
Well, that’s kind of, I mean, that’s kind of the way I’m seeing it with you guys too, just listening a little bit to what’s going on out there on the floor. I mean, it’s an opportunity. It’s great for our company to diversify a little bit more, just a little bit here and there that we’re doing. And, I mean, of course, you guys are doing awesome by learning and figuring everything out so we don’t make huge mistakes. Because I’m sure dealing with the EPA, you can make some big mistakes. Yep, yep, not careful. So, I mean, we’re doing things right. I’m just excited about the diversifying, opening up a lot more freight
Nick Crisco 28:27
it is. And I remember last summer doing, and I went to a conference, and it was like, I remember making the comment to him, like, felt like we just stepped and do a
Jeremy Kellett 28:38
The whole new diverse group didn’t know it existed, just stuff out there. Didn’t
Nick Crisco 28:41
even now, companies and the whole industry that we’ve just made that’s out there. I
Jeremy Kellett 28:48
I definitely want to put a dulane, you probably helped me better on this, but I don’t want our listeners to think we’re abandoning everything and we’re solely going into the desert. I mean, this is just a small part of, yeah, what we’ve been doing. It’s, I mean,
Nick Dulaney 29:06
yeah, we’re still, I mean, our core business is still there. This is just an opportunity to expand. It’s a great fit with our end dumps. But on the other side of it, there’s a lot of business out there for roll offs. There’s an opportunity to have chassis to haul roll offs all across the country. There’s a lot of liquid tank business. A lot of these contacts and companies that we’re working with, they do a lot of other things, which means more opportunity. And I mean, it’s just one of the most exciting things I’ve been a part of since I’ve been here. I mean, it’s really a huge opportunity.
Jeremy Kellett 29:39
What’s the feedback you’re getting from the drivers that have been on the job? I mean, positive
Nick Crisco 29:44
Overall, for sure, we’ve had some instances like Ben said we had a job last spring up in Washington State. That was, I mean, every phone call we got was a different detail, and like, we’re going to push trucks back a day all due to. Weather related, or it was BP, was when the people we were working for were getting information from them, and it became an ongoing joke that, being said, everybody was compensated for the days. But kind of got to have that. It’s a little. You’re kind of dealing with some of that too. There’s a lot of different people involved in some of these jobs, and what you’re getting told changes so but very little. I mean, for as many loads as we’ve done, that situation sticks out. We had a deal where we had to shut down a few days for a bunch of rain out of the landfill, but we were compensated. Everybody got compensated for their wait time. Had zero issue on getting compensation time for or compensation for wait times. Oh, good. So I mean, and I’m not really seeing any more than that, comparative to all the other lows we do. I mean, we run into delays at other plants as well. So that would be, that’s the only real issue. I’ve had a couple paperwork issues. That is one thing on the bill, lighting and manifest requirements that we’ve learned too. It’s very important for them to be filled out completely and properly. Some companies are really good at doing this and some of them are putting a lot of the work on us to fill it out properly. So that’s one thing we’ve learned along the way, too. But yeah, some of the exciting things we did, like East on the week, we actually did a job last fall, hauling containers on chassis, or any chassis, and haul containers from Jacksonville, Florida to sulfur, Louisiana, for a few months. We’ve, we’re, we’ve hauled some pre-loaded trailers for customers. There’s power only, you know, I mean, just things that we’ve
Jeremy Kellett 31:36
haven’t done it. Yeah, a little different. We’re not used to it.
Nick Crisco 31:39
A couple examples. There’s more companies I know that do the same type stuff. We’re just kind of getting our name out there.
Ben Huminski 31:46
And I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from just guys I knew when I was an owner operator, guys I worked with at BP. I was the recipient of that wait time pay, and it was very nice. But, you know, they’re all everyone that I’ve talked to has been very positive, like, Hey, this is something new. This is fun. And it’s always been a really good reception, because, like, you guys have provided us with good information, real communicative, and that’s helpful for the owner operator when they’re getting on that side. And so going into something that’s new, having that information is a nice backup, feeling like, okay, Oakley is giving me the information I need to get this done, and that’s been real positive. A lot of guys are like, when’s this next job happening?
Jeremy Kellett 32:29
Right? Well, there’s going to be more of them, because I think we, like you said earlier, our owner operators are different. We are the best of the best, and we start showing up at some of these places and do what we’re supposed to do. They’re going to use us again. They’re going to call us again. Oh yeah, just like they have over all these years on the same stuff we’ve been doing and the same things we’ve been preaching with customer service and safety and doing things that are right, taking care of yourself, your equipment. I mean, playing the part. Can’t stress it enough, how it works. It works. Anything else you guys like to add? I think that’s all good information for everybody. I know it’s a little bit kind of off the wall beating path of a podcast, but I think it’s what we’re doing. And yeah, I just don’t, I don’t want our own operators. I mean, guys, once again, said it earlier. This is just another piece of the huge pie that we’re doing. We’re trying to provide more and more freight for them and for us. I mean, that’s the whole thing so Well, I appreciate you guys sitting in giving that information, and it’s all good stuff. I really appreciate our owner, operators out there, and all our listeners. I know this might not have, not everybody. They might have turned us off a little early today. That’s alright, I think, for the right person, this is a good episode, and I think it’s good for us to communicate with our own players. That’s what we try to do here at Oakley, and that is especially what this podcast is for, is to make you guys more successful. So appreciate you listening every week. Every Wednesday, we get some new stuff coming at you. Let us know if you have anything that you want to particularly hear, and I’ll put it together. I appreciate it. We’ll talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to this episode with Oakley podcast, trucking, business and family. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate or review the show in the podcast platform of your choice and share it with a friend. We love hearing from our audience. So if you’ve got a question comment or just want to say hello, head over to our website, the Oakley podcast.com and click the leave a comment 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.