This week on the Oakley Podcast, host Jeremy Kellett sits down with Brent Poulsen, one of our long-time owner/operators at Oakley Trucking who is retiring. Brent shares his 35-year journey in trucking, including his Navy background, memorable experiences, and plans to move to the Philippines. He reflects on industry changes, the camaraderie among drivers, and his hobbies like building computers and hydroponic gardening. The episode underscores the importance of community within Oakley Trucking and Brent’s positive impact on those around him. Don’t miss this one last ride with Oakley for Brent on this episode.
Key topics in today’s conversation include:
- Previewing Today’s Episode (0:38)
- Spotify Playlist Announcement (2:06)
- Brent’s Retirement Announcement (3:06)
- Hobbies and Future Plans (7:51)
- Building a House in the Philippines (9:02)
- Challenges of Building Abroad (11:06)
- Retirement Plans and Reflections (13:40)
- Trucking Experience and Industry Changes (15:02)
- Favorite Aspects of Trucking (17:24)
- Route Driver Insights (20:30)
- Memorable Pneumatic Loads (22:02)
- Camaraderie in Trucking (23:08)
- Retirement Reflections (27:16)
- Final Thoughts and Takeaways (32:12)
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 everybody,
Megan Cummings 00:38
Welcome back to the Oakley podcast. My name is Megan Cummings, and I’m not your host for this episode. I’m very sorry, but I am your host for this intro. Before I get into that, I kind of wanted to talk to you guys about a few things as always. Thank you so much for subscribing, liking, commenting, giving us ideas, coming in and being cool with doing a podcast. We love that. Second of all, I wanted to mention it’s just about time for calendar pictures. I see a lot on the Oakley trucking community Facebook page. If y’all have any pictures that you want to be considered for the calendar, you can send those over to Annabelle’s email. You can call us, put it on the Oakley Facebook page, message us there, kind of whichever is easiest for you. We’re going to be rounding those up here sometime soon. Also truck trades. You guys reacted astoundingly to that podcast we did a couple weeks ago with Wendy about truck trades. Keep all that in mind. We really appreciate it. Any kind of a notice that you can give me. I really appreciate it. Really just in the end, what we want is what’s best for you guys and what makes it easiest on you. And the earlier that we get notice that you’re thinking about trading trucks, the easier the process is for you. So I wanted to stop and say, thank you guys for really taking that in and taking that advice to heart. We really appreciate it. Last thing is our Oakley trucking Spotify playlist. Are you joking? Um, I saw it on Facebook a couple weeks ago, and I didn’t know whose idea it was, or whose, excuse me, whose page it was, and I was really excited whenever I found out it was ours. It’s on Spotify. It’s called Oakley trucking road trip playlist. So you’re going to want to bump that on the way to the grocery store on Saturday morning or to where we deliver anywhere. So that’s free to download. It’s free to listen to on Spotify. It’s the Oakley trucking road trip playlist. There’s posts on Facebook that you can add songs to. Can you go in there and directly add songs as well? Okay, well, anyways, we’re always taking suggestions that really got a lot of feedback, and we really appreciate you guys for joining in, because that’s so much fun. We love it. We love to think of things like that for you guys. So this week, Jeremy sat down with Brent Paulson. He’s one of our owner operators. He’s been with us for almost 10 years. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about Brent. Unfortunately, I wish I could give you some hot, juicy gossip on Brent, but I can’t. He’s just a great guy. I’ve worked with Brent since I started. He used to go to Canada. Well, I think he still does, goes to Canada all the time, and he’s one of those people where anytime you talk to him, he’s just in a good mood. I have so enjoyed working with him. He is retiring. He’s leaving us, unfortunately, but we’re really excited for him. He’s had a great time here at Oakley. I hope we’ve had a great time with him. He’s moving to the Philippines in a couple months. So in the episode, Jeremy talks a little bit about his time here at Oakley. And we really do. We appreciate you, Brent, thanks for coming on the podcast. Thanks for being a part of the Oakley family. I would salute you and say, Thank you for your service, but I think that might just be a military thing, but if it wasn’t, I would do that anyways, be sure to like and comment subscribe, give us some ideas of what you guys want to see next, and we hope you enjoy the Oakley podcast. Central
Jeremy Kellett 04:11
Arkansas truck and trailer strives to take care of our owner operators as quickly and accurately as possible, as a family owned and operated company, they understand and value the importance of relationships, just like we do. That is why Oakley owner operator Joe Williams continues to return to their shop for service on his truck.
Brent Poulsen 04:30
I’ve been with Oakley trucking for two years this April, 1 time. Owner operator, it was a shock the maintenance and the repairs on it, because I’ve never done anything like this before. And I told my wife, we’ll try that Central Arkansas truck and trailer, you know, because they’re so convenient right there off the interstate, right down the road from Oakley trucking. And I talked to Nathan, and being an owner operator, he tries to get the owner operators in and out. Out as quickly as possible, because he knows if we’re not rolling, we’re not making money. If it’s, they tell me they can get my truck in at a certain time. They get it in at a certain time. If they tell me, well, it’ll be ready at this time. It’s ready at that time. So I can really count on they’re competitive with anybody around, probably better than
Jeremy Kellett 05:18
most. Next time your truck needs service, give Central Arkansas truck and trailer a call at 501-568-2185, and let them know you heard it here on the Oakley podcast. So sitting down with Brent Poulson and I got some sad news. Brent Poulson is retiring from Oakley truck. So last day, last load you did today. Very sorry. How’d that feel?
Brent Poulsen 05:47
Yeah, cranking down that landing gear, thinking that’s the last time I’m gonna have to twirl that handle. It kind of started to really hit. This hasn’t really hit totally yet, but to truck for so long, it’s been 35 years, I think, yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 06:05
yeah. I mean, it’s gonna be a, gonna be a change. Now. How long have you been at Oakley?
Brent Poulsen 06:09
Nine years this time, two years before back in oh 102, okay, so 11 total, 11 total,
Jeremy Kellett 06:15
and you’re done. You’re not just retiring from Oakley. You’re retiring from trucking.
Brent Poulsen 06:19
I’m retiring from everything except life in general.
Jeremy Kellett 06:24
Give our listeners Brent a little bit of history, who, where you’re from? Why? Family, hobbies, real quick. So they kind of get to know
Brent Poulsen 06:33
I was born and raised in Provo Utah, spent most of my time there until I went into the Navy for eight years, came back out of the Navy, looking for a job and aircraft maintenance because I had my license. But, Oh, they got the military that I was able to get experience in, so they had a really, really big shortage of mechanics. So they open it up to trade schools. Well, the trade schools, I didn’t know this, but the trade schools just flooded the market right before I retired, so I couldn’t really find a really good job there, so ended up so after getting into trucking with Sierra England, since I couldn’t really find him maintenance job, spent the rest of that time, mostly in Salt Lake City, and then ended up North Dakota oil fields for a little while that fell on its face, and I said, Wow, I used to work for Oakley, and they’re pretty good company, so I own or operate again. So I ended up decking down here, yeah, well, I call this here family, family. My wife and daughter are 11. She’s in the Philippines. They’re both in the Philippines, they’ve been there six years now, okay?
Jeremy Kellett 07:44
And hobbies, what do you do? I know you said you pretty much live in that truck because you’ve been working for others,
Brent Poulsen 07:50
yeah, just making that retirement money. Hobbies, computers, I guess. Oh, really, yeah, I’d like to build computers. You build them. Yeah, I built three. Now I want to buy and build a nice gaming setup when I get over the Philippines. Oh, really, that’s kind of a hobby. But when I get over there, I’ll do some hydroponic gardening, kind of like rooftop gardening. Okay, I’d like to get into woodwork, but I don’t spend all that money for tools, and it
Jeremy Kellett 08:20
never pictured you for gaming. Oh, yeah, and building computers. Who would that’s something that nobody probably knows about. Not
Brent Poulsen 08:28
too many people. Yeah, I’ve got a little computer that I use in the truck. So I’ve got a Volvo, so it has the dinette set, and I just set up the table and have the computer sitting there and sleep up on top. Now
Jeremy Kellett 08:43
Tell me a little bit here. We’ll get into your time at Oakley and your career as a truck driver and that. But so your wife and daughter are in the Philippines, correct? And that’s where you’re headed,
Brent Poulsen 08:55
correct? I fly out in eight days, so you’re moving over there. Yeah, it’s all set up. We built the house during COVID. Okay, so
Jeremy Kellett 09:04
you’ve been over there for a while. I mean, off and on, I guess, yeah, I
Brent Poulsen 09:07
go at least once a year. Ever since I got married, I’ve been going back and forth, okay, but since I’ve had them it’s been weird, oh, yeah, my wife was here for what, five, six years, okay, yeah, she got pregnant about as soon as she got over here the first month. Okay, so that was actually kind of a blessing. It kept her busy. Since I’m a truck driver, I’m just gone, where’d y’all live over here in the state? So I started off in Utah. I was working for free so it was just 330 hour trips roughly a week. So I was hunting back through every other day, so that wasn’t too bad, but once I had to make the decision to go over the road, it was a lot tougher on her, but having a child to keep her busy was kind of a blessing, because she’s not really outgoing, but that’s also one of the reasons why she we needed to move her back. She just needed the support, since she’s not out and getting a lot of friends, and
Jeremy Kellett 10:04
That’s why I was wondering, is why you decided to go to the Philippines. She
Brent Poulsen 10:08
was really dedicated to raising the child but a little too much. She’s trying to teach her math when she’s three, teacher spelling and things like little early, a little early, but she didn’t have anything else to do, and didn’t really have a lot of friends. This is when we’re down. Is when we’re down here. I had to make the choice of going over the road just to provide for the family. I ended up with another truck up in North Dakota, and when the oil field fell down, it just needed something steady, yeah? And Oakley, I need to provide that, yeah? So I came back and, yeah, it’s been good, but she needed to have the support of her family, so we sent her back over
Jeremy Kellett 10:46
there. So you found a place over there. You said you built a house.
Brent Poulsen 10:49
Yeah, we took the family compound, so to speak, demolished the old family house and built it over and over on top. It’s three stories tall, so actually, for if you really want
Jeremy Kellett 11:02
to look at it like it was a challenge building a place in the Philippines, not really the name of the town. The
Brent Poulsen 11:09
The name of the town is panicky, okay, which means bat, bat. Okay, there’s no bats there. I’ve never seen one. Well, I’ve seen them down by the sub big bay area, but down on the coast, but never up where I’m at. So it’s a farming area, a lot of rice, of course, rice, corn, all out of vegetables. So it’s a really flat area. So it’s an agricultural area, okay? Building it was pretty easy. We knew the people. My sister in law was actually kind and has an architecture engineering mind. So she was actually the project manager. She’d built the two other houses, as far as, like, not built with their hands, but, you know, just kind of designing and ordering the materials, working with the lead construction guy. And so we had all those things already in place. So it just took money. That was helpful. It was, yeah, it really saved us a lot. The there’s a bad history of theft over there when it comes to trusting an engineer to build that house for is
Jeremy Kellett 12:10
it? What is the is the crime like, you know, within the Philippines or, well, that said,
Brent Poulsen 12:15
It’s a third world country, so they have lots of people that aren’t working. So anytime you have that situation, it’s going to drive crime up a little bit. But I’ve never really felt in danger or anything. Of course, you want to be smart and not, yeah, go wander around where you’re not supposed to. But,
Jeremy Kellett 12:32
well, it’s just interesting to me, the the country I don’t know much about, but there’s
Brent Poulsen 12:38
a lot of English speakers. Is it because America took over? Well, took over the governance from Spain in the Spanish American War. After that, America took it over. MacArthur was one of the governors. In fact, right before World War Two, really, MacArthur was the governor over there, so he just transferred into his general role for the war, and then thought he went to govern Japan after that. But
Jeremy Kellett 13:07
Anyway, it’s interesting, and I guess I’ve never met anybody that says, hey, I’m retiring and moving to the Philippines. I’ve already built a house there, and your wife and daughter are already back over there.
Brent Poulsen 13:19
Yeah, yeah. They’ve been there six years. We were gonna bring her back after a year, once she got kind of that support and got her things straightened out, but it just turned into, my daughter never wanted to go back, yeah? So all of a sudden she has family and cousins, and she’s just like, I’m not going back. But she was only four, so she didn’t remember a lot,
Jeremy Kellett 13:39
but well, good. I mean, that’s awesome. It sounds like you got a retirement plan now. Now you have to work to do that. That’s what you’ve been out here doing, yes, sir. And you’ve been pulling a pneumatic tank, correct? Do that for the whole time over
Brent Poulsen 13:53
here. No, the first two years were, end up, okay. And then the first two years prior, 10102, it ended up okay.
Jeremy Kellett 13:59
So you have little experience on both and end up in pneumatics. That’s what you’ve been doing pneumatics for. How long? Now? Seven
Brent Poulsen 14:05
years, a little over seven. Okay, lock it pretty good. I do. It was a lot cleaner, wasn’t it?
Jeremy Kellett 14:11
I heard that before too. Then the money
Brent Poulsen 14:14
seemed to be about the same. Yeah, a little bit better, but not drastically. Customers, different customers. There are no scrapyards. Yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 14:25
That’s always a plus. Well, it always seems like the little bit, I’d say, pick your maybe more rules some of the receivers,
Brent Poulsen 14:34
yeah, at first I thought there were a lot more, but I was more worried about, super worried about cleanliness of the trailer and things like that. And then I learned to relax just a little bit. But yeah, I used to really stress out after a washout. I was inspecting everything just
Jeremy Kellett 14:50
Yeah, yeah, because we stress on that, yeah, getting that trailer clean, yeah. What have you liked? I mean, about driving a truck? Yeah? You’ve done it for 37 years. It
Brent Poulsen 15:02
was more necessity, and I couldn’t really get out now, at first, it was kind of an adventure. I I grew up in the area where era where they kind of glamorized it, so to speak, like shows like BJ and the bear, yeah, and some of the movies used to be, the comradery was really you run across lonely stretches of highway and there’d be three or four and you’re just talking telling stories over the CB radio. And those days are gone.
Jeremy Kellett 15:31
I feel like used to just when I was a kid, I felt like truck drivers were somebody we looked up to, and that’s what you’re talking about back in the day, when they had the camaraderie, and I felt like that’s what it used to be.
Brent Poulsen 15:44
I think so
Jeremy Kellett 15:45
What’s changed? What has changed since then? Part of it, I
Brent Poulsen 15:49
I think, is technology. Yeah, cell phones, instead of when you break down, there used to be two, three guys stop and see what they can do, see if they got anti-freeze work or whatever, broken hose or just help you out, see what you can do. And now it’s a cell phone call away to get a service truck. So, but that’s part of it. Part of it’s the newer drivers are easy. They’re well, they’re just, they don’t know what it used to be. I guess I could see that. You know, there’s a lot of change, a lot in the way we respect each
Jeremy Kellett 16:23
other. I think going from no cell phone, living life with no technology, no not no technology, but no cell phone, which is the way I grew up and didn’t have a cell phone until, oh, man, I don’t even know 1995 or something, sure, but the ones now coming up, they’ve never been without a cell phone, exactly. So I think that’s the difference. We know what it was like without it, and how we managed and how we enjoyed life, and you get the little things out when you got people that have grown up with nothing but stuck right in their face, and it’s just a difference in experiences, I guess, having
Brent Poulsen 17:10
a constant to something to churn your brain. So yeah, in your hands,
Jeremy Kellett 17:17
What do you tell me about some of the favorite things you like about trucking and working at Oakley? Experience is
Brent Poulsen 17:24
steady. I like being an owner operator because I have more control of my own destiny, my own I can control more of my own success. I can make good decisions and work ethic. You can decide how hard you want to work, but it’s mostly budgeting that’s a big part of it, still making those decisions that’s going to help you in the long run, maintenance, keeping up on your keeping up on your truck, because that downtime costs in the wrong situations, and just having that control, whereas a company driver, you’re not Oakley, gives me that opportunity. I know they’ve got there might be slow times, but they know all the shippers and the receivers and they have the contacts, they can keep me busy.
Jeremy Kellett 18:14
Yeah, I think that’s one of our best qualities, if we can we’re steady. It’s not so much up and down like a lot of the other freight that’s out there, and
Brent Poulsen 18:25
I think pneumatics is better at that being more steady. Like do you? Yeah, I saw recently where the end ups and the hoppers might have slowed down quite a bit, but it just seemed like we ran steady. It might not have been hard, but it was at least stunning. At aero
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Jeremy Kellett 19:38
Well, some of the favorite parts of the country you’ve been in your 37 career. Oh,
Brent Poulsen 19:43
it’s got to be probably Montana. Oh, really, yeah, I delivered free to lay chips for 11 years up into Montana. And that’s the most memorable. Was delivering chips into a storage unit at three in the morning. And it’s 20 below.
20:03
Yeah, you probably remember that. That’s gonna
Brent Poulsen 20:05
be the most memorable times yet, for sure. Every one of those route vans you see stocking up a store has a has an area, whether it’s out in the middle of nowhere and it’s just a storage unit or in town and it’s a or a warehouse, okay, every one of those, we deliver out of the truck, from the
Jeremy Kellett 20:24
delivered to the storage. Dot the store. Yeah, we
Brent Poulsen 20:27
deliver to the route driver, and then they take it out, okay, to the store. So that’s what we did, is go from the plant out and deliver out there. So, and that’s my favorite kind of driver, is up in the middle of nowhere. Just be able to relax completely. Just relax and drive so you don’t see a lot of cars at midnight on I 15 going up into Montana.
Jeremy Kellett 20:54
You’ve covered all the states. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Brent Poulsen 20:57
Easily, except for, well, I’ve been to Alaska, where I’ve never driven truck there, but, yeah, I’ve driven truck and all the lower 48 in fact, my first since I had gotten back with Oakley, I think, was only three or four years when I was able to say, Okay, I’ve hit every single one. Because there for a long time, even though I’d been over the road, I’d never hit in North Dakota, Vermont and Maine, and then, oh, Scotty Crisco took care of that.
Jeremy Kellett 21:28
He just told him.
Brent Poulsen 21:30
He had me up there. Oh, I went up the coast, up through Maine and up into Canada. I can’t remember the name of the provinces, but you
Jeremy Kellett 21:41
Remember that? Were you part of that group? I guess it was a few years ago. We sent a bunch of trucks to Nova Scotia. I think the tank has no that’s been a while, but that was neat. This
Brent Poulsen 21:52
was a fish meal. No, yeah, I think that’s what they called it. It was a fish meal.
Jeremy Kellett 22:02
What’s some of the loads you remember doing on pneumatics that were some of the memorable loads you’ve done
Brent Poulsen 22:08
some long or there’s a one that was a high dollar additive to all the stuff we do, stuff we catalyze. It was a high dollar catalyst. It was yellow in color. And I made the delivery end like, what’s so special about this? And they say it’s really high dollar, so there’s a different color, and it came out of a warehouse instead of our regular loading. Okay, that was one of the ones I remember where I took some other type of catalyst type additive stuff, loaded it in Savannah, Georgia, and took it all the way over to Long Beach, California. So really, I literally went coast to coast.
Jeremy Kellett 22:45
You’ve done that. That was interesting. That’s a lot of riding time. It was
Brent Poulsen 22:49
nice. I like those relaxing dad, yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 22:53
That’s good. So what do you think you’re gonna miss the most? I mean, picture yourself here over in the Philippines, and it’s, let’s say, six months from now, Brent, what do you think you’re gonna miss the most overall
Brent Poulsen 23:08
trucking? I can’t think of anything as far as Oakley. It would be the camaraderie that we have around here, when you got a bunch of old school drivers sitting around the lounge, and I’ll walk in and they’re just telling stories, yeah, and you don’t even have to join in. You just sit back and listen. So it’d be the camaraderie, I
Jeremy Kellett 23:29
guess that we have here. Got some really good owner operators. They do really well. Is there any trucking over in the Philippines? There
Brent Poulsen 23:37
is, but they use the straight trucks mostly, and it’s usually something used out of Korea,
Jeremy Kellett 23:45
older, nothing you want
Brent Poulsen 23:46
to drive, and you do not want to drive a truck over there because you might have a bicycle in front of you. The next thing you know, it’s right there. They just don’t respect trucks like we do, and they don’t really have interstates? Well, they do, but the trucks don’t really use them. And it’s interesting, when they are hauling the sugar cane, they load it up. It is probably seen in some of the videos out of India where they do that on TikTok or something like that. But then there’ll be guys riding up there. It’s loaded 15 feet tall, and oh my goodness, there’s guys riding up there on top.
Jeremy Kellett 24:26
You’re in for an experience. I am. Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. I was gonna say it sounds like you’re prepared for it
Brent Poulsen 24:33
somewhat. There’s still things I know that computer stuff is not gonna keep me busy for very long, but not. My brother in law is building a house. So I can go, obviously, go over and give the workers a hard time. Yeah, they don’t speak English very well. So anytime I come around, they kind of scamper the other way. But I go over and help them a little bit. They shovel. It’s the house building project process over there really too. Different. They’ll literally come and dump your sand and your gravel for your cement. They’ll dump it in the street and right in front of you. So now nobody gets past the street. So now everybody’s trying to shovel it, and they shovel it into bags. An interesting video that I had, I wish I could show it to you, and I think, I don’t think that’s on this phone, but the way they do it is concrete. Now we’re building this new shop out here. And the other day there was a concrete pumper truck sitting there with the arm, Yeah, over there, when I was laying the foundation for my say, my third story, my second story, third story, they would take all these bags of gravel and sand that they shoveled off of the street, put it into bags, and then they had it stacked up. So they’d have the old fashioned little barrel mixer, and they’d throw everything in there, one bag of this, two bags of that, some water, and a couple of things of cement, and mix it up, and then they pour it out on the ground. So it’s a little damned area. They then load it into a five gallon bucket like you would get from Lowe’s. And we hired about 30 people that day when we’re doing those pours, and they carry three stories up a five gallon bucket. Oh my gosh, yeah. It’s a different experience over there. But labor is so cheap, yeah, I think I paid, they paid a little extra because I think we paid each one of those $11 a day. Wow, yeah, for that hard, harder labor, and normally just general labor is maybe $10 a day. Yeah, it’s definitely different over there, yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 26:39
Well, I can’t tell you what you’ve meant to Oakley. I mean, it’s been we being in a recruiting department, I see the newer generation, and see the guys that we’re looking for constantly, and Yaw are getting a lot harder to find, for sure, and wish we had more of you hate to see you go, but it’s also a little bit rewarding that an owner operator came over here has made a good living and has enjoyed it and is set up for retirement. I mean, that’s the plan, that’s the goal, that’s the goal. Anything else you’d like to add? Brent, no, I think it’s about it. I think we covered it. I mean, I really appreciate you. I did
Brent Poulsen 27:20
have one, okay, minor regret that I didn’t see accomplished while I was here. Years ago, I had an idea for how Oakley could support the driver in customer service, but just the driver and getting information before he went into a brand new place. Anytime you go on vacation, you want as much information as you can. Where am I going? What am I doing? And I thought of a way that could be accomplished, and I turned it in, and I just specialize. Oh, that’s not technologically possible. I was talking to Scott at Crisco a couple years ago, and kind of mentioned it to him, and he actually ran with the idea, and I guess it’s been approved, but it’s so far down on the list that tee can’t get too fast. But what it would be is like, if they sent you a load, you’d have the option to go in and be directed to someone. I guess you could call it a Facebook page. Each customer would have one of those. And then with all the common loading hours, things like that, phone numbers, but down below that, drivers could put in information from a driver’s perspective. So it’s basically a forums
Jeremy Kellett 28:33
page. I remember talking to you about that a while, and it
Brent Poulsen 28:37
would just be so helpful, especially on the customer service side, I think it would be, but just know that it had been approved by management and just never see it because they can’t get to it because they’re so busy.
Jeremy Kellett 28:50
Yeah, so to be clear, so if you get a you get the load information. So you want to pick up a load, and you pull it up on your screen, you can see the drivers had made notes that had been in there before, maybe, of hey, this is check
Brent Poulsen 29:05
here. Yeah, go to this gate. Don’t go into this gate. Take
Jeremy Kellett 29:12
this road. Is it that you need to know that dispatch you don’t even know exactly, yeah, from a driver’s perspective. And then if they could make a note, if the option was there to make a note on every place you went to, then all the guys would be able to see it. Yeah, oh, you have, you can’t
Brent Poulsen 29:26
make it too big, yeah, just for data, yeah, but you can. You could have a situation where you’d like a comment, because that comment was helpful. Make sure that, yeah, the drivers go in and say, Okay, keep this up on top because that was good information, yeah. So it would keep it up on top. You could limit it to 15 comments or something, drop in a comment at number four or five. And if it’s good information, it moves to the top. If people like it, I think in a customer service situation, I
Jeremy Kellett 29:56
I think so too. It helps a lot when you don’t have too much. Information, I don’t think, yeah,
Brent Poulsen 30:01
There’s a situation where we go into some place with a lot of different entrances, and you pull into one and you’re not supposed to be there. I had one where I had to go tell two other trucks to back up so I could move out of the way. So I was blocking everything. Embarrassing, but it goes a long way for them to see, oh, see that guy’s going in the right place, not the wrong place, clogging up
Jeremy Kellett 30:22
the system. Yeah. No, I get it. I understand it. We have a van the same company pull up here in front of the office building, where you can’t get in, sure, and we’ve told them, when I’ve talked to a guy that gets the load out here, and he says, I’ve told them and told them to come to 3700 Lincoln Avenue, not Yep, 3400 Gribble Street. And he said, they just keep doing it. We run into it all the time. Yeah, yeah. Maybe if they had those notes,
Brent Poulsen 30:48
That’s the only thing I regret about Oakley, is they didn’t have more IT people.
Jeremy Kellett 30:55
Annabelle, you need to open the door down there, where the IT people are. Let him see that going on before you leave. Maybe we can get it guy over in the Philippines.
Brent Poulsen 31:07
There you go. Can help. Sure. There’s plenty of them over there. They got lots of colleges. That’s what the Philippines does. If they supply workers to the world. They really do so nurses go to any place in America that’s off the beaten track, and they have hired, they can’t get nurses, so they hire a lot of Filipinos, really,
Jeremy Kellett 31:27
yeah, I had no idea. Not
Brent Poulsen 31:29
just Filipinos. There’s engineers. They got into engineering schools. They have a lot of schools, and they try to get jobs so they can send money home. Is,
Jeremy Kellett 31:37
I mean, is everybody, or a lot of people trying to get out of there. Oh yeah. They want work. They want half of Dubai to be built by Filipinos.
Brent Poulsen 31:49
They provided a huge labor source when Dubai was building up commercializing.
Jeremy Kellett 31:55
Well, I’m excited for you, man. Thank you. Hey. I appreciate you being here. Thank you as much as you have and all the work you’ve done, all the customers, you’ve taken care of. And I mean, it’s, it’s something that I wish we could clone. You have a few more of you here, but it’s got a lot of good we got a lot of good ones. We got a lot of good ones. Brent, but I sure wish you well. Thank you. Retirement and enjoy it. Tell your wife and daughter. We hated to lose you, but we understand, and yeah, and stay in touch with us.
Brent Poulsen 32:25
We can do that. Technology allows us to do that. Yeah. Well,
Jeremy Kellett 32:30
Thanks everybody listening to the Oakley podcast. Man, what a story. Brent, one of our owner operators, working here, retiring from here, and having plans, having a goal. And hope, hope more of you out there have that go, maybe not retiring anytime soon, because we really need you, but we appreciate everybody listening to the Oakley podcast, and 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.