Trucking for Millennials

This week's episode features Laura Lysacek and Miranda Bender, but you may know them as the Broker Babes (@brokerbabes on Instagram)

If you're into trucking and on Instagram, you've probably seen this pair of freight brokers striking a pose inside and outside trucks, but that's just part of what they do.

Most of the time they are helping carriers stay loaded and shippers keep shipping as full time freight brokers!

In this episode you'll learn about how they got into the industry, decided to team up and start a business on their own, what they want their followers to know, how they generate new business and much more!

We really enjoyed getting to know them and know you will to!

Don't forget to give them a follow!

We have a great episode for you this week!

We chat with truck driver Wayne Cragg who's a vocal advocate and educator for the trucking industry. We ask him about his experience driving over the road during this unprecedented time before diving deep into some trucking related topics.

We discuss the recent White House ceremony honoring truck drivers, the lack of PPE for drivers, how infrastructure funding is needed right now, advice for young people in the industry and much, much, more!

Follow him @wayne_cragg on YouTube, connect with him on LinkedIn!

Let us know what you think of this episode!

For our second episode with Waymo, we chat with Jon Rainwater, a CDL driver who's training truck drivers how to interact and monitor Waymo's fleet of Automated Trucks.

Jon sees the future of automated trucking as a huge opportunity for all generations to take part in as this new way of moving freight across the nation is being developed and tested on highways today.

Waymo will also start driving along interstates in Texas including I-10, I-20, and I-45, driving the interesting and promising commercial route between New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas exploring how their tech might be able to create new transportation solutions.

Jon is a CDL training instructor for Waymo Via trucking where he trains new Class A drivers in partnership with Transdev (one of our partners who recruits and manages our trained drivers) 2-3 times a week on how to interact with the Waymo self-driving system. He actually helped put together our trucking-specific training and develop the final exam our trained drivers for trucking need to take at the end of the training! He's been with the program since June 2019, and prior to that he was a truck driver for the majority of his career. He also previously worked as a case manager at the Salvation Army and was an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Army.

We're super excited to share this two part episode with Waymo, the automated vehicle company of Alphabet, a sister company of Google.

Before we dive into the interview, Michael and Aaron discuss some trucking news.

They discuss how Amazon is pausing their shipping and logistics service they originally announced one year ago as they manage the Coronavirus crisis.

Then they discuss a WSJ article describing how LTL carriers are being impacted and cutting costs.

But the star of this episode is certainly Matt Carroll, a Waymo product manager with a ton of experience with automated vehicles.

The conversation details Waymo's approach, their technology, the timeline for driverless trucking, use cases, challenges, concerns, and much, much, more.

Be sure to subscribe to Trucking For Millennials if you haven't already because next week we'll be sharing the conversation we had with one of Waymo's truck drivers!

Here's Matt's bio:

Matt Carroll is a Product Manager for Trucking at Waymo, a self-driving technology company with a mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to get where they're going.

In his role, Matt is responsible for truck behavior and redundancy workstreams, as well as building out the operational model for Waymo Via (which is focused on commercial goods delivery and includes both trucking and local delivery). Prior to Waymo, Matt worked at Peloton Technology, a truck-automation startup, where he was the first product manager in the organization and worked on wirelessly-connecting truck convoys. Matt was previously an engineering team lead for a defense contractor that designed vehicle enhancements, such as IED and mine protection.

He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Western Ontario and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Stat Clarification:

One statistic Matt shared in this episode was related to collissions on the road. It's actually 1.3 million deaths due to traffic crashes every year on a global basis, 4k of those involving large trucks. 94% of traffic crashes in the U.S. are a result of human error or inattention.

In this episode Michael and Aaron discuss a somewhat recent pre-coronavirus article from FreightWaves called "Five Reasons Flatbed Shipping is On the Rise" which makes some interesting points, especially given our nation's economy right now.

They also read some reactions from over the road from truck drivers and talk to one of PDQ America's drivers, Gilbert, about his recent haul from East Texas to Wyoming to and talk about his experience and what he saw and the changes this "new normal" has brought about.

On this episode of Trucking For Millennials we continue the conversation we started last week with Talmadge (T.D.) Studor, a freight broker for Modus Trucking.

You'll hear about how he got into trucking and logistics, how one of his first jobs delivering packages influences his job now, relating with drivers, speaking with shippers, handling times of high volume, building a book of business from square one, working as a team, his opinion about the Millennial generation and whether or not they're doing enough, and much, much more!

Our last episode, "Load it Or Leave it 2" features him speaking about what he's experiencing as he serves grocery store freight for Kroger in the middle of the Coronavirus. This episode is a deep dive into his career that will be valuable for anyone looking to grow and maintain a positive trajectory as a freight broker.

Load it or Leave it is BACK!

On this episode Michael and Aaron discuss a few pieces of news as of the time of recording (3/20/20) like the way truck drivers are experiencing life over the road as the Coronavirus spreads, state-wide lock downs in New York, California, and Texas, viral misinformation memes and more.

Then they get into 4 separate clips recorded at Great American Trucking Show 2019 and discuss whether or not to "load" or "leave" the advice from those they speak to.

Finally you'll hear from next week's guest, T.D. Studor, a freight broker brokering loads to Kroger about his team is experiencing as a member on the front lines of one of the most challenging times in the supply chain in recent memory.

Enjoy!

We continue our conversation with Jamin Alvidrez, a millennial freight sales professional with 14 years of experience helping carriers and customers ship more freight.

We also talk to Jamin about optimizing load board utilization, capitalizing on the current opportunities in the market, and much more!

A lot has happened in the last 7 days so Michael and Aaron break down the latest ways Coronavirus is impacting the United States in general and in the trucking industry specifically.

You'll hear why Michael had to self-quarantine, what PDQ America is doing to help curb the spread of Coronavirus, a discussion of a recent article from Business Insider Senior Transportation Reporter Rachel Premack about how the virus could impact truck drivers in a very real way before discussing the cancellation of the Mid America Trucking Show and the TIA dragging their feet on making a decision to cancel their annual conference.

You'll also hear a bit from Jamin Alvidrez, a millennial freight sales professional with a lot of insight about finding success in a career in logistics.

Be sure to come back tomorrow (Tuesday 3/14/20) to hear our full interview with Jamin about optimizing load board utilization and the current fear in the market.

In this episode Aaron and Michael discuss the the impact (or lack thereof) of Coronavirus on freight domestically and abroad and then give an update on the proposed HOS rules heading to the White House. They also shout out a 5 star fan of the podcast and the @PDQAmerica truck of the month winner!