It Runs in the Family: Trucking, Legacy, and the Lessons That Last

Speaker A: It's Thursday, June 25, 2026. And welcome to episode 134 of the Driving Forward Podcast. Whether you're joining us live or listening on one of our 18 platforms, including Wreaths Across America Radio, where we broadcast every Tuesday evening from, from actually 4 to 5pm Central Time. I always get that time. They shift it around every once in a while. We appreciate your support. Upcoming events, we are kind of everywhere. Over the next month we have Susan uh, Mayo at the North Carolina Management Conference. Uh, uh, that's mid July. Backing up to that, we have the TCA Refrigerated Conference in Nashville, Tennessee that Susan and I will be at. Uh, we have Mike Solars at uh, the Texas uh, Trucking association and Robert uh, Bain at the Florida Trucking Association. That's all July, capping off July at least the beginning of August we have the uh, Minnesota Trucking Association. And then we start into the, the, the fall conference season which I, I don't really believe there's seasons anymore. I just think there's always conferences. Um, but you know, it's great to see everybody. We love the state organizations. We love uh, uh, being able to spend time with them. Definitely looking forward to the TCA refrigerated meeting. If you have any questions about these shows, please feel free to reach out. We'd love to, to chat through what our thoughts are on them. Uh, next week it is the 4th of July period, so we're, we're not going to be running a live episode, but we will rerun uh, our interview from about a year ago I think with uh, with Dr. Gina Anderson. Uh, she is the CEO of Luma Brighter Learning. If you don't know Gina, uh, you probably should follow her. She's just a wonderful person, great person to chat with and, and Luma Brighter Learning has a wonderful story. So uh, tune in if you can. The following week we have uh, Todd Waldron on. Todd's the uh, uh, CCO of Repower now. So you might know Todd from Truck Stop or, or from when he was running brokerages. But uh, uh, Todd's a great friend and uh, uh, we haven't had him

Speaker B: on for a while.

Speaker A: So we're, we're revisiting what his new life looks like at, at Repower. So that should be a fun one night. In 1944, a man named Vince started running milk and ice cream routes around Milwaukee. He had no idea he was starting a dynasty. That route became a truck, the truck became a fleet, and three generations later the woman who runs it didn't just inherit a company, she inherited a name, a, ah, legacy and a whole lot of people watching to see if she could carry it. Then 2020 hit. She took ownership of the family business the same year that the world shut down. And she didn't just survive it, she came out on the other side leading six companies, earning carrier of the year and building a training center to hand the next generation of owners the, the map she had to draw herself. She's a third generation trucker, a, uh, teacher at heart and a, uh, return, not only a returning friend to the show, but also a returning friend. So. Pam Poyak, welcome back to Driving Forward.

Speaker B: Thank you sir. I appreciate it. Ah, coming to you from the north woods of good old Wisconsin today.

Speaker A: What, what town are you near?

Speaker B: Um, we're technically in La de Flambo, so just outside of Managua is pretty much the biggest.

Speaker A: You know, when you start throwing that out, it's like you're speaking a different language, but plenty of that too, you know. Uh, but I, I feel like Wisconsin might lead the, the, the pack on, on, on strange town names, so 100%.

Speaker B: But my daughter's loving it, so she, I adopted her and she's Native American and so we're technically just outside of Oneida county and that's actually her tribe, so she's learning a lot too. We've done some fun learning experiences so that's great. She's seen more teepees in the last week than she has her entire life, so she's very excited.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, I mean that's uh, that's uh, well, I mean that, that happens in a lot of places. But I, you know, a lot of our culture in Minnesota, Wisconsin is, I mean, obviously from the names, um, you know, we, we have a lot of that around us. I grew up in a town that uh, has a fairly strong tribe as well, so powwows and lots of friends and you know, the culture generally. Um, so that's great that you're able to kind of jump into that. So you took a week off and you're, you're still working. Thanks for uh, interacting or jumping in in the middle of the week and coming on the show. But, but you know, how's it like for you, uh, stepping uh, away from the business for a week or is that just not possible?

Speaker B: Um, it's, it's, it's good and bad. I have, I haven't been quiet on um, LinkedIn. If you guys, if anybody follows me out there, just kind of expressing that we're going through some changes I had um, a new dispatcher started, um, beginning of March, um, and there's still a lot of learning curves with that. That's not an easy role um, to take on. And it doesn't, the training part doesn't happen quickly. And then we moved um, down towards Milwaukee Airport. So a little bit closer to the airport. We moved at the beginning of May, um, and one of my assistants decided um, not to come, which is understandable. It made her drive over an hour every day. So um, it was just too much, which is completely understandable. So we're transitioning out that role and bringing somebody else in. So there's just been a lot of changes. Um, so the vacation definitely made me nervous coming into it. I'm not fully um, detached by any means. Um, I have had to log in a few different times but nothing crazy. I honestly have a, I have a good team. We have good dedicated routes. We have um, I'm not, it's not horrible, let's put it that way. It could be a lot worse. I remember days, um, even when working with my dad, we get phone calls. So many every night. You know, you're waking up three or four times during the middle of the night with different phone calls, different issues. I mean it, it runs a lot better now than it ever did. So yeah, I can't complain.

Speaker A: That's ah, I've lived that life. So I, I get it. Actually it's not that much different on, on what I do now, except I don't get two o' clock in the morning phone calls. But I, I definitely, you know, I'm in Las Vegas at uh, the Samsara conference and I've been spending at least half the day, if not more in my room working. So you know, dealing with phone calls and whatnot and etc, um, instead of actually going to the conference that I came here to go to. But I've sort of accepted that as a leader. You know, wherever I go. Very few vacations actually are truly full vacations. You know, you're gonna find that out probably here in a little bit when you go across the pond. Um, if, yeah, if you have. I mean that, that's, that was probably the biggest disconnect for me was when I went to Europe last year for two weeks and, and you know you're, you're eight hours off or five hours off and uh, um, it's just a, um, an odd one to deal with. But uh, you get to find out how good your team actually is. So I mean.

Speaker B: Correct, correct. Which Is okay. I mean, yeah, like at the end of July, you leave for France. But I'm hoping that, I mean, the team's good, my team's great. So. So I'm not really nervous about that. It just always tends to be something, an oddball. Something tends to happen when I'm gone. Just a, uh, weird. Okay, I haven't seen that one yet. Which is. Seems nuts because I've been doing this for over 20 years, but there just always seems to be something that comes up that's like, yep, you wouldn't have not known what to do with that because this is the answer. So getting questions. But I'll much rather have the questions and know that the guys are working on stuff back home than not. So I'll take it.

Speaker A: Nope. 100. And I mean, you know, to that point of, uh, you think you've seen it all, but in reality you eventually at one point you're like, yeah, I've seen everything. And then you realize, well, I'm not.

Speaker B: So I'm never saying that again. I think I said that about a decade ago. And it's never coming out of my.

Speaker A: Well, this is my point is about 10 years in. 10, 15 years in, you're like, I've seen it all. And then another five or 10 years later, you're like, well, I've got enough experience to say that I haven't, so. Because there's always something that pops up new that you've never seen before, whatever that may be. And, uh, you know, so lots of times we. I'll tell people, you know, I, I've. I've seen pretty much everything, so I usually am not surprised. But, you know, you still come up with new things from time to time. I'm not, I'm experienced enough to know that, um, you know, I haven't seen. Oh, yeah, I don't know everything, so. Yep. Um, so how, how is business generally?

Speaker B: Um, we are starting to see some uptick on rates, which I am, I'm very happy about. Um, not as strong as some of the freight waves type predictions have been coming across. We are very Midwest, very regional. So Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, you know, that kind of U shape. Um, so slight increases, not as much. I will say it is clear that we are being needed more. Meaning there's a lot more no's. Um, my guys were never sitting. So now it's a case of kind of being more choosy as to what freight we're taking, making sure it's profitable, making sure it's making us Money, um, from that end. So good. Um, I will say I could hire two or three more night people. Um, that would make my life a heck of a lot easier if I had a couple more night people in the mix. And I'm struggling to find good night people employees. Um, so that's kind of been. Now, are we a driver shortage? Don't think so. Are we.

Speaker A: I was actually gonna.

Speaker B: Quality drivers, probably. There's been a few applicants I've gotten that haven't been able to pass med cards, haven't been able, you know, don't have the experience. I've had one that failed a road test. I have. And not just like a little fail, but we're talking, like, big fail.

Speaker A: You know, I, I. Before I'll even move a truck on a road chest. Uh, so obviously most trucks are automatics now, but back in the day, I had this guy get up in the truck, and the left leg just started bouncing up and down when he, when he touched the clutch. I'm like, hey, dude, let's just get out. So, uh, I'm not getting in a truck that, that somebody. I wasn't. It was because he was nervous. So I was like, nah, I'm good.

Speaker B: So you can't be nervous in this. I had, I had a driver recently, an owner operator came on and he claimed. And I'm not saying it's false. I'm just saying his statement was that, you know, he worked for a company he believed was, um, on the shadier end, but he didn't know any better. You know, he had bought the truck and signed on with these people right away. And the questions I was asking, even during interview, I was like, well, what's the dot number on your truck? He's. I don't have a DOT number on my truck. What?

Speaker A: Really?

Speaker B: What. And I said, what? I said, well, who's the license plate under? Well, I. It's the license plate that was on the truck when I bought it. What? It just. There's just a lot of. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if he perhaps is telling me a different story or there's a whole other piece to this story, or if it really just was a shady company that he said that all their stuff came off of load boards, which it makes sense to the narrative of what's going on in the market for sure. But I don't know. It's just. There's just red flags, like, everywhere I look right now. I feel like. Not just with that driver, but I just feel like Some of the narratives, the drivers are saying, the narratives, other brokers are saying, customers are saying. It's. I, I think the industry as a whole is really in a trust, um, trust issue stage of life. Like nobody trusts anybody right now. Like, we just don't. You can't, you can't trust to broker that load to that carrier. You can't trust to get paid by that random broker. You can't get trust. You know, you're not trusted to do anything. You have to prove everything about who you are and then vice versa. You want everybody to prove who they are and it's. Right, it's disappointing, but it's where we're at in this industry as a whole, I think. And so even hiring people and hiring drivers, it's become very much a, ah, checks and balances. Where did you work? Uh, those things have all been in place from a DOT standpoint. But it's that tingling on your back of your neck or something just isn't quite adding up. Right. That's. That seems to be on, on high recently with hiring, changing a customer's, bringing on new, new freight as well. It just is, it's very interesting.

Speaker A: So it's a big standoff and you know, between various potential litigations between visibility platforms, between AI, between all of this stuff. Um, you know, people are, uh, there's a lot of exposure and there's more exposure today than there's ever been before. Um, not to mention the ability to communicate. Now I actually wrote a paper on this, not to go too far off track, but I wrote a paper on this when I was in college and that's, you know, it was about Hyper Community.

Speaker B: Yesterday, right?

Speaker A: It was yesterday. Yeah, yeah, um, it was a minute ago. But uh, it was, it was almost pre Internet. Let's just call it. Okay, yeah, yeah. I mean the Internet was there, but it was like AOL level Internet, you know, know. So, um, so my, my paper was about how hyper communication, why it's going to be really great, is actually going to be really horrible. Um, you know, it's too much information for us to consume at one time and then that creates these locks that are going to happen. I wrote this in like 1996, something like that probably. Um, but it's funny, I wish I would have kept the paper because like I was predicting the future. I had no idea that I was actually right. So.

Speaker B: Yeah, oh, that's definitely where we're at. There's so much information going on that it's hard to decipher what's True and what's not. And in most cases it's nearly impossible. I feel like whether it's email, spam, emails, click this, you owe this, we're sending you money for this to. I mean everything that we're seeing in freight fraud, we know, we know that it's here and it's likely not going away anytime soon. As much as people are trying, it just, it's here.

Speaker A: Well, the question is, is like, is it worse? So I, I do think it's worse than it was 20 years ago because we're actually losing freight in a different way. Um, I think that, that this particular fraud, um, or, or hijacking for example, uh, I, I don't have the specific numbers, but I believe that's down to some. I suppose it depends on where you're looking at. But you know, uh, having a truck get jacked in downtown Chicago, you just don't hear about that often anymore, so.

Speaker B: Correct. Not in the direct hijacking of like, right. Truck. The physical truck itself. It's happening in the tech space. Yeah.

Speaker A: 20 years ago though, we used to get trucks jacked in Chicago. Like people would come up and be like, get out of the truck and we're taking your stuff.

Speaker B: It wasn't even that long ago. So the crazy part that dad and I always talk about. So dad retired in 20, the end of 2019. We had a huge retirement for party for him, yada yada. We talk about it all the time. That even when he was owner, which was 2019, not that long ago, um, his biggest concern was like telling the drivers, make sure if you're at a rail yard or make sure you're parked somewhere other than, you know, our lot back the doors up to a tree, to a pole, to whatever so that nobody could. That was the biggest concern. That was it. That was 100 it. So maybe we need to go back to fax machines. Those have to be more secure.

Speaker A: Like yeah, the person who invented the pager was where this all kind of went down the, the road, that, that ah, communication there. But no, I, uh. So the reality of it is, it's how much of this has existed in the past and we just weren't tracking it right. And even today we're. Are we actually having more problems or are we just identifying all the problems now? So you know that, that's a question that I don't think anybody can answer. Um, but a lot of this stuff wasn't even dealt with and, and tracked. And even in some cases today you want to, you know, call out a scenario with a carrier. Um, there's no like, common receptacle for that. Like, you kind of got to put it on social media. You got a few groups that are potentially popping up. But, but there's no basic standard for it. So, you know, it is a, A uh, problem. I think people are trying to solve it. And so in a lot of ways in solving it, you create more problems. So.

Speaker B: Correct. And, and a level of fear and, and, and fear sells. And that's, that's no different in this industry too. I, it's very real. And I'm not saying it's, it's not because I, We've had two stolen loads before too, so I certainly can't say it's. It's, it's false. It's, it's blown out of proportion. It is, it is very much a big issue. Um, but I, I think to your point, it has been around a long time. So we had, this was back in 2015, 2016, maybe we had an owner operator literally take our truck or our uh, trailer, I'm sorry, and go start hauling. And we had just put GPS in the trailers. So GPS on the trucks weren't even a thing. Thing. And we had just gotten like the very like pings once a day type GPS in the trailer. Um, and he took it down to Georgia and there was nothing any of the cops here were willing to do because he had already crossed state lines. Well, who do you call? Nobody. So that is the exact same scenario that we ran into when our two loads ended up stolen. I had nobody to call, nobody wanted to hear it, nobody was going to do a report on it. Nobody was, you know, to do anything. So from that end, it's, it's that state versus federal. What's local government going to do versus across, uh, state lines? And now it's federal. Does anybody want to do anything? So I think there's the same issue. It just. Now the, the frauds got a hold of it, you know, that the frauds understood it, understand how it went, how, where the holes in the government are, and have completely, completely made it catastrophically different than what it used to be. I, I think there's a lot more of it, but I'm also. You can also choose not to pay attention to it, which is also just as dangerous right now. You choose not to pay attention to it, then that's when you get, that's when you get nailed, you know, with a fraud with a cargo claim for an entire trailer that you never hauled, but it was booked in your name or variations of that. It's just, it's not, it's not as easy as it used to be.

Speaker A: No. Well, there's a million ways and it impacts your business. And then, I mean, isn't it, uh. Well, we're, we're dealing. The stuff that you were just talking about in enforcement, I think that it's corka. Is that. I think there's an act that they're attempting to push through, uh, or a bill that they're attempting to push through. Um, but you know, that's, that's a lot of this stuff has always been a problem. You have a truck gets stolen, um, they'll do something about it. You have freight get stolen or a trailer gets stolen. And you know, the, the. It's too small for the federal side and it's too big for or too weird for a local enforcement unless you know exactly where it's at when it's happening. But even then you can't get people to come out and deal with it. I mean, you can be like, hey, my truck's going down I10 and it's right here. Go get it. And you know, a lot of them won't, won't respond. I think that's getting better with law, uh, enforcement education, but it's not, that's not happening fast enough. So, uh, some of your larger cities and whatnot certainly are aware with it. I was just talking with someone that works for the Minneapolis Police Department and has for 20 some odd years. And you know, he was definitely aware of these problems. So. But I mean, where. Oh, not that long ago, if you had a discussion with a, a city police department, they aren't as aware, they weren't as aware of the problem.

Speaker B: So my dudes were early 22, so. And they, they looked at me like I was nuts. They were like, what do you want me to do about it? There wasn't anything. And even then I had a friend at the FBI, the Milwaukee FBI, and I had brought him in and I said, what do we do? I mean, he took the notes, he did whatever. But then there was, there was really nothing he could do about it. And we were even talking, uh, about a month ago now, and I said, has it changed yet? And he said, absolutely. He goes, we have, you know, certain task force now that we need to report to and different things that they're kind of doing internally because they have heard of a lot more, especially being just outside of Chicago. Um, it's definitely a hot spot for, um, the fraud and that corridor and that kind of stuff. So it's, I mean, I guess right now the entire country feels like a hot spot with this fraud. But, um, there, there's movement. It, I just, it's just not happening fast enough. If it was done yesterday, it'd be okay, but you know, it just, it just keeps getting pushed down the pipeline and that's what makes me nervous. I would love Corker to go through. I would love this, the Save act to go through, the safer, you know, trucking act, all of that to go through, the Delilah act to go through. And it just, it's, it's suckered into nothing but politics and left and right. Because there's a clear path on how to fix this, um, and kind of scrape everything back down to zero and then build back up from there. Um, I just don't know that what government is going to be able to achieve it with the two sides constantly fighting with each other.

Speaker A: I mean, and you were in Washington not that long ago, right? So is this a new thing for you? Is this something that you just kind of picked up here recently?

Speaker B: I don't want it to be a new thing. I don't want it to be a new thing. Um, politics has never been a forte. I am not a very political person. If you've ever had, uh, you've had one on one conversations with me, I am not very political at all. Um, I, I decided to go to Washington to have kind of the conversations. Um, Derek Bars had invited me with some, based on some ideas that I had had in terms of continuing education and some things that I would have loved to see modus eventually come out with. And so I presented that to him and his team. And then I stayed for, um, the Wisconsin motorcare Association, their call on Washington. Um, um, it was very informative. I don't, it was also exhausting. I mean, those people work really, really hard and get next to nothing accomplished. And I don't mean that with any disrespect to anybody necessarily. It just, it just seems like they go, they bounce from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting, and then, well, this is going to get pushed down the pipeline. This doesn't have the support, this doesn't have the sponsorship. This, you know, uh, there's just constantly like things that you learn out there that is just like, this is frustrating. This is not going to happen anytime soon. You, you have the fix in your hand and just because you're a Democrat or just because you're a Republican, you're, you're not Going to vote for something that's going to save trucking. That is crazy to me that they're putting their own selfish thoughts above what is needed for the industry. There isn't a single person saying in this industry, we don't. I mean, I'm sure there's a person, but generally speaking, we know anybody who's been in this industry knows what we need to fix this.

Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, the top, the top four issues, I think where the, the good operators, regardless of what side of the industry they're on, you can probably pick four top. If you picked eight topics, four of them are going to be the exact same. So if you pick six, three of them are going to be the exact same. So. Absolutely. We all, you know, know freight fraud's a problem. We know rising car costs are a problem. We know insurance is a problem. You know what you want to add on top of that, you know, uh, those start becoming a little bit more blended. But, um, you know, those three topics are huge. So I, I'm doing my first call in September, so the first and second. So I'll. I think I'm headed out there with tca. Uh, I saw your, your post on that. Like, it, it, uh, it's obnoxious.

Speaker B: It's. It's obnoxious. Call a spade a spade. I don't care. You can come for me, Donald Trump, I love you dearly. But it's. It, it's. It's obnoxious. The signs on their doors, the, the clear. Hate towards the other parties. The clear. I just. It was unbelievable, the level of unprofessionalism that there was. Like, you guys are the government. You guys are supposed to define. Just because you're wearing a suit doesn't make you professional. Now you need to act like it. Act like you can have a conversation. Act like you can. Oh, uh, it just. See, this is why I can't do politics because it gets under my skin and I get really worked up. It's not that hard to sit around a table and listen to peers. Like, it's so right wing, left wing. It just, I don't know, it's very frustrating. It's very frustrating to see and to, to know that there's a solution that could really help America. Not just truckers, but America. Like when you've got billions of dollars worth of stolen goods that's affecting everybody's home life. It is.

Speaker A: There's no way around it in one way or another. Yep.

Speaker B: Yep. And it's just frustrating. Politics in general, I mean, if People really want to listen to it. I'll rant about it, but I don't think people want to listen to it.

Speaker A: Fair enough. But I, you know, it's important that, that people like yourself talk to the people who are doing that Washington dance. So, um, I will say there was

Speaker B: a lot of value in that. And I did get asked several times even after that, to show the story. So, and this is what I would want to say to any of the other trucking company owners that are listening out there is that when you do it, do it with a story that shows who you are as a trucking company, because the, they are missing that piece even on the call in Washington, although I love it. We had insurance people on it, we had tech people on it. We, um, had a fuel company on it, that kind of stuff. But I was only one of two, maybe three actual trucking companies who had stories of fraud and had stories of the impact and stories of things that needed to. And they were very much geared into listening to that and then several, you know, pieces to type up kind of some responses. But those stories do matter about what the direct impact is. Um, you know, I don't know if it's really going to make a huge difference. You know, at the end of the day, I would love to say it would. But I will say in those moments, they definitely wanted to hear the stories. And I'm, I'm hoping that those influence their voting, you know, whenever that happens. And that's all, you know, that's all I can do at this point, you know, is try and get the story out there of what we experienced, what we see every day, what costs we have going out the window to pay for services of, uh, fraud detection and verification. And all those things and extra costs that we have are definitely stories that they need to understand that we're getting. We as trucking companies are getting pounded with extra costs and extra things that we have to do to mitigate some of this fraud that the government isn't acting fast enough on.

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, it's always been the race, you know, everything that's dropped back on the carrier, at least most of it. And it's always been a race to, to figure out how to handle that cost, yet not increase revenue somehow. So, but, uh, um, you know, the, the visibility platforms and the, the um, uh, tracking platforms and your fraud identification stuff. I, I wouldn't mind going into that, but I think we'll take a quick break before we, we jump into that topic here. Um, so we'll be Back in about a minute and a half. But uh, if you have any questions for Pam, cue them up. Uh, I'm sure she'd be happy to answer them. So we'll see it. We'll see you.

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Speaker B: Sam.

Speaker A: And we are back. Uh, I don't think we were streaming on X right, So I, I fixed that on uh, the break, so hopefully we caught a few more people there. Uh, we are back with Pam Polyak. So we were talking about all the fraud platforms that you're, you're having to deal with today and this is a cut. So last week I was in Indianapolis and Ohio and there were common threads amongst every conversation and this was kind of one of them. Um, you know, I met with a variety of different customers and you know the, the fraud platforms are, are a thing and I'm not just talking about the visibility side either. There's all kinds of other stuff that you have to deal with now too. Um, but you want to talk about that a little bit?

Speaker B: Yeah, I um, absolutely love m talking about this stuff that drives me nuts. I'm just playing, um, obviously the validation platforms and the things that we need to do to protect fraud, right? Your standard, your carrier form one, your highways, your um, truck stops, your RMIs, all of, all of the programs, there's tons of them out there now. Um, and the biggest issue is that somebody has to pay them and that somebody's us, um, being the trucking companies. And so although some of them are very minimal and cost effective, some of them are, are priced heavier. Um, highway for example, one of their lowest platform prices, $1,000 a month. Well, when you go months of, of not making any money or years of not making any money, another thousand dollar hit a month, you know, that's $12,000 a year. It Just, it's not a small amount of money. And I know to the big boys it might sound small, but for a small trucking company, it's, it's just another expense. But we're even talking about cameras. We're talking the ELDs that were never really mandated. And now it's tracking. And now you need this app and you need that app. And it's, it's very frustrating from a financial end to know what you're dishing out, um, and potentially losing. And now, now with what the Supreme Court ruled on, with the brokers and that kind of stuff, the brokered freight on the load boards, they're not coming as quickly. Now it's an entire process to get some signed up, um, and to prove where you are. That might take a week, two weeks, something like that, where it's not a quick button fix to then get a load. So now it's costing you money on that end where, hey, you've got a truck that's empty and your customer just notified you that the load's not going to be ready until tomorrow, but you want to get that truck moving today. Now, finding a load on a load board isn't exactly as easy as it used to be, um, which is very frustrating as a whole. Um, I've started working with, um, a few different people to get the SBA's attention on this manner. We've got support from the president, we've got support from Derek Bars, we've got support from Duffy on trying to get some type of financial credit, some type of financial grant, something for the small trucking companies who are dishing out this money to help prevent fraud. Um, I don't know that it's going to pick up steam. We're hoping. We're still knocking on doors. We're still trying to figure it out. Now we need, um, obviously, now we're back in government's hands again, waiting for somebody to kind of take this on for us, um, you know, declare it, sponsor it, all those words, whatever they're saying from a government standpoint. But it's frustrating. It's frustrating because we're, we are the ones that are, you know, caught, you know, need to absorb the expense of these stolen goods. Whether it's from an insurance standpoint, um, absorbing that and their cost, whether it's the actual cargo theft itself. I mean, insurance doesn't cover that when it goes missing. Neither of my claims were covered. And so it's just, it's frustrating. It's very frustrating from that end to have these Expenses go out the window and have little to no support from a congressional standpoint to say, hey, they're, they're dishing out this money and it's, it's costing on average, you know, thousands of dollars a year for a small trucking company, 10 to 20 trucks that are like, hey, you need this software program, you need that software program. You're not doing enough. And then God forbid, if your brokerage was small, which ours was, ours was really just overflow from our customers and now we need extra insurance for that to just keep operating. Plus you need different vetting platforms, plus you need all these other things to show to your customer that you're serious about their freight, which you, which you are. But again, it's just added expense that nobody's raising their hand to cover right now. And that, that's very frustrating. It, it's making it, it's making it difficult to like the industry right now when everything falling on asset based carriers,

Speaker A: it is, it's absolutely constant shifting. I mean there's a couple of points based on what you just said. So a few years ago I, I kind of said I don't think this is going to, I mean as an industry we'll, we'll start to shore things up, but we're not going to solve the problem. This is going to end up having to be, uh, the federal government jumping in. I also say for, on the litigation side, um, you know, especially nuclear verdicts and whatnot, I don't think we're going to solve that either. That's going to have to have some form of, of governmental, um, interception to it because you know, we're not going to figure it out on our own. We're not going to suddenly stop attorneys from doing what attorneys do. So there has to be some, some uh, interception by the federal government. However, you know, I think Ronald Reagan said this one. Um, some of the worst things you can hear is, hi, I'm from the federal government, I'm here to help. Oh, that's, that's pretty close to the right, the same quote. Um, so it's not going to happen fast. Although, you know, even on the DOT side I, uh, think we have more traction. You've met all the folks? I've met all the folks. You know, they're, we have a great team. Um, but you can only do so much in a short period of time. You got to turn this Titanic and it doesn't want to really turn. So, um, which is, it's super frustrating. Um, and to the customer point, you Know, they all want their visibility, they want this, they want that. And that causes you to have all of those platforms so to be able to service. So at some point, if the market continues down the direction it's going, um, you're going to potentially be able to make decisions around customers based upon their technology risk requirements. So I mean that maybe already happens today, but uh, it's probably because they are doing something that's. You're not capable. You, you'll. Knowing your, your, your team, they'll figure out how to do it.

Speaker B: But, but there are customers. There are customers I've gotten rid of because of their lack of. I had a customer who still wanted. They had. It was the strangest thing. They had one set up with one major 3 PL platform. I'm M not going to name names. And then, but then you could do the in and out times through that platform, which would connect to your own TMS system. But then in another platform, that's where your actual invoices needed to be sent, but your invoices and your load numbers didn't. They were different for different things, so it was transmitted differently. And then there was a third platform that you actually got paid out of. And it's like, why are you, you, you're paying all of these three platforms at least I don't have to in this case. Well, I, I take that back. The one you had to pay $50 a month just to make sure that you got paid out of it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And you had to mail a check in like.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What are you doing? It just. That part's, that part is very strange to me.

Speaker A: But yeah, 100.

Speaker B: There's a lot of different technology out there. And that's where like I said at the beginning of the show, when I have a new dispatcher, that dispatcher needs to learn, you know, my top seven customers and all of their different platforms and all of their different tracking styles and all their different stuff. As much as the stuff integrates with an EDI stuff, there's still okay if something's going wrong where. What do you need to do? You can't send an email because it has to go into their system. You can't send it this way. It's got to go this way. You know, and learning those different. Oh, you want an appointment change, don't email these people. You got to do it over here, you know, and it's like everybody's just got their own system and it doesn't necessarily always play well in terms of everybody else. It's just drastically different per person. So it's learning all those ins and outs.

Speaker A: It's a, it's a, a hefty playbook to have. You know, when you get down to managing multiple customers, drivers, all the personalities, whatnot, especially at your size of a company. So I, I remember when I had seven trucks. Um, you know, when I started out, I bought seven trucks and I put them all to work. That was like the worst period of my life. I, I hated that at about 20, 20, 20 to 30 trucks, it got a little better because I had a few more people. But seven trucks was the worst. It was, it was horrible running seven trucks. Um, especially starting out, I think for those guys that, that start out and buy a truck and add a truck and then, you know, it takes them like five, six years to get the seven trucks. Probably a different scenario, but I went from zero to seven, had to dispatch, sales, accounting, everything was all on me and that. Not to mention then have to turn around and take a load every once in a while. Um, you know, having to do that today and manage all the other platforms, I don't know how people, people really do it. It's, it's, it's, it's very difficult.

Speaker B: It's very difficult right now. And then I, I, when we talked about attorneys and you know, all the nuclear verdict type stuff, I was actually at a seminar a couple of weeks back and I hadn't heard this yet. So that's why I want to put it out there into the universe because obviously I cringed, um, when I heard it. But it was this, this attorney who I love and respect, so I have nothing against him particularly, but he was basically stating that you guys now have all this telematics, right? You've got your elds in there, you have all this telematics now your old way of training is no longer going to suffice. If you have one driver who has hard braking issues, you need to have specialized training just for him on the hard braking issues. If you have one driver who, uh, their turns are too fast, you need to switch that train. You don't, you can't. You have to have customizable training at this point. Not just from a road test standpoint, but from a telematic standpoint. In the middle of the night, hey, we saw this behavior happen once, we saw it happen twice. We're on it, we're watching it third or fourth time. If there's an accident, the jury is going to want to see that. You stopped that behavior on day one because you had the information and the reality is on a company our size, that's very difficult for us. And it's not because we don't care. It's not because we don't. Whatever. I don't have a night shift. I don't, I don't have a night shift safety person who's sitting there watching videos and every ping that comes in at 11am or 11pm I don't have people doing that. Yes, we, we get the alerts when there's an accident, when there's a crash, all these things. But this the scare tactic of the attorney. And again, I'm not saying he's wrong by any means. Right. Uh, because you have the data now. It's not just enough that you have the data. You actually have to, to be a, you have to have a data analytics degree. You have to, you have to read it, you have to implement any new adjustments to it. You have to congratulate them when they're doing better, when they're slowing down, when you know what I mean? It was just a very in depth. It's great that you have the data, but it's not going to be great if you have the data and don't do anything about it. Which seems like common sense, but the reality of it playing into the day to day of a trucking company that's only got 25 trucks and you're operating in such a way as efficient as possible, yes, your safety's there, but my safety people, uh, they're not on it 24 7. Right. I'm not big enough to be able to afford a 24, 7 safety person where if somebody's did a little bit of a lane adjustment that I can correct it immediately. I'm not saying I don't do anything. I'm just being candid and honest of saying, like, it's very difficult to have somebody within seconds. And this attorney was just like, you need to have it timestamped, you need to have it deliverable, you need to have it, you need to make note of it the second it happens that it's fixed, that you, that you reprimanded the driver, that they went through disciplinary actions, all of these things. And it's just like, uh, like, can I just increase that I do this or what? And not saying I don't want safe guys, I do, but it's just, it is a lot of back office work when the technology was built to not allow, you know, to eliminate a lot of the back office work and now pings and dings and all that. Stuff could mean a lawsuit in front of a jury where all of a sudden we're found negligent because we didn't stop that driver from driving or three weeks prior he had a lane deviation. So we should have known that that behavior was going to happen from that driver.

Speaker A: What, you know, you're seeing a perfect case though. So, um, so I agree with all your points 100%. And it's something that we, I mean this problem is not new, to be honest with you. It goes back to the in when we started deploying cameras, right there there was talk about this and then there were solutions that came out and now there's more solutions coming out. But you know, somebody asked questions of like, is, is AI coming for your job? Well, uh, you know, this is a perfect application. If you get the right solution in place. You know, AI is not going to take it to the finish line, it's not going to take it to the goal line. I should take that back. It's going to take it to the goal line, that 10 yard line, but it's not going to get, um, get it across. Right. The, the human side has to get it across. But to show intention and to show that you are taking action, um, you can use a solution like that. Possibly, uh, accuracy is always a question. And I, you know, there's, there's new solutions that are like, we're going to reach out to the driver and deal with the problem with. I don't know if I like that idea. I don't really want a bot talking to drivers, but it is going to be able to.

Speaker B: They want a conversation with me, they want a conversation with a safety manager or to explain what actually happened. They don't want that bot or even they even complained about all the pinging and dinging.

Speaker A: But to say, hey, you know, there you just had a heartbreaking event or whatever. Can you, you know, explain, get some data? So when you do have that uh, whatever the, I mean there's, there's possibilities there. So this is, uh, I guess conceptually, I'm not saying if it's right or wrong, but conceptually it is one of those use cases where there is some sort of uh, AI capability here that shortens that job. It may not be perfected yet, but there are some companies out there that are doing this. But once again you end up having to pay for it. So that's the other side is, it's another solution that you have to pay for. But to the attorney's point, if you don't show the the intention or the best effort to, to manage the solution that you've put in the trucks, which isn't cheap. Um, you know, you're, you're going to have a problem. So that this is one of the areas where, hey, we're going to free up people operationally we can. And, and at your size, it's very difficult to experience that because it's a. Economy, uh, of scale. So, you know, a company that has 300 people in an office running, you know, 3000 trucks or 2500 trucks or whatever, they started implementing some solutions. They free up people. You don't have any people to free up. You still need them in those spots. So you might free up a little bit of their time, but you're not going to free up, you know, head count.

Speaker B: So, um, so that's where it's frustrating because it's falling on us to, to house the expense to. How is the, the answers the, to all of it. And it's, it's just become pretty heavy to, to hold on to while insurance companies are, are brushing the 1 to 10 trucks fleets underneath the rug as if they don't exist, but still insuring them and, and making money off of them, but yet charging everybody else who, yeah. Who is bigger than that, more than their fair share.

Speaker A: So yeah, I wish I had the, uh, the pricing controls of an insurance company where they just say, okay, we're increasing you 20%. Um, yep. And you don't have any alternative, uh, but to just take it. So I mean, typically speaking, you can go shop something and find a better deal. But, uh, uh, in this instance, we're just climbing. So, um, so real. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, it's the, I guess that's the lifelong story of a trucking company. So just because we're moving faster, it's happening faster. So, uh, what, uh, so what have you done? Any new tech changes, anything like that over the last six months or a year that has been impactful?

Speaker B: Um, I haven't done anything gigantic. I will say that. I mean, you know, I love my Amos tms. Um, they've done a lot of things, um, fully, you know, the AI with the reading, the PDF, they're coming out with different reporting options. Um, they've got different things going on that are constantly improving, which is very, very helpful, um, for me not to, if that makes sense. Um, I, I feel like they cover the things and then send me a message that says, hey, we updated this. And it's like, oh, okay, hey, look at what this can do. Automatically that's fun. Um, we're working on different things within the platform to try and, to try and do some upgrading on stuff. I, I will say in this, you're gonna laugh at me for this, but we only started. It's only been about a year since we started with QuickBooks Online. I always had QuickBook. Well, I shouldn't say always. I probably started QuickBooks, I don't know, 2010 maybe, something like that. Um, but QuickBooks Online has been a game changer when it comes to like knowing my numbers and understanding it because it integrates everything with the credit card, with the bank. Right away I can see if something is entered wrong. I can see if there's numbers changed around. I don't have to wait till the end of the month to reconcile. So I know it sounds like so stupid and small. Like now I think about, I'm like, I should have done this way sooner. I should have done it way sooner because I can be gone for a week and not touch the financials and it will take me maybe a half hour to get everything done. Make sure it all reconciles with the bank in real time. I'm not waiting for the month end. I'm not waiting for any of that. Um, and it was definitely one of those things. I was like, I should have done this a lot sooner. And QuickBooks changes a lot randomly, which is frustrating.

Speaker A: So.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm not saying it's the best program out there, but, um, it is definitely a huge, um, advantage, I would say with the QuickBooks Online that you can do real time connections with your bank. You can see all the transactions, you know, know in real time. If an employee used a credit card or what they used it for, you're not waiting till the end of the month to reconcile things out. It's done right away, which is awesome. So a little late to that boat, so.

Speaker A: Ah, no, no, I mean, uh, we're outgrowing QuickBooks, I think right now. Um, so we're, I would say in the next year, but we've been on it for ten years. Um, you know, something that I remember you've been tinkering with, with Claude. So we were texting back and forth, you know, a while ago, and you're like, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. So I, I never really jumped. I, I've used Claude, but I never really jumped on the bandwagon. So now we're complete. I mean, I've, I've jumped over the cliff, man. Ah, have you?

Speaker C: Have you?

Speaker B: Careful.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, no, it, but I, so I've used every other LLM in whatever case. But I, I, I mean I just really hadn't embraced Claude. Now I almost exclusively use Claude. Well, you know what that it is integrating data to it. So I, I'm at, you know, pretty, we, we spend quite a bit with it now. But you know, our HubSpot, our, our QuickBooks, our Monday dot com. Um, you know,

Speaker B: I will say I'm, I'm still tweaking a little bit. So it's not perfect but I've got Claude to do our safety program. So it integrates with Sam, Sarah, which is the cameras and elds that we have. It integrates with um, my AMOS tms and it will read data for lates, appointment times, that kind of stuff. It'll read driving behavior from the samcera, it'll read logs from the samcera, it will pull their wages from amos. It is all part of the safety program, whether they get points. So everything is getting done automatically now, including reading polls. It goes in, we have Best pass instead of just regular iPass right now. But um, Best pass, it reads what drivers did, what tolls. If you're an employee, you get marked a certain number if you know there's some leniency in employees because we're so close to Chicago. But generally speaking my employees are asked to try and avoid them um, as much as possible and so they, they get graded on that as well. Um, the CLAUDE has been a huge help in different areas. It's, I'm uh, not a hundred percent a fan yet. There are some glitchy things that I'm just like, man, I don't know if I can get this kind of changing. But this is me learning without any classes, any courses. It's still on my bucket. To do this summer is to take an actual like full on course so that I can see what I'm missing right now because this is just me tinkering with it, but 100%. It's done a lot of that back office work and really helped um, create that. But seeing it do kind of the safety program and then calculate the points for them, that was, I was like, look at this one. Look at it. I was so excited. I was nerding out for real. I forgot all about that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: I was thinking about, I actually, I didn't think about it till we were coming around to the topic. But the, I think I've just had crazy ideas and I started throwing at it and I've been able to actually achieve them. In, in ways where I don't even necessarily have to tap my development team. We just, I just figure it out. So, and, and then you know, from the reporting aspect of it too, just having, you know, you're not really having to use any sort of uh, heavy reporting tool. You can get some pretty amazing reports out of it if you fed it the right data and trained it the right way. So you know, when I, when I, when I talk. I said this at Matt's too. Um, what is. Well I, I think I said it at another place here. Oh when I was on with uh, Charles on break check. Um, you know he asked me what's the, the best tech out there. You know the LLM. I mean if you have five trucks, if you have two trucks, the most impactful thing that you can do. I mean you can use it for optimization, you can use it for routing, you can use it to help with QuickBooks, you can use it to do anything. Um, and, and it's like you have another person so in a lot of ways.

Speaker B: So I'll analysis on utilization. Given my KPI reports. I, I plugged some of this, I plugged some of that. It was doing routes and lane profitability. It was doing all of that stuff. Stuff that it's working with my TMS system but it's also working with QuickBooks. It's working with whatever data I want to give it. It's reading my emails. It can do all of, it can do all of it. Now I'm still, I'm only probably two or three projects in um, from a big grand scheme of things but it's actually, it really has been pretty um, pretty awesome to see and now my team is using one of them to kind of generate a checks and balances report between my TMS system um, and what the drivers have in versus. It's also connecting and reading um, one of my customers sites. Um, so it's verifying and double checking the customer sites is in the same status that ours is in and meaning like and checking dates. Like if a customer pushed out a load, um, Claude will pick that up. Claude will pick up like hey, there's a discrepancy. You have it in your system as this state. The customer now has it in their system as this date and it hasn't changed. And so it'll call it out on this report that we run every day now. Which is, which is awesome. It very much is. I forgot all about that.

Speaker A: Yeah, um, in one of the sessions here at Samsara yesterday it was actually A fuel optimization session, somebody had said, you know, they were putting up statements and they had this really cool thing where it was like BS or, you know, it's great or whatever. It was like good or bad is everybody in the room had a card. When they asked the question. You'd raise the card up on, um, whether or not you think it's BS or not. And one of the questions was, in five years, all your typical daily tasks for dispatch are going to be automated and the room. So now what's interesting is that question would have been asked at an industry association. Everyone would have flipped up. B.S. i, um, I'm positive of it. In this particular room, everybody agreed, almost everybody agreed with that statement. And then somebody brought up a, ah, somebody asked, uh, or made a statement around that and said, well, five years ago, did you think you'd even be using this technology in that way, shape or form at all? And everybody said no, we, we didn't even know it existed, you know, so who knows where we're going to be at in five years because things like this can just pop up and all of a sudden it's part of your daily life. I mean it has as much of an impact as it's beginning to have as much of an impact as a cell phone. So in some cases, so, so in another few more years, you know, cell phones really took a long time to become the staple. Really. It was the smartphone, I think, that jumped it way up. But I mean, if you think about it, cell phones have been around, you know, 40, 40 some odd years. So, uh, maybe longer.

Speaker B: It's about that because I am 40 and I remember getting my first Motorola, uh, box phone when I was, I don't know, I was probably 16, 17.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, but they are, do you remember the, the phones that would be in a car, you know, they, they would have the old, you know, I remember those. That was definitely in the 80s. So I, I remember we did the

Speaker B: walkie talkies and all that stuff in the, in the trucking companies too. I mean, yeah, pagers. And then we tried walkie talkies. Then we tried giving everybody little, yeah, we did next pills, we did blackberries for a little bit.

Speaker A: I tried kind of everything and eventually decided. But I, I, I thought I was a, uh, lead adopter with um, satellite tracking and it was like 2005 that, that we did that and I mean we were running close to a thousand trucks without satellites. So I mean it was all a cell phone or, or go plug something.

Speaker B: Even those satellites that went on the Trucks at the time were like this big. Now they're a tiny little box.

Speaker A: Now they're not even external. So, yes, I mean that. So the invasive install used to be like four plus hours on a truck, and now it's just a few minutes. So, um. But yeah, you just have to run the wires underneath up underneath the bunk and then run the other thing. Yeah, it was up. Always a pain.

Speaker B: We had people net first. PeopleNet was our first one that we got probably it was four or five years before, um, the mandate of E logs. And so we were. We were late to it, but not at the cutoff. You know, we did it a few years in advance. And PeopleNet technology, same thing. It took forever to install. It took forever to. I mean, that was rough, you know, so there's. There's good advancements in technology and then there's ones that just strike. Stress me out.

Speaker A: Nope, I. I'm. I'm right there with you. All of them stress me out because I got to deal with all of them.

Speaker B: So I was gonna say that coming from the tech guy means a lot. I feel like I need a, uh, I feel like I need a data analytics degree, a logistics degree, which I never went to school for this. I don't even know if a logistics degree is. Makes sense. Sometimes I feel like in this industry,

Speaker A: for trucking, it really. I mean, uh, doesn't matter.

Speaker B: I mean, I need a management degree, I need an financial degree. I mean, and I have my masters in small business ownership. And you'd think I know everything and stuff still sneaks up on me all the time, every day.

Speaker A: Best education is time and experience. So, you know, you just have to run it over and over. So while we're up on time, how can everybody find you?

Speaker B: Um, one of the biggest, best places is, um, LinkedIn. Pamela Polliak on LinkedIn. Um, pam@polyaktrucking.com new website's going to be launching soon. It's polyxsolutions.com and in there you will find the consulting business and the trucking business and the logistics business. So, um, Polyc Solutions, I'm hoping we'll be launching, um, actually, probably July 1st, I'm thinking, um, so July, Polyc Solutions, July 1st, but then, um, Pam at POC Trucking, um, LinkedIn, Facebook, any of that stuff. All regular social media. And then got my own podcast, Hauling Success podcast on the YouTube channel.

Speaker A: Absolutely. I've watched a few episodes. I can't say I've watched all the episodes, but.

Speaker B: All right. I don't Rewatch. I don't rewatch them. It doesn't hurt my feelings at all.

Speaker A: I never watched this stuff, so. I mean, I've told you this before. I've gone back to my first episode a number of times, and it's just like, oh, no, you know. Yeah, no, I don't really want to watch.

Speaker C: I. I.

Speaker A: Even the. The current ones, I don't typically watch. I'll watch clips and stuff, but, uh, typically don't re. Watch myself ever. So, you know, it is what it is. So.

Speaker B: Yeah, learning material. That's all I care about. They're there to teach other people, and if you get something out of it. If not, keep scrolling.

Speaker A: I guess not however it works, so. But, um, Well, I. I appreciate it. The hour went by fast. We need to get together and chat more, so. But, uh, um, I hope all goes well. You have the rest of your vacation ahead of you. A few days, peace and quiet, so. Or not. Uh, all right, well. Well, thanks for coming on Pan. We'll. We'll talk to you soon.

Speaker B: Thanks, Nate. Have a good one. We'll talk soon.

Speaker A: All right, here's what I'm taking away from that discussion. The. The trucks, the terminals, the technologies. Those all change. And what lasts is what you choose to pass on. Pam didn't just inherit a business. She's spending her career making sure that the next operator doesn't have to bleed for every lesson she learned the hard way. That's really the legacy, not the name on the door, but the people who walk through the door after you. So, to every owner, operator, and fleet owner listening, keep learning and own your mistakes and build something that's worth handing down. Stay curious, stay informed, and keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible. And until next time, drive forward with purpose and innovation. Thanks for watching. Sa.