Austin Hammen:
We're at 35 trucks now. Just wanna keep growing, hopefully get to 75 or a hundred one day.
Jared Flinn:
So you were more the visionary Right. More than your dad was.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. He my dad probably had a visionary. He just wasn't one to tell you about it. Yeah. He just, expect you to figure it out as you went. So it was, it was it was pretty fun to be around him and, try and figure out what he had going on in his mind.
Austin Hammen:
Sometimes it was what you thought was not the right thing, but, it all worked out in the end.
Jared Flinn:
Today, we're down in Purdy, Missouri again, and, Austin Hammond's with us with Ah Trucking. Austin, you've been a member on bulk loads, I think, pretty much since our humble beginning. Yes, sir.
Austin Hammen:
Yep.
Jared Flinn:
We've gotten to know each other over the last several years, and I consider you a good friend as well. Absolutely. And, thank you for having us down here. But, man, this is gonna be storytelling. We wanna hear the Ah story, and, you'll give us a little tour on the shop as well. These videos, I think, just are priceless for our customers just to see more behind the scenes and hopefully have takeaways and our customers learn from that.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
But, give us the Ah story. This was started by your dad. Right?
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. So it was started by my dad in, early two thousands, and he started out with dump trucks, hauling for a local company called Vaughn's. Danny Vaughn and Jake Vaughn and, Jerry Vaughn and some good friends of ours, Michael and Josie Flummerfelt. And, at that time, they had my dad had probably seven or eight dump trucks. And, I was getting to, graduation age at, high school, and we're kinda wanting to go a different direction. And, my dad was always wanted to try hauling cows, so he made a contact on that and, started selling dump trucks and buying cow trucks. And, did that for about two and a half, three years and, again, had six or seven cow trucks at one time and, just kinda got wore out on that after a while. That's a young man's profession.
Jared Flinn:
I was gonna say, life cycle, and you hear about it, and that is, that is a young man.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. That's a young young man's profession
Jared Flinn:
for sure.
Austin Hammen:
So I I had bought my first truck in 02/2007. I was 17 years old and, hired my first driver, Kelly, and he's still with me today. And, he was hauling cows with my dad, and they got they're older guys and, got tired and wore out and, thought we'd try pulling hopper bottoms. And so we switched to that after about three years of cattle, and that was in, 02/2010. The economy wasn't that great.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. I remember that.
Austin Hammen:
Time, switching to the hoppers. It was it was pretty rough go there for first couple years, but, we we made it work and just took off ever since then. So
Jared Flinn:
So you went from dump trucks then to livestock hauling Yep. And then into hopper bottoms. Sure. A lot of people know I mean, Southwest Missouri, huge inbound freight, especially hopper bottoms. Yeah. Yeah. And, obviously, most people know this is poultry country.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
You know? Yeah.
Austin Hammen:
A
Jared Flinn:
lot of poultry, that but you guys base a lot of your business out of that. Right?
Austin Hammen:
We do. Yeah. We do a lot of poultry feed ingredients, and a lot of cattle feed ingredients too. Anything from soybean meal to just corn, DDGs. You know, all that stuff is used in poultry and cattle and, swine now. So, we're not just, bound to poultry, but we do a lot of poultry and, picking up a lot of more cattle feed mill operations, and that seems to work really well for us. So
Jared Flinn:
I wanna go back to the story. You guys get into hoppers finally, running several trucks. But walk us through kinda what was going on there because, yeah, 02/2008, '2 thousand '9, industry slow. You guys have how many trucks?
Austin Hammen:
At that time, I think we had six or seven trucks, all older trucks, talking, like, eight, nine, 10 year old trucks. You know? So a lot of maintenance. A lot of weekends were spent maintaining. But, yeah, we were we were running six or seven trucks, between the cattle and then switched all that away from the cattle to hoppers and, trying to trying to make a go of it, pulling hoppers, and just stuck with it. And there's a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that went into it. And,
Jared Flinn:
Talk about roles at that time. I assume your dad was still at the helm kind of leading
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. In charge.
Jared Flinn:
What what was your role?
Austin Hammen:
So I was my dad was driving and in charge and trying to make sure everybody we're working with a broker and, trying to make sure everything was staying loaded and, profitable. And at that time, I was in the shop, trying to maintain everything, and, I was still in college that last or that first year, my last year of college, their first year of switching to Hoppers. So I would come home on the weekends and work usually all day Saturday and part of Sunday, getting trucks ready to go out for the next week and then go back to school Sunday night up in, Lynn, Missouri. So it was a every weekend trip to come home and work on trucks and, because there wasn't honestly, there wasn't anything to do in Lynn. It was a small town. Yeah. If you didn't know anybody, you didn't have anything to do. So a lot of people just went home and and, did their own thing.
Jared Flinn:
What were you studying at Lynn? I
Austin Hammen:
studied the caterpillar technology.
Jared Flinn:
Because it's not a big decent mechanic school too. Right? Yeah.
Austin Hammen:
Yep. It is. I did a internship at Caterpillar in Joplin for Fabik
Jared Flinn:
Yeah.
Austin Hammen:
During school, and it was it's a really great program. I, I definitely learned a lot from it. And I I'm glad I did it because it it, really helped me prepare myself going forward on maintaining trucks and actually knowing what to do instead of just changing parts and guessing at it. You know? So
Jared Flinn:
Hey, guys. Thank you for listening to the Bulkloads podcast. Many of y'all may not know, but four years ago, we started a TMS platform specifically for bulk. TMS is a transportation management system. We knew that a lot of companies, even large Fortune 500 companies, were still using Excel spreadsheets and scratch pads to manage their freight. We compiled all that together in one simple software solution called Bulk TMS. It allows you to do everything from scheduling to dispatch to ticket capture. Everything that you would need to do, to take out those manual processes, we have encompassed in bulktms.com.
Jared Flinn:
So if you get a chance, check out bulktms.com. We'll put the link below. We wanna give you a demo. It's really simple to see how we do it. We now have hundreds of companies from, again, Fortune 500 companies to small one, two truck companies that are using this system and saving a lot of time and money every day. So check out bulktms.com if you don't have a robust solution, that is geared towards bulk. Bulktms.com. God bless.
Jared Flinn:
Talk about so you're commuting back and forth on the weekends helping the shop. You know, your dad's running the company. But what are those conversations with your dad at that time? What were you what were the goals to hit? I mean, I know it's to survive and and make a profit, but were you and your dad at that time talking about how big a truck can get, how many trucks you could get, how how much you wanted to serve the community?
Austin Hammen:
No. We, we never really had those conversations. We we just we're kinda both in agreeance. If, we wanted to buy another truck or two, we would do it. Sometimes my dad would do it, and I wasn't in agreeance with it, you know, because I didn't think we could support the workload on the backside, I guess, in trying to do the maintenance with him driving. I can see with him driving, I mean, he's working seven days a week. You know, that's that's not an easy thing to do. Yeah.
Austin Hammen:
And so but as far as growth, we never really discussed it. In my mind, I I had a vision of what I wanted, and, we've I've stayed to that vision to this day. You know? We're at 35 trucks now and, just wanna keep growing, hopefully get to 75 or 101 day.
Jared Flinn:
So you were more the visionary Right. More than your dad
Austin Hammen:
was? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. He My dad probably had a visionary. He just wasn't one to tell you about it. Yeah. He just, expect you to figure it out as you went. So it was, it was it was pretty fun to be around him and, try and figure out what he had going on in his mind.
Austin Hammen:
Sometimes it was what you thought was not the right thing, but, it all worked out in the end. Well, we can, start in the office. Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
Do you
Austin Hammen:
guys want run
Jared Flinn:
quite a few deep intro?
Austin Hammen:
Just two. We're actually gonna convert this one back to a sleeper truck. So we've got, Bonnie and Dawson in here. Well, Bonnie's gone.
Jared Flinn:
She knew we were gonna
Austin Hammen:
she knew
Jared Flinn:
we were gonna get our own video.
Austin Hammen:
This is Dawson. Have a
Jared Flinn:
good one. Hey. Jared Flynn. Nice. Vocalo. It's good to meet you.
Austin Hammen:
Yep. Dawson.
Jared Flinn:
I think he's got the board right up. See? Yeah. Just couldn't got it staged and everything for us. So he's on brokerage side?
Austin Hammen:
Mhmm. He he helps, dispatch our company trucks and owner operators as well, and then, does some of the brokerage.
Jared Flinn:
We said 35. Does that include owner operators? No, that's just company trucks. Okay. So that's not even other ones that you guys are running.
Austin Hammen:
Right. We've got, what, like 10 or 12 owner operators on top of our 35 company trucks. So we're any given day we're dispatching 40 or 45 trucks, depending on who's in the shop or who's off or, on vacation or whatever. So.
Jared Flinn:
It's a lot.
Austin Hammen:
It is. It's a
Jared Flinn:
lot of hands full. This
Austin Hammen:
is, Melvin. Melvin. This is Jared.
Jared Flinn:
Hey, Melvin. I heard about you, Jared Flynn. Good to meet you.
Austin Hammen:
We're doing a podcast with, bulk loads today and, just got done doing that. And so we're giving them a tour of the office.
Jared Flinn:
And So you're the CF. No?
Austin Hammen:
Yep. Alright. Thank you.
Jared Flinn:
So you've been in trucking how long? Eighteen, nineteen years. Okay.
Austin Hammen:
And then, Bonnie up chart up church.
Jared Flinn:
Hi. Hey, Bonnie. Jared Flynn. I see your name all the time on the board. So good to finally meet you.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Bonnie Bonnie is our office manager. She's been here for five years. We've got my office in here. All the trucks and, that we've had over the years and growth. And
Jared Flinn:
That's cool. I almost love that they're all a little bit different, you know, versus just all exactly.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. There wasn't, when we were, when my dad and I were buying trucks, we, we primarily stayed with Kenworth, had a few Peterbilts and couple freight liners, but, yeah.
Jared Flinn:
This is your date here?
Austin Hammen:
Yep.
Jared Flinn:
What year was that?
Austin Hammen:
That would have been 02/2009, I believe. No. Sorry. Yeah. 08/2008 or '9.
Jared Flinn:
So you would have just started.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah, I was,
Jared Flinn:
just kind of got involved
Austin Hammen:
with just, I graduated high school in 02/2008. So that was February when that picture was taken.
Jared Flinn:
And at that time, it was all livestock. Right? No hoppers yet. Yeah.
Austin Hammen:
I still had, still had a couple, dump trucks with the cattle, but, no hoppers at that time. So
Jared Flinn:
nice.
Austin Hammen:
We, we still have, this was the first truck, this one and this red and white one. They're both the same truck. We just repainted it. But, that was the first truck my dad bought to start hauling cows and we, we still have it today. Who runs it? We've got a driver in it. His name is Kevin and, he takes pretty good care of it. Drives it, but not just anybody drives that
Jared Flinn:
one. So I like bullpike. I like this classic paint scheme with the red and
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. It's awesome. New shop.
Austin Hammen:
That was, taken, last April. I think we had just moved out here. We hadn't been out here for a couple of months and a buddy of mine took that with a drone and I didn't know he was doing it. So that picture right there in the mini X with my boy, we're cleaning out the fence row out here along the highway that day. He did it. And, I didn't know he was doing it. And there's this drone that like dropped down right in front of us. I'm like, what the heck is that? Where's that coming from? And I looked around and I couldn't see anything and he'd like parked over behind that building and was flying it.
Austin Hammen:
And, so then we happened to go out to eat later that night and, for my birthday and he gave it to me. I was like, oh, well that was nice of me. You know, I didn't know you were doing that. That's a, that was pretty neat, birthday gift.
Jared Flinn:
So anything with that sign at all? Like anything you, was that a president or just,
Austin Hammen:
something I found, a guy was making them it's all out of pennies and dimes. I thought it looked cool. We've we've got a Peterbilt one out in the shop office too. And, and just something, just some neat wall art.
Jared Flinn:
I always ask this just because I'm in the same place. Like, what's your least favorite thing about the job?
Austin Hammen:
Least favorite, not being able to, get the job done. You know, if something happens and that you can't foresee and you fail on it And, it lets the customer down.
Jared Flinn:
Okay.
Austin Hammen:
It, I kind of take it to heart, you know, I don't, I don't like to do that. And, I put everything I can into getting the job done and, and want to make sure we do it. And when we fall short, sometimes it's, pretty disappointing. So, we're trying not to do that, but, Yeah, that's, that's probably my least favorite part, I guess. Outside of that, I don't know. I just, I enjoy my job. Yeah. To be honest with you.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. That's good.
Austin Hammen:
If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't be where I'm at. No. So. There are tough days and, and, then there's easy days, but that's, part of being in business I've learned. So that's for
Jared Flinn:
me as we've grown, it's been like you have to have people to grow. Yeah. And those people need to be led and mentored, but then also still being able to work with the customers. Because I'm the same way it's like, I'm a customer Yeah. Person. And as we've grown, having to try to manage both, but now we're at a scale. We're, like, finding the right people to manage people.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
So that doesn't let go. You know? Right. But that's always been a challenge for me. It's like like, we got we got to a certain size where I was having to still try to manage a lot of people.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
And that was the hardest thing. That's why I didn't like and we've gotten we've gotten better now where we have people and leaders Yeah. That can help grow people. Yeah. But that was for that. That's where I got stuck for so long. And, but now it's been awesome because I can do stuff like this. Yeah.
Austin Hammen:
This is what I wanted
Jared Flinn:
to be doing.
Austin Hammen:
I would like to get to where I can have somebody that's, booking the freight, and I can go out and visit customers and
Jared Flinn:
I love it
Austin Hammen:
and do more of that stuff, you know, because that's what I enjoy getting to see customers and visit with them and build the relationships. And, and, we're getting there. Dawson's taken more over the dispatching side of things. And, that's taken some weight off of me. He does all the interviewing for new drivers. That's, that's another big weight lifted off of me. And, so just with those two things and, and some of the other stuff that he does, that's really helped a lot. And, Hopefully the next year or so we'll have somebody else in place to be able to help with the logistics side of it, you know, and, we can focus on visiting customers and, and, building more relationships.
Austin Hammen:
So I feel like I
Jared Flinn:
get more done when I'm out of the office.
Austin Hammen:
And Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
And and maybe it's just a mindset bit. Like, when I'm in, I get stuck on just all this in front of me, but when I'm out, like Yeah. Ideas, and I can almost get stuff more done on the road than
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. I, whenever we went on our trip here a few weeks ago, I I caught myself thinking more of things to better the business outside of the
Jared Flinn:
All the business.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Working on the business instead of in the business. And, I catch myself doing that, working in the business more so than I need to. And, there's nothing wrong with that. But, if you wanna keep growing and moving forward, you need to work on the business. Yeah. So I I did enjoy that being able to get out of the office and think about more things and figure out what to do next and what our next move could be. So that was, more enjoyable.
Austin Hammen:
I needed that, honestly.
Jared Flinn:
Well, then you talk about customers. Like, when you visit or just being out with customers, you learn more about them
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
And other needs. Like, well, crap. I didn't know that, you know, you could do other things or, you know, you could service other work or other opportunities. And that's like it's like you don't have that expectation
Austin Hammen:
Right.
Jared Flinn:
But it just organically happens. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like like you find more opportunities and more deals outside.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Absolutely. Instead of just being in the office and, taking the same same loads every week, you know, versus actually having a conversation with them face to face, you learn more and what their other functions are and what they can do or anything like that, you know? So yeah, but, we've got several customers that are that way that have more needs than what we currently do for them. And hopefully, we can capture that in the next few years and keep expanding.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. You're the youngest. Yes. By fourteen years of the next sibling. Yeah. The, the other siblings, they weren't involved? Or
Austin Hammen:
No. So, my oldest sister, the oldest sibling, she lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming with her husband and kids. And then, she's she's way smarter than me. She's a math, got a math major and is over all kinds of everything at the college and high school where she works. And then, my brother, Chris, he sells insurance at Crane, Missouri And Farms. He's got, nine kids, six boys, and three girls, and they own the, four state stockyards down at Exeter, Missouri. Oh, wow. Okay.
Austin Hammen:
So they, are busy with that, with the stockyards and farming. I don't know how many acres they have, but several thousand acres. And then, Carrie, the youngest of the three, she, works for me part time on in the office doing the payroll and accounting, accounts billable. So
Jared Flinn:
So it almost sounds like they were kind of just because your 14 year old's difference, I mean, the business really kinda got more started in going in your era than their era. They were already kinda moved out and gone.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. So they were they were my mom and dad were on the dairy farm, when they were younger. They're actually my mom and dad are actually from, Iowa.
Jared Flinn:
Okay.
Austin Hammen:
And, all three of my siblings were born in Iowa, And then, they later moved down to Missouri and, started dairy farming and, got out of that. My dad had some health problems and couldn't couldn't support it anymore, milking cows seven days a week. So then they moved moved off to the farm and moved into town and started the the trucking deal. So
Jared Flinn:
So walk us through, you guys are running. You guys are building this fleet up, but you met your dad's health conditions. But can you talk a little bit more about that? Because he passed away how long ago?
Austin Hammen:
So he passed away in, 02/2019.
Jared Flinn:
Okay. So six years ago.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. And he, he'd had some health issues later in his life. Just, had a heart attack when I was probably, I don't know, five or six years old. Had quadruple bypass surgery, and at at that time, that was a pretty major deal. And I remember my mom, whenever he was he had passed away, he my mom was telling us that, whenever he had his first heart attack that she just prayed and prayed that he would make it through it because she couldn't raise a five year old boy by herself. You know? And Yeah. And, I'm glad he he did make it through it. And, I miss him to this day.
Austin Hammen:
Still think about him every day and wish he was still here. But, yeah, it just, he just his heart gave out, you know, and, when I Just a hard worker all his life Yeah. Basically. You know?
Jared Flinn:
A lot of I know it happens more often, but where the father passes away, head of the business, and then it's gotta business gotta keep going, take over. But how did that he can you just walk us through what happened there? Because, again, I couldn't first of all, I couldn't imagine, but you I mean Yeah. You guys had this trucking company. Your father passes away.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. So, when my dad passed away, I had been in control of it for probably about two, maybe three years.
Jared Flinn:
Okay.
Austin Hammen:
So you'd
Jared Flinn:
already transitioned to be
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Probably longer than that. It's about four, maybe five years I had been in control because he was ready to retire and wanted to move the responsibility over to me. And he still wanted to drive and just be told what to do. And, he really enjoyed that towards the end. He could he worked five, six days a week driving a truck and not have any phone calls, and he was happy. And, that's what he wanted to do. And so there was there was a good three or four years there where, I had been running the operation and running things off of him for advice and and still acting as a partnership, but he anytime somebody would ask him to do something, he's like, I don't know.
Austin Hammen:
Call Austin. And, he'll he'll take care of it, and we'll get you taken care of. So, he he was done with the responsibility in the phone calls. He just wanted to relax and drive and and, be able to travel with my mom when they retire.
Jared Flinn:
I can name a lot of companies that I've, in this industry where the dad or father does that. He transitions it down, and then he really spends what he loves doing Yeah. Driving the truck.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
And, I I know I can name a specific company up in, Ottawa, Kansas that the dad still, you know, drives and let lets the kids run the business.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
So in 02/2019, when he passed, how many trucks were you were you all at at that time? How big was the fleet?
Austin Hammen:
So in 02/2019, I think we're at maybe 11 or 12.
Jared Flinn:
Okay.
Austin Hammen:
Not real big, but at the time, it was a lot. It seemed like a lot. You know? Nothing like where it's where we're at today. And ever since then, we've just kept adding trucks and growing and trying to improve things as we went.
Jared Flinn:
You guys are at 35 trucks today, but how how does that happen, I guess? And, again, it's like, you know, you've gotta find a need, sir you know, there's gotta be customers. You know, you kinda grow with your customers. Yeah. But was that something that even did you think that you're gonna be at 35 trucks today in 2025?
Austin Hammen:
No. Not really. We, the markets just kinda we just went with the markets, you know, saw demand. If we if each week we had more freight than what we could cover, we'd start considering, maybe we need to add another truck instead of turning freight down. You know? And, so that's kinda how it's evolved is if we have more freight than what we can cover, conservatively, we'll, look at buying more trucks and keep expanding. So
Jared Flinn:
We could go through a whole slew of this within the business, but I just wanna hit on a couple of those. Like, when you all expanded over the years, you guys have done some things to help that expansion, but I know you have a a brokerage
Austin Hammen:
We do. Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
That that supports or that runs that helps support the trucking outfit as well.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
I'm sure we'll go and kinda walk through there just getting on says Bonnie, is that who?
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Bonnie. Bonnie Upchurch. She's been with me, for five years now. She's our office manager and, helps run the brokerage side of it along with, Dawson. Dawson's been with me for about two two years now three years. Sorry. And between those two, they they pretty well take care of the brokerage side and, making sure all the loads are covered.
Austin Hammen:
And then, I do a lot of the communication with the customers and and setting up the freight and making sure we get what we need from the customers and everything's good to go on our end.
Jared Flinn:
So And it was just within this last year, you guys have hired a CFO too. Right? Yeah. And that's kinda been the first CFO. Yep. And I think which is a great move. And when you get to a certain size
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
Having someone really pay attention to the numbers.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. It's been that was a that was a good move for us. Melvin Bowman, he's he's been a great great asset to us, because it I mean, at ten ten or 15 trucks, you can manage it pretty well, you know, like a like a regular checkbook. And, but I my my suggestion when you get over 30 trucks, you really need to have somebody that will pay attention to the numbers and understands trucking and and can help you get through the harder times, you know, and help you to prepare for that, if that makes sense. And he's he's done that since, it was last September, I believe. Or no. Sorry. Last July.
Austin Hammen:
So he's been here for almost a year, close to a year, and he's got a good background in trucking and understands it. And that's been really helpful since he's been here, and I can bounce things off of him. And he can give me his opinion whether I agree or disagree, or we're still on the same page at the end of the day. So
Jared Flinn:
Yeah.
Austin Hammen:
I really appreciate that coming from him. So Well,
Jared Flinn:
yeah, as a business owner, I just think having someone just to tell you, you know, give advice, numbers, whether you agree or disagree, having, like, a just second eyeballs Yeah. On the numbers to make sure that you're seeing things accurately or something may be blinded there. Yeah. The shop that we're sitting here, this is another part of the business. Right?
Austin Hammen:
Yep. And
Jared Flinn:
you guys I mean, size of the shop can do pretty much a lot of your own maintenance repairs.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. We do we try to do a % of our maintenance and repairs in house. We you can't afford to take it to a dealership anymore at $250 an hour for labor rates in in the shop is just not even feasible. So we we have the software to hook up to trucks and read codes and diagnose codes, and and we and do anything from, engine overhauls to, differential rebuilds and everything in between. We we try to do it all.
Jared Flinn:
It
Austin Hammen:
may take us a little longer to do it, but, the cost of doing it ourselves offsets the cost of taking it to a dealer. So that's that's kinda how we look at it. We can save $200 an hour, you know, if it may take an extra eight or ten hours to do the job. If it's our first time doing it, you know, just on that learning curve, the next one, I always tell the guys, well, you ought to do the next one twice as fast then. So, they they they don't really see that the same way I do, but it's, I try to hold it to him. And, they they do a really good job doing what they need to do to keep things running. And I've got a good bunch of guys in the shop and glad we're at that point we can do that. So
Jared Flinn:
So you were saying earlier, you got the two day cabs, but you're gonna be putting a sleeper back on.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Yeah. We, we bought a flat top sleeper. We've got it shoved in the corner over there. We gotta rebuild the motor on this. It's, need to rebuild and we've got everything to put it back together. We just last week, we had three motors all down in the shop here and, we've got one out yesterday. We'll have this one out today and then we'll get started back on this one.
Austin Hammen:
Hopefully have it out of here in the next month.
Jared Flinn:
How do you make the decisions on, you know, continuing to rebuild a truck versus buying a newer model? And I mean, is is the CFO involved then kinda looking at the the numbers and crunching all the
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. So we discussed it like on on this truck, it's an older, model truck and it's got a Caterpillar engine in it. So we we can rebuild those, relatively cheap here in house. And, but if it's a newer model truck, it depends on, depreciation schedules where it's at. If it's time to trade before we have to rebuild the motor, we'll trade, get depreciation out of it. I there's just a multitude of things that go into on making that decision, but most of our older trucks like these will, will keep rebuilding them. You know? Is there
Jared Flinn:
Give me a ballpark figure. What's it cost? I mean, if you don't mind, what's it cost shop to rebuild the motor versus a year to go pay to have it rebuilt?
Austin Hammen:
I
Jared Flinn:
just want ballpark fees.
Austin Hammen:
Probably $3,035,000 to have Caterpillar or Kenworth Peterbilt to rebuild it. Our cost, we can do it for around 15 to 18. Yes. Half the cost to rebuild it yourself. Yeah. Yeah. They they have a markup on their parts versus us buying the parts. You know, they still mark the parts of which I don't agree with.
Austin Hammen:
But, I I caught our dealer doing that the other day and I I had a pretty stern conversation with him about it. And I said, well, I just might as well buy the parts and just give them to you, you know, because it's gonna save me $3,000 if you're gonna do that. But,
Jared Flinn:
No kidding. Wow.
Austin Hammen:
They they, have their markup and then their the labor rate is what's you can I figured out if you can, whatever parts cost is gonna be, you can almost double that with the labor? Like, say it'll So
Jared Flinn:
it's a good rule of thumb to know. So whatever that number is, double in the labor. Yeah.
Austin Hammen:
If you're gonna have $5,000 in parts, it'd be $5 in labor.
Jared Flinn:
That's a good little thumb to Yeah. Yeah. Just to kinda know. Yeah. How many mechanics do you have?
Austin Hammen:
Three mechanics. Three full time mechanics and, we just hired a part time kid. He's a senior in high school. He's gonna, hopefully come to work full time after high school, but he works after school and on the weekends.
Jared Flinn:
Everybody's in everybody's value valuable in the organization, but man, having good mechanics Yeah. Has gotta be like priceless too.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
Just because they don't exist out there, I mean. How long has this truck been worked on?
Austin Hammen:
We pulled that one in probably a month ago. We were, we're not in a huge hurry for it. Like I said, we're putting a sleeper on it. It took me a while to make that final decision to put that sleeper on it if we wanted to do it. And, finally said yes. So the first first step was getting the motor rebuilt and get it running again. And we've got all the parts to do that. We'll get started on it tomorrow going back together with it.
Jared Flinn:
The goal of this will go right into the fleet, the others, and
Austin Hammen:
Yep.
Jared Flinn:
So many parts.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. So they there's, some of these that's like that one that's got some damage. We'll go through all these parts and find out what's needs replaced and
Jared Flinn:
So did you I mean, can you do a fair amount of diesel mechanics if you wanted to? I mean, just from what you learned?
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. I, I enjoy working in the shop. So I work in the shop every other Saturday. We have a rotation with our all the mechanics on who works Saturdays. Oh, wow. And,
Jared Flinn:
that's good. Just so you kinda even get a pulse of what's going on and Yeah. Working with the guys.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. So I worked me and one of the other guys worked every other Saturday. And, a lot of guys like to go golfing on Saturday or fishing or whatever, you know, but I like to go to the shop for it. So, That's what I enjoy, I guess. It's, as long as I'm not getting any phone calls and getting bothered, I enjoy it.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. It could almost be a little therapeutic and it just zoning out and kind of working with your hands.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. That's nice. I enjoy it. So
Jared Flinn:
This truck, what it's is it getting rebuilt too or what is it?
Austin Hammen:
Oh, it's just getting a couple parts changed on the fuel pump. We've been having some issues with it, and, it's kinda been a process of elimination. We've been chasing it for a while trying to get it fixed, but we think we've got it narrowed down. So, hopefully, by the end of the day, we'll it'll be done and be back on the road.
Jared Flinn:
So Majority of the fleet are Kenworth. So
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Yep. Kenworth's than, Peterbilt's. We've probably got, six or seven Peterbilt's. So
Jared Flinn:
Is that, I mean, just what drivers want or
Austin Hammen:
more so the deals that we can work with the dealerships, and availability when we're buying them.
Jared Flinn:
Availability is good now, right?
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. For the most part, we've got, some new ones on order. They're building this week. We ordered them three weeks ago. So build the March will be here by the March.
Jared Flinn:
Where, where they being built at?
Austin Hammen:
Peterbilt down in Denton, Texas. So we we ordered four. We're gonna trade four trucks for four.
Jared Flinn:
And What's the I assume it's just like buying a new pickup. Like, you order one because you get what you want. I mean, kind of the same deal. You order because you're getting specked out specifically for what you want for your Yep.
Austin Hammen:
So, spec out what you need for your fleet. We're we're going with, automatics on these four. We've got a couple others. The fuel mileage is tremendous on them. What
Jared Flinn:
is the fuel mileage on?
Austin Hammen:
So the two that we can, go off of their average is six six and six nine on fourth quarter IFTA's, which is really good in my opinion. There's probably some guys that are getting a little better than that, and some guys that are a little lower than that. But I feel if you can maintain six five on the fourth quarter IFTA, that's pretty good. So
Jared Flinn:
Robert Grover, one of our clients, I get I'm I get on his weekly email, but, like, they do incentives to their drivers. They whoever had has the best fuel mileage. Yeah. Like, they give, like, I don't know if it's, like, a hundred dollar gift card each month or whatever. You all do any kind of incentive
Austin Hammen:
No. Or that's that's actually a good idea. I need to call Rob and Yeah. Ask him how he how he works that incentive program because that that would be really interesting to see.
Jared Flinn:
He's a pretty open book. I'll forward you the email, but, I always because, honestly, I always like to see who wins it each month. It's kind of like a little I mean, I'm sure, you know, a hundred dollar gift card's nice, but it's kinda cool just to be the winner.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
You know? Yeah. Absolutely. You save the most fuel, you know, and reward the driver for it.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. So one of our incentive programs, we if the driver gets a roadside inspect goes through a roadside inspection and has a turns in a inspection that has no violations found on it, we give them a hundred and $50 gift card. So that, helps them understand, like, hey, if I do my job a little better, you know, and do the log book, e log right, and stay up with it, you know, it's an extra hundred and $50.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah.
Austin Hammen:
A lot of guys, appreciate it and do a good job at it. So
Jared Flinn:
hey. Incentivize for the outcome.
Austin Hammen:
Yep. Absolutely.
Jared Flinn:
It was interesting when I was talking to Michael Bennett, who's down the road here, episode that we released before this one. He was talking that, you know, he focused on the mechanics and that cost savings afforded them to grow the business, which I've never heard that before.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
But it was interesting that he knew that that was his skill set or specialty Yeah. That he could put on to help grow the trucking side.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Absolutely. That does sound cool. I mean, if you take Mike, Bennett, and I both have about the same amount of trucks. So if you take 35 trucks and have to take them to the shop for every single repair. You know? I couldn't imagine the shop bill you'd have at the end of the year. And just looking at that would shoot. You could've bought you could've built a shop and hired two mechanics and still had money left over probably for doing all that.
Austin Hammen:
So it it is a huge cost savings, and it allows he and I to both grow the business. And I think we're on the same page when it comes to that.
Jared Flinn:
So So speaking of cost savings, maybe what else am I missing or what maybe what else is on the horizon as far as kind of the future with Ah Trucking? I mean, besides expanding trucks, other opportunities, I know I was throwing some out here. I love that they have a truck wash.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it
Jared Flinn:
just seem like, man, you can kinda keep looking at some of these other things. You kinda bolt on to the business that all helps save money.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Yeah. So the, the trailer washout deal, that's a big thing for us. Is that
Jared Flinn:
is that here that you all have?
Austin Hammen:
Okay. It is. It saves saves us money on washouts, $60.70, $80 a pop. You know?
Jared Flinn:
And, Do you guys do outside trucks?
Austin Hammen:
We do. Yeah. Okay. And we don't have any problems doing that. There's only about three in the area, so it's like us and then Springfield Exit 33 in Joplin, Four Four of us in the area. So, this one's pretty convenient with our location and works out well for us, but, that's that's been a pretty good deal for us since we've opened the shop a year ago.
Jared Flinn:
You guys, as far as fuel, do you have a do you guys do you guys fill up here or is everything
Austin Hammen:
We do. We have our own, Bolt fuel tank here on-site. We'd we'd try to get the trucks to fill up here as much as possible. Yeah. Coming coming in, fill up. If you're leaving out, even if you're at a quarter of a tank, top off. You know, that extra 20 or 30 gallons on a 30 to 50ยข savings adds up over time, and that's just another cost savings that we can help use to grow the business. And, so we're all the time checking guys, making sure they're doing that and and reminding them.
Austin Hammen:
And, just just telling them like, hey. You know, if you top off here with a hundred gallons, that's, $30, you know, or $40. Multiply that by 35, tell me what you got. So, some guys, they, don't understand it till you explain it to them that way, and then they're they get a little more conscientious of making sure they get fuel here, and and it's it's really appreciated when they do. So Which
Jared Flinn:
is great advice. And speaking on that advice, and you might have multiple answers to this, but if you look back on your years in trucking, what was actually some of the worst advice maybe you received or heard in trucking that you could tell our audience today? Some of the worst advice? Worst advice.
Austin Hammen:
Oh, gosh. That's a tough one. Probably some of the boy. I don't even know how to answer that. I've been given some Trucking's a get rich quick Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
Business.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Worst advice. I would say, trucking's not a I wouldn't get into trucking to get rich quick. I would I would say that's bad advice. Guys buy a truck and think, yeah, we're we're gonna get rich, and it's it's not the case. It's it's a steady income, and it's a it makes a good living if you wanna work hard at it, but it's you're not gonna get rich overnight.
Jared Flinn:
I just had so many, even friends that I know in the Springfield community that, you know, when three years ago, they come they're coming to me, they knew I was in trucking. Like, man, we're gonna buy trucks and Yeah. Man, these guys make all kinds of money and this and that. I'm like
Austin Hammen:
Three three years ago, it was it was the case.
Jared Flinn:
It's not gonna be this way forever.
Austin Hammen:
No. It's, it's, well, I mean, twenty twenty twenty four was probably the hardest year of my career, and we still had a 14% growth. Wow. And I was talking to with one of our one of my financial guys, last week, and he's like, man, your numbers look good. And then and I said, well, yeah. They might look good, but just in general, 2024 was the hardest year of my career that I've been through.
Jared Flinn:
You know, it's interesting you say that. I was, talking with an individual that works at Prime.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
And he was saying Robert Lowe was saying that out of all of his years in trucking, 2024 was the one of the worst years he's ever experienced.
Austin Hammen:
Really?
Jared Flinn:
This is, like, the one of the largest trucking companies in the country. Yeah. The owner of that saying the 2024 or so, it's there as he said the same thing.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. And and I I mean, just by the numbers looking at it, financial guy will say, yeah. You're doing alright. You know? You had the 14% growth, but gosh. It it hurt getting there. It was, it was a rough year, but we survived, and 2025 is gonna be better. Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
What's that? What kind of motor is that?
Austin Hammen:
It's a x ISX Cummins. Okay.
Jared Flinn:
Yep. How many Cummins versus cats in the fleet?
Austin Hammen:
We've only got two two Caterpillars left. Actually, those two over there, getting rebuilt. And then, the rest the rest are all Cummins. So, we started going that route when we started updating the fleet with new trucks, stay away from the pack cars, obviously, and just going with Cummins. They've been been a good motor, and we've, pretty well got them figured out on how to work on them and and, keep them maintained. So works out pretty well.
Jared Flinn:
How many miles I should know this just being a trimer blind, but like, how many miles will you get on the motor before it needs to rebuild? Like, just on
Austin Hammen:
average. Try to shoot for a million, but that doesn't always happen. The Cummins, if you take care of them and do your oil changes, you could probably get seven or 800,000 out of them on the new ones. And that's with the DPFs and everything on them. So that's not terrible. I don't guess.
Jared Flinn:
But yeah. So if you're running it because how many miles will one truck put on a year?
Austin Hammen:
Around 120 to 150.
Jared Flinn:
So it could be every I mean, if it's running seven years, it'd be
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Six years. Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
Awesome. These, oil tanks Yeah. Probably oh, yeah. Motor oil.
Austin Hammen:
Engine oil. And if What
Jared Flinn:
do you do with all the extra, like, the used oil?
Austin Hammen:
So so we've got our, used oil.
Jared Flinn:
I was just gonna ask. Okay. So you can recycle it and burn it all?
Austin Hammen:
Yep. We've got, got it all back here in our storage room.
Jared Flinn:
Trucking the fleet goes down for whatever reason, do you have a backup or two that somebody can jump on and
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. We usually try to keep, one spare truck open to,
Jared Flinn:
And obviously, you don't want that extra expense if it's not, but, like, you gotta almost have something to
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. We try to one thing about owning new trucks is hopefully they're they're not down more than a day, you know, so, you can justify maybe paying a driver some downtime pay if you have to. But if it's gonna be longer than that, then you need to get them in a truck and
Jared Flinn:
What are the common things if something is down for?
Austin Hammen:
Here lately, it's been, the DPF, and regen stuff, cleaning DPFs and all that. And it it takes minimum two days turnaround to do that. By the time you tear it apart, get it to Springfield, they clean it. That's a twenty four hour turnaround. Go pick it up, get it back. It's hard two days to get it back on the road. Sometimes it's three just because we're busy and can't go to Springfield right away and get up there right away to pick it up. So usually three days.
Jared Flinn:
Jeez.
Austin Hammen:
We've got all of our parts, extra parts that we may need, the common stuff, scissor lifts. We bought those when we built a shop and I had planned on selling them when we got done, but we had
Jared Flinn:
Probably pretty handy to have. Yeah.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. They're they're the handiest thing you'd ever have. But,
Jared Flinn:
Is your old shop I drove by? I mean, it's not even I I mean, size size of your old shop versus this is
Austin Hammen:
Oh, yeah. It's, 10 times 20? I mean It's a third well, probably a quarter of the size of this one.
Jared Flinn:
Okay.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. So we we couldn't even pull a whole truck and trailer in. We had to do all of our trailer work outside and front, rain, snow, shunt, heat, whatever, you know.
Jared Flinn:
I share with your fleet. Obviously, there's constant maintenance and rebuild, but have you ever looked at or have people asked to have you all work on their stuff or
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. We have. And, when we built a shop, we thought we might be able to do some of that, but we just we can't keep up with our own stuff to
Jared Flinn:
Which is good. I mean, if you're gonna keep growing, you probably don't. Yeah. Gotta take care of your own stuff.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah, absolutely. We'd like to do some, but, again, there's some liability there. And, then the demand of getting it out the door quick, you know? So we we just don't do it. That's not justifiable. And I'll tell the people that ask us, like, hey. We we can't get it done quick enough for you. So we're just not gonna do it. And that most of the time, the people that are gonna ask us are, friends, you know? Yeah.
Austin Hammen:
And, I wanna get Yeah. If they don't wanna mix business and Yeah. They're trying to make money and needing us to work on something that we just won't do it. So Yeah. That's better off that way.
Jared Flinn:
Is the is the hopper washout is that?
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. It's just right outside. Yeah. So it's Yeah. We can open this door though. Stand right here. But we're just wash out here on this pad and, we got a pit there and sediment pit. We catch everything there and, all the water, it drains down and all the water drains off.
Austin Hammen:
We pump it all out about once a month.
Jared Flinn:
I say specifically with the business you guys doing probably quite a few washouts.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Yeah. It's, each week is different. I don't know the rhyme or reason why, but, one week we'll be super busy with washouts and next week we're just doing our own.
Jared Flinn:
Do you have a guy that does it, or the driver's just doing themselves?
Austin Hammen:
Oh, we have a guy that does it. He's, he's actually in Mexico this week on on vacation. So, we're having to split it up between the guys and your job.
Jared Flinn:
Is that the new tanker you're talking about?
Austin Hammen:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. Nice. Looks like the belt trailer's not out there.
Austin Hammen:
No. He's, he's hauling some feed today.
Jared Flinn:
Trailers, are you all partial to any brand?
Austin Hammen:
No. No. We isn't empty. Quite as good. We got them all. So Wilson, we were primary primarily Wilson, but, they're all good trailers. I mean, they they know how to build a build a trailer. It's just a preference deal.
Jared Flinn:
Will you all just at your size buy a few brand new trailers every year?
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Yeah. We try to try to buy two or three new ones every year. So Most
Jared Flinn:
of your drivers, are they, within a certain radius around here?
Austin Hammen:
What?
Jared Flinn:
I mean, you know, I mean, I don't know if you have guys in Nebraska or Iowa or
Austin Hammen:
So the farthest two guys that we have are in Illinois. And then the rest of them are Missouri, Kansas area, not within hundred to 50 mile radius.
Jared Flinn:
Being involved in pet food, you guys are running all 48? I mean, because you guys you guys run California.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. Yeah. We'll do. You guys
Jared Flinn:
are gonna go South Carolina. Yeah.
Austin Hammen:
California, Carolinas, up to Pennsylvania, everywhere in between, northern, Southern states.
Jared Flinn:
Are most of those guys routed back every week? Or how's that?
Austin Hammen:
For the most part, yeah. We've got few several guys that are out two or three weeks at a time, and that's what they wanna do. Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
We kind of pick, I mean, they want to be out, you can keep them out and we can keep accommodate if they want to be back. Yeah.
Austin Hammen:
We got we got guys that want to be home on the weekends. So we make that work. Some guys leave out Sunday evening, get back Friday afternoon, or Monday morning. Then, couple guys home every night type of thing. So, just a different variety of drivers on what they wanna do keeps us diversified, I guess, if you will. Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
How do you keep a strong culture in this? I know a lot of business owners and some people, if you don't know until you have massive people, can kinda chalk it up as, like, hey. We just learned it once we go. Yeah. But I've known just from our companies that culture is huge, and especially when you get to a certain size of employees. Right. You're running 35 trucks. You got a back office mechanics. Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
You gotta have everybody rowing the same way.
Austin Hammen:
Well, it's just, getting the right people in place, you know, and and, maintaining that status quo. I always say one one bad apple will affect the whole basket, and that's that's true. Truck drivers, mechanics, office employees, you know, If we if we start having issues with one employee and you let it go too long, it is you can see it starts affecting the others, and you just wanna get rid of him and or that individual. And and pretty soon, once that happens within a couple weeks, you can see attitudes changing and, people start turning around and actually get back to where they were before that. And that's that's something I've learned over the years is, if if no. See. How do I wanna put that? Fire somebody before they quit because they've quit three months ago. You know? Oh, that's good.
Austin Hammen:
If their attitudes are have gone down in the toilet and just don't give a crap while their numbers and productivity has gone down too. So, yeah, I heard that the other day if, you need to fire somebody before they quit if it if they're in that situation because they're they're just hurting you from that point. So
Jared Flinn:
Yeah.
Austin Hammen:
We try to try to stick to that. And a lot of our employees have have been with us for multiple years too. So fortunate that guys have stuck with us for that long and office help mechanics. And so we've we've got a really good bunch of guys right now.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. And you've introduced me to several already Trenton. Yeah. You know, you've known him your whole life and runs your shop in here. Actually, he has a few trucks in the fleet. Yeah. It's awesome. You can tell that he's bought into the the culture Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
And vision. Last question I have, and we'll get a little tour around here. Speaking of vision, what's Ah looking like in the next five to ten years? What are your goals and visions? And you gotta have those dreams.
Austin Hammen:
Yeah. In the next five to ten years, like to be double double our size. Maybe in some different avenues outside of the hopper world. But And
Jared Flinn:
do you guys do anything besides hopper right now?
Austin Hammen:
We do a couple other lanes, for a local customer. They they maintain five trucks with their business, and it's just steady business. Is that van or Every week, it's, open top trailers. Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
Got it.
Austin Hammen:
And we've we've worked with them for seven or eight years now. They're a good good customer and good company. But, in the next five to ten years, double size and looking at other avenues outside of hoppers, tankers, belts. We actually bought a belt trailer here a month ago, and that's been working really well for us. So maybe expanding into the belt trailer market, maybe some tanker stuff, you know, see see where that goes. That's a
Jared Flinn:
Seems like these customers that you deal with, especially largely customers, they're not just doing hopper freight.
Austin Hammen:
Right.
Jared Flinn:
The same customer. They may have outbound flatbed or drive in or you go through the list. Yep. Tanker freight.
Austin Hammen:
Yep. So Yeah. The, diversification really helps a lot. If you wanna expand and and you're willing to expand and diversify, that, makes a difference in, helping to do that. So
Jared Flinn:
Your kiddos are small. Is there visions of them being part of this business?
Austin Hammen:
Personally, I'd like I would like for him to be. My son, he's three years old. He loves going to the shop, loves trucks, tractors, all of that. I would I'd like for him to be in my shoes and and then as well as my daughter, you know, working in the office or whatever whatever it may be. She's she's 18 old now, so we got some time for both of them. But, that's awesome. I my vision is, get them through school and college and then, maybe bring them back here and and take over the business so I can retire. This is cool.
Jared Flinn:
Awesome, man. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Man, you've been a great friend and acquaintance in the industry. You're just, stone throw down from our office. Yeah. So it's been great to get to know you. We've been on some events together. Absolutely.
Jared Flinn:
But, yeah, excited to see you guys grow. Without a doubt, I know you guys will. So, man, congratulations, and I appreciate what you guys do, and god bless you.
Austin Hammen:
Thanks, Jared. Thanks for coming down.
