Hire Truckers Podcast

00:00 - 00:09
Ginger Craddock: Welcome to the Hire Truckers Podcast, the show for fleet executives, HR leaders, and recruiting professionals. I'm your host, Ginger Craddock.

00:09 - 00:27
Aaron Craddock: And I'm your host, Aaron Craddock Each week, we share actionable insights, market trends, and proven strategies to help you grow and thrive. Welcome to the Hire Truckers Podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Craddock and super excited to have Willie Nelson on again. So Willie has been in the industry, a number of years.

00:27 - 00:47
Aaron Craddock: We met, I don't know, five or so years ago. Probably. And he is a professional friend maker and then a membership guru working with the TXTA, and he he's helping just really build out that organization. And and he's really on top of what Texas fleets are hearing. I think this will be a great show today.

00:47 - 00:53
Aaron Craddock: We're gonna dive into a myriad of topics, have a little bit of fun. But yeah, Willie, thanks for joining us on the show today.

00:53 - 00:55
Willie Nelson: A pleasure to be here, Aaron. A pleasure to be back.

00:57 - 01:04
Aaron Craddock: Mhmm. Yeah. Was a little jealous that that Ginger got to do it last time, but was good. Yeah. We have to kinda divide and conquer at times.

01:04 - 01:05
Willie Nelson: Hey. It's always good.

01:05 - 01:09
Aaron Craddock: So I wanna start with kind of a fun one. So I saw a post that you did about a month

01:09 - 01:10
Willie Nelson: ago of Uh-oh.

01:10 - 01:18
Aaron Craddock: You playing mahjong with your family, and you were using AI to cheat. Wait. Wait. No. I'm I mean, you were using No.

01:18 - 01:19
Willie Nelson: It was You a standardized

01:20 - 01:46
Aaron Craddock: I know. I know. You were using AI to to to get a little bit of info, but then you were like, well, do we apply AI with every single hand and kinda make the game unfun for the family? And so and and then I liked that you painted a picture of, like, where in this AI age, where we're talking about every single day and integrating it into our businesses, where should the AI end or the machine end and the human begin?

01:47 - 02:02
Willie Nelson: Absolutely. No, that was a great time. I will say I didn't win a single hand of mahjong in, like, three games that we played. So I don't know if Google Gemini needs to, like, work on their algorithm for mahjong specifically or if it was a user issue. But, no, that was a great evening.

02:02 - 02:41
Willie Nelson: And and to be honest, you know, that was not my first game of mahjong, which maybe makes the case better or worse. But I thought it'd be an interesting way learn more about AI as well as how you could apply it, right? It's really mahjong, for those who aren't familiar, it's a tile matching game, almost similar to hold them in which there are several suits and combinations worth points and trading, etcetera. So just to be able to say, Hey, look, computer, what do you see right now that I might be missing? If we're going be playing for 15 hands and I'm going to be trading these tiles out, statistically right now, what is my best avenue to pursue?

02:42 - 03:11
Willie Nelson: And I did think that that was very valuable, at least for my level of experience with the game. I'm sure that my brother in law's grandmother, Inia, if she's listening, hello, Inia, can do that naturally. She's been playing for years and years and years though, Reshai is a fledgling player. That leg up did get me further in the rounds. I was much closer to completion, but like my post indicated, it was taking me five or ten minutes to set up.

03:11 - 03:28
Willie Nelson: The game was started. My brother had gone through a drink already and was ready to have another one before I'd even started. So that question of, is this appropriate? It really kind of turned into no. Maybe in the future with the Ray Ban AI glasses, maybe that's something we promote in the future.

03:29 - 03:49
Willie Nelson: But even then, was I having as much fun? I'd say yes because it was giving me that leg up. But at the same time, was it impeding my ability to gain those senses naturally? Maybe not in one night, but it was an interesting thought that I had, and I was glad that it got a little bit of traction.

03:50 - 04:08
Aaron Craddock: So do you think mean, do you see that as people are trying to apply AI, like maybe over trying to use it or focus on it and not focusing on human connection? And where should that line be? Or how should we think about that?

04:09 - 05:12
Willie Nelson: I think that the canned response that we're seeing from the AI sector as it applies to a ton of different applications and industries is automating the aspects of a task that are repeatable and intrinsically unhuman, those analysis aspects, those aspects of monitoring or consistent outreach, that I can delegate those tasks and then be more human in roles like this where we can connect and I can be face forward. Whereas to follow the analog, if I had to type out 50 emails, I don't have time to do this, but I can say, Hey, look, Gemini, what's a trend? Okay, I can utilize this into the future. And it's really added that extra level of brainpower and execution time that is valuable. But we see it in social media, we see it in overly AI oriented products where it's like, This is kind of getting in the way at some point.

05:12 - 05:45
Willie Nelson: So I do think it's a fine balance. Personally, I think that AI as a product is going to move away from direct user integration. I think we see Claw, Gemini, ChatGPT, where it's I talk to the machine. I think that the machine is going to be integrated into everything else we touch, be it a podcasting platform, be it Outlook, etcetera. So the tools that we use to be human will have AI tools in them to support it.

05:45 - 05:48
Willie Nelson: So that's my theory.

05:48 - 06:34
Aaron Craddock: I think of it almost like with social media, where if I'm using it 20 fourseven and consuming, it's destructive. However, if I just get on for fifteen minutes to research for this interview, it's constructive or to post about a topic that I'm interested in or that I think would be relevant to the audience. I kinda see, as weird as it is, is like if you lived in AI all day, like in an LLM, which I see some people doing this and then get no work done and have no real human interaction, I just see that as problematic. Yeah. And then I also echo what you said about it.

06:34 - 06:51
Aaron Craddock: I'm seeing it end up just in every tool we're using. The tool I'm using right now to record this podcast has multiple AI features. Then the tool used for editing does. And is speeding up things. I had a cool I had a use case yesterday.

06:51 - 07:07
Aaron Craddock: It was kind of crazy, where somebody was asking me how to ship a boat that they built as a prop for a movie. Okay. And they're like, Hey, I'm in LA. I need this crated. It's like a friend of mine that just knows I'm in trucking.

07:07 - 07:07
Willie Nelson: Sure.

07:09 - 07:38
Aaron Craddock: And I need this crated and not damaged and then shipped. I was like, I don't know who for him to reach out to. But in, I think, thirty seconds, with the right prompt, I had them answer with, You should contact these three packing companies and these three shippers within ten minutes of your office. And so I was able to answer it where previously, man, I probably would have spent two hours or more trying to ping people and ask for referrals. I probably would have done a social media post being like, hey.

07:38 - 08:01
Aaron Craddock: Anybody know how to solve and so that's wild. And I actually I mean, I added value there because and honestly, he he couldn't have necessarily done that cause he didn't know the specific prompt engineering, like what to ask for, like we do because we're in trucking. But yeah, that was a very fascinating use case. And then other times, I think I'm wasting time.

08:02 - 08:03
Willie Nelson: Yeah. Yeah.

08:05 - 08:15
Aaron Craddock: The so what are you hearing from fleets, like, in in Texas or even around the nation, like, in terms of challenges right now?

08:16 - 08:49
Willie Nelson: I think the members who I'm talking with most or maybe even just most recently, right, the challenges they're really facing are, I think it's generally uncertainty, right? I think everybody will say the market's uncertain. We have certain indicators that we're looking at, but even to be more TXTA focused and more immediate, like to my backyard, I was just in El Paso. And obviously El Paso has a large, potentially predominantly Spanish speaking population. So the English language proficiency mandates have still been very top of mind.

08:50 - 09:06
Willie Nelson: And it's not necessarily about safety. I think the people who are ingrained within the TXCA understand that that's a positive initiative, but it is about, maybe I'd call it enforcement. Okay, look, how are we going to do this? What are these questions? How can I prepare?

09:06 - 09:34
Willie Nelson: And wanting that clarification really allows them to understand, specific to this podcast and this audience, who am I hiring? What freight am I taking? What does the future of my safety score potentially look like if we're going to continue to focus in on the communication abilities of America's freight transportation network? So that's been a big challenge that I've been seeing to say, look, we know these things are happening. Government has moved very fast recently.

09:35 - 09:42
Willie Nelson: And then making sure that we clarify that to the business owners and executors in our industry, just seemed to be very important.

09:44 - 09:50
Aaron Craddock: Yeah, I think one number I saw you posted was maybe 200,000 drivers potentially removed.

09:51 - 10:22
Willie Nelson: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, we think about removing these drivers too, and we can tie this into another recent political mandate, be it the driving schools. Right? So we've removed this huge population of drivers or have the threat to remove them in the future should they not meet requirements. But then we think about, okay, we've put a lot more barriers potentially positive, right, with the intent to safety for education.

10:22 - 10:43
Willie Nelson: Now, if we're already in potentially a supply shock, how are we going to look at that into the future? How do we engineer the solution when we've solved for safety? Right. So it's not an answer that I have. Maybe someone watching right now knows exactly how we're going to solve that problem in the next ten to fifteen years, maybe sooner.

10:44 - 10:46
Willie Nelson: But I think it is something to watch. Right?

10:47 - 10:54
Aaron Craddock: Mhmm. Yeah. And so that $200,000 or 200,000 number, that's just in Texas. Right?

10:55 - 11:01
Willie Nelson: Actually, thinking back to that could have been Texas or that could have been nationally. I don't remember what my source was.

11:01 - 11:01
Aaron Craddock: We can

11:01 - 11:02
Willie Nelson: put it in the show notes or something.

11:03 - 11:20
Aaron Craddock: Mhmm. Okay. Awesome. The so next thing I wanted to talk about is, like, is this a supply driven recovery? Like, are we seeing a shift, like as far as Texas, what you're hearing on the ground?

11:20 - 11:27
Aaron Craddock: Does it seem like what are the indicators of whether or not we're having a supply recovery in terms of supply of truckload freight?

11:28 - 11:59
Willie Nelson: I think, in my personal opinion, with some knowledge gained from the TXCA network, is it the what we're seeing today in the market is based on the reduction of available carriers to move that freight. Supply and demand of the talent is my opinion on these recent impacts. However, I do think that it really depends on what sector you're in. I recently talked with a prospective member, could have been this week, could have been last week. He's like, yeah, absolutely.

11:59 - 12:09
Willie Nelson: We're here. I'm in the energy sector. I'm hauling huge equipment. There is a need for me. I'm gonna have 20 additional trucks planned before the end of the year.

12:09 - 12:31
Willie Nelson: I think he was currently at seven power units or something. So as always, and it's unsatisfactory, I do think it's industry dependent. And especially right now with energy as it's been a topic, it makes a ton of sense that they would be seeing that expansion. But I think for everybody else, I mean, we've cut the bottom percent again. I mean, we did it with the clearinghouse.

12:31 - 12:38
Willie Nelson: Now we're doing it with ELP. Schools as another indicator, there's fewer people to haul freight.

12:39 - 13:16
Aaron Craddock: Yeah, I was recently at an event, kind of co hosted an event downtown where we had George P. Bush speak on the data center build out in Texas. And then I wrapped it up with talking about just how I think supply and demand are impacted just across the country with what I'm hearing. Basically, supply increasing because of the data center build out. And then supply, as far as the supply of freight, more freight to move, and then the declining driver counts on all the stuff that you mentioned.

13:16 - 13:29
Aaron Craddock: Is that something you're seeing? Guess the equipment thing that you just mentioned would kind of potentially be an indicator of that heavy equipment going into these data centers. Does that jive with some of what you're seeing as far as the types of freight that are ramping up in Texas?

13:29 - 13:56
Willie Nelson: You know, it totally does now that you mentioned that. I've definitely seen the headlines. Texas really wants to be that AI dentinator epicenter of that industry, which has its obviously pros and cons. I don't think I've met a member today who's currently engaged in those processes, but maybe they don't even know it, right? Or maybe they're just in that small section of the supply chain that's impacting the end result of the data center.

13:57 - 14:20
Willie Nelson: But even then we talk about the building and the infrastructure. I've been hearing a lot about water, especially when it comes to recent news with Corpus Christi and their water infrastructure problems. I mean, liquid water has to move, right? And I think that if Corpus Christi goes out, if the data centers need more cooling, maybe we see more tanker freight that starts moving in the future. Who knows?

14:20 - 14:24
Aaron Craddock: Yeah, tell me more about I'm not familiar with the water challenges. Tell me more about that.

14:25 - 14:40
Willie Nelson: Oh, sure. And I mean, high level, right? So please do your own research. But as recent headlines that I was reading that Corpus Christi was under a water crisis. They did not have enough water, manufactured, treated water to support their population.

14:41 - 15:17
Willie Nelson: Now I did hear some other things about, hey, look, we're in this crisis so that we can leverage additional emergency funding in the future. Maybe that was hearsay or not. But I mean, that means that we are sending water from our aquifers here in Austin across the state. And I think that, shoot man, it's hot. If it wasn't raining right now, it would really drive my point here, but I think that we will see the transportation of more water in the very immediate future for Texas.

15:19 - 15:43
Aaron Craddock: Two of the things that came up in the data center talk relative to Texas were just the power consumption needs and how are we planning? Do they have to build their own power, bring it? Or how are they going to plug into the grid? What are the regulation challenges? And then water was the second thing, which I've heard that there's low water usage strategies on the data centers.

15:43 - 15:48
Aaron Craddock: But either way, yeah, it's something like water and power are two really important things to

15:48 - 15:49
Willie Nelson: Pretty big.

15:49 - 16:17
Aaron Craddock: For everyone. I don't think anybody wants to see just their water bill go up or run out of water or have to have water shipped in and then simultaneously power go up. I'm optimistic. I think capitalism will win out, and that certain incentives will happen, and we'll have more power and cheaper power and more water and cheaper water. That's just, again, that's just a theory.

16:17 - 16:20
Aaron Craddock: I don't think any of us know how this is gonna play out

16:20 - 16:22
Willie Nelson: No, absolutely not. Specifically.

16:22 - 16:38
Aaron Craddock: So the next question I had for you, which is kind of another fun one, is you said often, like on a couple different posts, like in your education or academic years, that you studied how humans and systems interact. Like, tell me more about that. That's so fascinating.

16:38 - 17:17
Willie Nelson: Oh my goodness. Okay, that was the best kept secret of the college that I went to in Upstate New York, I picked my major based on who had the coolest toys and the lowest class sizes, which turned out to be human factors engineering. I compare it to ergonomics almost in a big way, but really the study of human factors engineering is understanding how the human mind wants to automatically interpret a given system. An example that I give is you drive your car, Aaron. It's a make, it's a model, it's a year.

17:17 - 17:43
Willie Nelson: You know exactly how the systems of that specific vehicle work, right? Instinctually, you want to turn the radio on, you can close your eyes, reach out, push a button, radio comes on. But then you're traveling, you get into a rental car. You have established that schema, that mental network that says, Radio, want radio, go on, extend arm, push button, radio, go on. System complete, check mark, perfect.

17:43 - 17:58
Willie Nelson: But when you're in that rental car and that button's not in the right place, you have to lean forward a little bit. Oh my gosh, biggest pet peeve. Have to lean forward to hit the infotainment system. We might consider that to be bad human factors designs. So we see systems every day.

17:59 - 18:32
Willie Nelson: Gravity is a system, how our operating systems work, systems, obviously. So by understanding how we want these things to work, we can help make these low friction, enjoyable systems that accomplish the goal effectively. So for example, I did a study one time, it was just on the, how would you call it, the scoreboard at our stadium. We went up and we looked at all the keys and all the buttons. I mean, it looked like it was a fighter jet cockpit, right?

18:32 - 18:50
Willie Nelson: And we tried to map it out. Now, obviously, it didn't make any sense to us because we were students and had lived in that system, but we had a whole project about how do we streamline this. But from our perspective of that system, we made impacts, Whether the actual experts on those systems thought they were good, right, that was the exercise.

18:50 - 19:09
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19:10 - 19:36
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19:36 - 19:39
Ginger Craddock: Clarity, Courage, Results.

19:39 - 19:50
Aaron Craddock: So how does that education like play into? Like, just the way you think about trucking today or the way you approach, you know, making friends and building relationships?

19:51 - 20:21
Willie Nelson: Well, I think that friends and relationships, I guess that's nature, not nurture. I couldn't explain that. But I do use it a lot in my day to day, maybe my more corporate task oriented work because we think about maybe growing membership or the system of logistics. We say, okay, inputs, outputs, friction points. How can we digitize?

20:21 - 20:45
Willie Nelson: How can we record those and then conduct the experiment to influence our variables and get the outcome that we want? So, I mean, today, I mean, it's it's very mundane, but I use my educations in systems engineering and human factors engineering to think about our email campaigns. Hey, look, AB testing. This worked, this didn't. This is declining in performance.

20:45 - 21:05
Willie Nelson: What do we do to switch that forward? So as a very subtle thing to really highlight a baseline of the way I see any given problem. How does this work? How could it be improved? What do we influence to make the biggest improvement?

21:05 - 21:06
Willie Nelson: And then iterate.

21:07 - 21:30
Aaron Craddock: Yeah, that's huge. Not many people can say their education, that they use it all the time. I majored in accounting. Reading the P and L, working with the, tax accountant and bookkeeper and all that, it's definitely important, but that's not a thing I touch every day. So that's pretty cool.

21:31 - 21:44
Aaron Craddock: I kind of wish I don't know. I'm a lifelong learner, and there's like, I want to go back to school for AI. I to study what you just talked about because that sounds super fascinating.

21:44 - 21:48
Willie Nelson: Well, come on. I have one of my old textbooks. I'll loan it to you.

21:49 - 22:16
Aaron Craddock: Yeah. And then part of me, we were talking about time management earlier. The reason I kind of sigh is just this stage with building multiple businesses and three kids and stuff like that. It's like, I'm listening to a lot of content, but usually by the time I get back from the gym at 11:00 at night, I don't read right now. It's just a season.

22:17 - 22:22
Aaron Craddock: But otherwise, I would be like, yes, textbook. The old from pre kids.

22:22 - 22:23
Willie Nelson: Excited for those textbooks.

22:27 - 22:55
Aaron Craddock: The so why specifically so one of the things I want to make sure we talked about today is different TXTA things. And some of this is I want to better understand it. We want to get more plugged into TXTA through the Hire Truckers organization. And so my first question is tell me a little bit about the I think it's the TXCA Young Leaders. I may have worded that wrong.

22:56 - 22:58
Willie Nelson: Emerging Leaders, the ELC.

22:58 - 22:59
Aaron Craddock: Emerging Leaders.

22:59 - 23:00
Willie Nelson: Absolutely. No. That's

23:00 - 23:01
Aaron Craddock: a Tell

23:01 - 23:01
Willie Nelson: me great a

23:01 - 23:02
Aaron Craddock: little bit about that.

23:02 - 23:41
Willie Nelson: A great program. And I mean, I think at the at the base, you are an industry leader or would like to be an industry leader, TXTA, so very specific to Texas, right? That is the incubator, right? Could be considered an incubator for those members of our Texas trucking economy to network, to have the access to those big players within the TXDA, and really try to implement the changes that they see as impactful and relevant for them as a class. The ELC is a two year appointment.

23:41 - 24:33
Willie Nelson: And gosh, I wish I had the statistic ready, but I would just top of head, top of mind, I'd say probably 60 to 65, 70 of the TXTA board member leadership is coming out of that emerging leader council. And if you're in Texas, if you're a potential emerging leader, I think that it's so interesting that I'll get all these people say like, Oh no, I'm a young person, or I've already emerged as a leader. There are no age requirements. There's a lot of people think it's like a new fledgling person within our trucking industry, but not at all. If you want to break into our state association in a big way and really start to have a project to chew on rather than simple attendance and education through our meetings, then the ELC is the place for you.

24:34 - 24:51
Aaron Craddock: That's cool. And then another thing you mentioned is some of the upcoming events and things. So what's exciting that's coming up that, like, I need to put on my calendar, but also, like, our our audience in Texas might wanna be involved in?

24:51 - 25:22
Willie Nelson: Well, definitely. I mean, I think it's it's coming up pretty quick. But if you are in Houston on May 12, we have a great annual charity golf tournament that the Houston chapter puts on. The money raised for that goes to the TXTA Foundation, which provides scholarships, both trade and academic CDL and diesel mechanic, for example, for our members and the children of our members, etcetera. So that's a great one, great cause of support, get out network.

25:23 - 25:51
Willie Nelson: And I think that on a larger scale, more statewide scale, our annual conference is coming up July 28 through the thirty first. That's at the beautiful JW Marriott Hill Country Resort in San Antonio. We'll play golf, we'll have speakers. Actually, we will raise a bunch of money for the foundation. And as we see Willie Nelson, long hair, the members of my network watching, it's been a part of my brand for a ton of time.

25:52 - 26:21
Willie Nelson: But this year, the plan is that it's time to cut the hair. It's always been a plan to donate it to Wigs for Kids, for example, or another similar charity. But I've raised my hands to donate, give that opportunity to donate that donation, I suppose, to the foundation for their live auction. So who knows? Maybe Hire Truckers can bid to be the one to donate Willie Nelson's hair.

26:21 - 26:23
Willie Nelson: So come out, get a

26:23 - 26:27
Aaron Craddock: that bid something you're going to get your hair shaved on stage?

26:28 - 26:30
Willie Nelson: Not shaved. There'll be something left.

26:30 - 26:33
Aaron Craddock: I'm thinking if you get enough information,

26:33 - 26:34
Willie Nelson: it has

26:34 - 26:36
Aaron Craddock: to be bald heads.

26:36 - 26:52
Willie Nelson: No way. I'll be running around with a very cute bob the rest of the evening. But yeah, we'll probably just pony it off, cut it, maybe braid it for Willie Nelson. Cut them, donate them. My goal, I would love to raise $5,000 for the association.

26:52 - 26:59
Willie Nelson: I think I've got enough crotchety old trucking company owners who have pulled my hair and told me to cut it, that that's a reasonable goal.

27:02 - 27:04
Aaron Craddock: I love that. So cool.

27:04 - 27:05
Willie Nelson: That'll be fun.

27:05 - 27:09
Aaron Craddock: That's awesome. I love just doing it for a good cause.

27:09 - 27:10
Willie Nelson: Oh, yeah.

27:10 - 27:12
Aaron Craddock: The are you nervous about that or excited about that?

27:14 - 27:44
Willie Nelson: Mixed bag. Mixed bag. We have a four month old at the house now, and she's gotten a little grippy. So I'm really experiencing what a lot of long haired people have since known for millennia generations, But man, it's getting hot and you got to pull your hair off your neck sometimes. So I think I will be very, very glad for a short haired summer, but I don't think it'll be the last time that the locks gets this long.

27:45 - 27:48
Aaron Craddock: Well, you'll have June and July of 100 degree days to enjoy it.

27:48 - 27:49
Willie Nelson: Yeah. God bless.

27:49 - 27:51
Aaron Craddock: You wait until the end of July.

27:51 - 27:51
Willie Nelson: That's right.

27:57 - 28:10
Aaron Craddock: So another thing that I want to make sure we touched on, I know we're limited on time, but I wanted to make sure we touched on aging fleets. So what are you seeing or hearing around that?

28:11 - 28:34
Willie Nelson: You know, when I think about aging fleets, I think about it, I guess, in the two ways that you could, being aging talent workforce. Right? So, I mean, we have a lot of people leaving. We already talked about the introductory pipeline for new talent. I think I saw a statistic that is ten percent of the driver population is currently a member of Gen Z, and I found that to be very interesting.

28:34 - 29:24
Willie Nelson: I think I'll develop more on that thought as I chew on it. But I think there are a lot more people who are leaving this industry right now than who are joining it. And we've already talked about some of the potentially needed constraints to new talent within the industry. I think that there's also a big aspect of appeal that we need to generate is autonomous trucking going to create that appeal where Willie Nelson, the 18 year old who's allowed to have his, I hope I get this right, inter state driver's license in which I can drive inside of the state in which I was licensed. In Texas, that's a great prospect for young people in Rhode Island, Maine, not so much, a lot less landmass there for them to drive within their own state.

29:25 - 29:58
Willie Nelson: But does autonomy allow people who, in my opinion, have not been trusted, maybe duly so, with an 80,000 pound vehicle on American highways. Is that going to be the handrail that allows us to rapidly bring that generation into trucking? Maybe. I think autonomy has a long way to go in the future. And as I'm talking about the truck itself, be it autonomous or otherwise, I think that's our other place where we're seeing growth constraints.

29:58 - 30:11
Willie Nelson: America's truck fleets, I believe, are aging. That may be anecdotal, but we're going to have to replace those. How intelligent are they going to be in the future? How clean are they going to be in the future? What is the cost to maintaining those?

30:11 - 30:27
Willie Nelson: And how are we going to impact the efficiencies of those systems when it comes to the actual commodities that we're using to transport them? So I think that the aging driver workforce and the transportation commodities, the trucks themselves, are going be things that we have to watch.

30:28 - 31:01
Aaron Craddock: Yeah. Was encouraged in Q1 just to see because fleets have put off replacing their trucks through this down cycle, the Great Freight Recession, but I think we saw 120, 130% March over March Class eight truck numbers on orders. Saw you posted that. And so, yeah, I think that's Yeah, just something to watch. Then do we need to recruit most of my audiences in recruiting?

31:01 - 31:05
Aaron Craddock: Do we need to recruit differently for Gen Z? Do you have thoughts around that?

31:06 - 31:25
Willie Nelson: I do think Oh, man, what was the statistic? I think it was tied in with this Gen Z comment that I read about 10%, was that they also want applying to be a job to be as easy as buying something on Amazon. Now that was a headline. I didn't really dive deeper into that through my LinkedIn feed. Right?

31:25 - 31:59
Willie Nelson: But it comes to mind. So I do think that that's a very interesting, how would you say it, splitting point from a young person or a person's ability to enter into the trucking sphere, the trucking industry versus anything else. I think that the folks listening to this podcast would say or laugh at the joke that trucking is the most regulated, deregulated industry ever. So today, do I think that the trucking industry can hire talent as easily as ordering something on Amazon? The short answer is no.

32:00 - 32:38
Willie Nelson: When it comes to background assessments, skills assessments, actual in person vibe checking. Was another article put out, I believe it was Freightwaves. I know I posted about it that the HR segment, the human in the machine, in the truck was the new vector for attack when it come to freight fraud and freight theft. So all very interesting things to consider as we need to bridge the gap between making this industry accessible, but at the same time, very certified and almost inaccessible. We'll have to find out how that works.

32:38 - 33:23
Willie Nelson: And even as another perspective, right? When we talk about AI and potentially pushing more folks into the trades, I was just at an event and one of my buddies works at CAT, he's a big equipment salesman, dealer, etcetera, and he was telling me how they cannot find diesel mechanics. They are paying their recruiter, in his opinion, ungodly amount of money, probably a very earned amount of money to find these diesel mechanics, but they can't build the pipeline. They've built their own school where he is, but they still need somebody to feed the top of funnel today while their schoolhouse, their trade program is building itself in his community. So a lot of things in the future, I think, for talent within our space.

33:27 - 33:39
Aaron Craddock: What do you think? Do you think autonomy, like what's your general take? I know this in the official TXTA stance or anything like that, but do you think autonomy is going to make a big impact in Texas?

33:40 - 34:21
Willie Nelson: I think it will. And again, not the TXTA's stance, but my opinion on it. It's very apparent that Texas as a state and potentially the TXTA as well from a policy standpoint is pro autonomy in the way that we want our members to have those choices. If autonomy is going to benefit your business and help boost the GDP of our state, then we want that to be a decision that you have and we want your voice involved in shaping that legislation so that you can make your entry point with confidence if that's something you decide to do. Texas again also has fantastic infrastructure for autonomy.

34:21 - 34:52
Willie Nelson: That big lane from El Paso into Dallas, San Antonio, Houston is just rife with autonomous vehicles. And I believe another player, EnRide, just partnered with Texas based SH-one hundred thirty to run some autonomous freight on their toll road. So it's common. Texas may be the vector, but again, we want that to be a choice that our industry has and we want our members to have that voice in shaping it.

34:54 - 35:12
Aaron Craddock: Mhmm. Yeah, I was calling on, I think this was a year and a half ago, I was talking to an oilfield fleet. I think it was in West Texas. And they were like, hey, we need I think they were like, hey, we need 70 drivers Oh, man. Just on the oil field or whatever.

35:12 - 35:32
Aaron Craddock: I call them two or three months later, and they say, Hey, we retrofitted all of our trucks, and they're all autonomous now. Wow. So that was kind of the first big kind of move I heard where someone needed 70 hard to get drivers. Like, it's hot. Tires blow out.

35:33 - 35:50
Aaron Craddock: There are some challenges with that particular job. Absolutely. And they were able to retrofit trucks. Then, yeah, I was talking to Yeah, I've been talking. I've had recent talks, just hearing about several more coming to Texas that'll be based out of Texas that'll do autonomy around the country.

35:50 - 36:07
Aaron Craddock: So it'll be just interesting how that plays out. It's so funny. Five years ago, I didn't think that it would happen. But you can't deny the cybercabs. Downtown Austin, the Waymo's, there's just already a change on the yeah.

36:07 - 36:08
Aaron Craddock: What are your thoughts on that?

36:09 - 36:17
Willie Nelson: Yeah. You mentioned cybercaps. We'll start with that. There is a Waymo car. I thought it was the same one, but they're probably dropping off the Downright Hotel.

36:17 - 36:39
Willie Nelson: It's right across from the TXDA offices. But long story short, two out of three times that I come into the office in the morning, there's a Waymo car that is parked right in front of the entry point to the TXDA's garage. And I was like, I'd spent days, I would just creep up on it, creep up on it until it eventually moved. One of my coworkers says, Oh, yeah, I have the same problem. You just honk at it, and it moves.

36:39 - 37:04
Willie Nelson: So I see autonomy, especially civilian consumer vehicle autonomy, from that perspective. And I'm like, Maybe not, right? But then we talked about it to a more refined application. You mentioned West Texas. And West Texas, the oilfield, the Permian, in my personal opinion, is a fantastic place to implement autonomy.

37:04 - 37:19
Willie Nelson: You've already touched on it. Those are hard jobs. When I was advertising in a previous life for driving roles in that market, some of these employers had work camps. Aaron, you'd leave your house wherever it was. You'd get in the car.

37:19 - 37:28
Willie Nelson: You'd drive to Midland, Odessa, Amarillo, wherever you were going, and you'd live there for two, three weeks. You know? It's kinda like being on an oil tanker. You're an oil rig. Right?

37:28 - 37:43
Willie Nelson: Very similar. But people don't wanna do that. And these jobs were paying bucks to try and incentivize that. And it was always a struggle. But what do those roads realistically, what do those pieces of land have in common?

37:44 - 38:06
Willie Nelson: They're they're consistent routes from rig to hardball road to the highway. They're places where we can interchange the autonomous vehicle to one that is potentially human operated. Because we think about it, those are privately owned properties. They're not regulated in the same way that the highways are. So that's a great way to say, hey.

38:06 - 38:22
Willie Nelson: Look. We have 50 loads a day and we have two drivers. They truck themselves from the rig to a central point. The driver takes it from that central point onto the highway and delivers. And that math doesn't obviously make sense, but that's a fantastic application for that system.

38:22 - 38:48
Willie Nelson: We have this hiring problem, we have these consistent lanes, Autonomy makes total, total sense. So I think that that'll be a place where we do see more autonomous vehicles. But I do think that we also think about, how would I call it, the not the man, how is this? The intrinsically human factors that inhabit autonomy. Those oil roads are rough.

38:49 - 38:59
Willie Nelson: So the autonomous vehicle blows a tire. Now, does it sit there? Do we have a quick reaction force? Is there a person in the cab? Does that create jobs?

38:59 - 39:22
Willie Nelson: Come out. So in summary, Texas is a great place. There are specific sectors of the Texas economy that are great places for autonomy. And my hope is that we continue to upscale our workforce in the state to make sure that, hey, look, you didn't lose your driving job, you gained your transportation engineering job.

39:26 - 39:39
Aaron Craddock: Upscaling, just different opportunity, different options. I don't think it's all doom and gloom, I think. I think it's just more opportunity. It's so funny. Was laughing at your Waymo example that it wouldn't even get out of the way.

39:39 - 39:41
Aaron Craddock: Was just imagining you're Just creep on

39:41 - 39:43
Willie Nelson: a little bit. I'm like, man, we're getting close here.

39:43 - 40:06
Aaron Craddock: Get out of my way. Yeah, I was downtown, I don't know, three or four weeks ago for an event and ordered an Uber it sent a Waymo. And that was my first experience. I had a friend hop in with me that was at the event. And, yeah, and we just talked the whole time.

40:06 - 40:24
Aaron Craddock: Didn't even pay attention that it was driving us. It's just cool. There's also Austin, speaking of Texas, there's those little drone You can pay $200, and you can fly it around. So one of my friends has already done it. Like, I'm gonna do it.

40:24 - 40:31
Aaron Craddock: But you take they, like, give you a little lesson, and then you take the you do you fly the little mini helicopter drone thing around.

40:31 - 40:37
Willie Nelson: Now hold on. Are we talking about the same thing? This is something that this is an aircraft. You are getting in this. Am I Okay.

40:38 - 40:43
Willie Nelson: I think I saw something similar to this on social. I didn't know that was here in Austin. That's crazy.

40:43 - 41:04
Aaron Craddock: It's not the one it's not the one that they just they just the news in the last week was the I can't remember. Was like New York. Like, went from JFK Okay. From the airport to downtown or something like ten minutes. We are gonna see that autonomous flying cars, And there's more and more of that.

41:04 - 41:19
Aaron Craddock: But yeah, right now Anyway, I'll have to send you the link. I don't remember if you piloted, if you ride in it, but one of my friends has already done it. I think that'll be more epic than even jumping in a cyber cab or a Waymo.

41:19 - 41:20
Willie Nelson: I agree.

41:20 - 41:21
Aaron Craddock: Yeah.

41:21 - 41:42
Willie Nelson: Heard somebody recently that didn't care about autonomous vehicles. They cared about the combination of autonomous and analog vehicles. It's one thing for a computer to understand how other computers are gonna play, but humans are just far too random. So we just said, Yeah, I'll get in a Waymo when it's 100% Waymo, and I think there's something to that. Yep.

41:44 - 41:54
Aaron Craddock: The well, thank you for your time today. Like, as I expected, we only got through half of what we wanted to talk about today, but we'll have to have you on again. But, yeah, thank you again for taking the time, Willie. We'll be in touch.

41:55 - 41:57
Willie Nelson: Thanks. Sounds good. Always a pleasure,

41:59 - 42:06
Ginger Craddock: Podcast, the show for fleet executives, HR leaders, and recruiting professionals. I'm your host, Ginger Kratock.

42:06 - 42:18
Aaron Craddock: And I'm your host, Erin Kratock. Each week, we share insights, trends, and strategies to help you grow and thrive. If you found value today, please share the show and leave a review. Until next time, keep building top performing teams.