Hire Truckers Podcast

00:00 - 00:12
Rebecca Anderson: 100%. Trust and brand matter the most. We can get as many leads as we want, but if we can't have a great connection with them and then them trust who we are and that we're not selling them some story, then it's not gonna work out. Out.

00:27 - 00:36
Aaron Craddock: Welcome to the Hire Truckers Podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Craddock, and I'm super excited today to have Rebecca Anderson on today with TransLand. Thank you for joining the show today.

00:36 - 00:38
Rebecca Anderson: Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

00:39 - 01:10
Aaron Craddock: Yeah. So Rebecca is director of recruiting, marketing, and communication at communications at Transland. And and I just think that, like, particularly for our audience, today's episode is gonna add a lot of value to help recruiting departments, executives think about this rapidly evolving market. And so I had seen Rebecca recently on Charles Gracie's one of Charles Gracie's podcasts with Josh Kramer. And yeah, so just super excited you came on in short notice.

01:10 - 01:15
Aaron Craddock: And I think we're gonna have a lot of fun today and add a lot of value to the industry.

01:15 - 01:16
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah, looking forward to it.

01:17 - 01:37
Aaron Craddock: So one of the first things that I noticed, like when I was looking at your LinkedIn, is you have this quote. So in the background, so if you go to follow Rebecca Anderson on LinkedIn, just look her up. So at the top, it says, if you can't stop, smile as you go by. So so where did that come from? What does that mean to you?

01:37 - 01:55
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. That's actually a real photo I took probably in the insta era of 2016 Instagram with all the heavy filters. It's actually out in Northwest Oklahoma where my grandparents' farm is. So I spent lots of time growing up there as a kid. Small little town called Cherokee, Oklahoma right along the Great Salt Plains.

01:55 - 02:14
Rebecca Anderson: Lots of dust, lots of grain, and that was a fantastic sign I always saw growing up, and it really resonated with me. That's how I try to kind of live my life. I can't always be involved with everyone's life. I can't always be available for everyone. But if I can just smile at them and make their day a little bit better, it's gonna work.

02:15 - 02:43
Aaron Craddock: I love that. Yeah, especially and I think that's especially relevant today, just as the recruiting market is getting a little bit more challenging and more and more fleets are needing to get trucks off the fence or add truck count. Just we're in an era we haven't been in three years. And so with that, we're all running, working more hours. And yeah, just the magic of just a smile when you run different people.

02:43 - 03:10
Aaron Craddock: One of the things I like, one of the people I follow a lot is Ed Mylett, and I've spent some time doing some coaching with him. And one of the things he says that he kinda quietly does, which reminds me of this, is he'll like, when he sees people, even though he's on the run, he'll just pray for them in his head. And I just think that's, like, the coolest thing. Like, because you're because because people can people can read, like, a genuine, like, smile. Mhmm.

03:10 - 03:14
Aaron Craddock: And and that, like, you actually care about them versus just, like, inauthentic

03:14 - 03:14
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah.

03:15 - 03:24
Aaron Craddock: Smile. So that's super cool. So I'm curious, before we dive into recruiting stuff, so farm? Like, what type of farm? Like, tell me about that.

03:24 - 03:40
Rebecca Anderson: So growing up, we would go out to Oklahoma. I'd spend, you know, a week or two with my sister every summer out there with my grandparents. Great Depression kind of era, greatest generation. My grandfather was in World War two. My grandmother was definitely the collector of all antiques.

03:40 - 03:54
Rebecca Anderson: So we spent a lot of time counting the cows. I'd wake up first thing in the morning with my grandpa. We'd go out, count the cows. Obviously, you're watering the cows and making sure they have food and that they're okay. And then I'd go spend, you know, hours with him at the coffee shop.

03:54 - 04:08
Rebecca Anderson: He would get coffee and talk with the other farmers, and I would get a donut and a Doctor Pepper. So that's how I learned a lot about life and how people really interact and just doing that hard work and doing the good work that we need, which is very similar farming to trucking too.

04:09 - 04:19
Aaron Craddock: Mhmm. Yeah. So I connect with that on a few fronts. So my mom, Ginger, which part of her brand is they have a ranch here called Fine Joy Ranch. And they they don't do cattle.

04:19 - 04:44
Aaron Craddock: They just they have a couple horses, five donkeys, three dozen eggs a day from the chickens. So we have, like, unlimited egg supply. Like, she'll be in the office later today in Austin, and and she'll bring, I don't know, probably 12 dozen eggs. And so, I mean, we're trying to which with three young boys right now, like, we can we can rock through, like, a dozen a day. And but yeah.

04:44 - 05:33
Aaron Craddock: So I kinda relate on that front And just what our boys are getting to learn just from the hard work, like being out there. They'll be out there in a couple weeks for a week and just, yeah, doing the work with G Daddy and helping with the horses and helping get the eggs and just doing work. And then the other way I relate to that, my first job at 14 was picking corn in South Alabama. And that's actually, I think if I had not had that job and had done that hard manual labor, I don't think I would have tried as hard in school and my master's degree and all those things where I was like, I want to work just with my brain and not And again, I actually enjoyed the work. People made fun of me.

05:33 - 05:45
Aaron Craddock: They actually said I remember people saying I was kinda like SpongeBob because I was always smiling and happy. But yeah, but I just enjoyed being out in nature and picking corn. I mean, yeah. I mean, it was hot. It was crazy.

05:45 - 06:07
Aaron Craddock: But yeah, just kind of a zest for life. But what I noticed is some people out there picking with me were 55, 60 years old. And I was like, this would be really hard at that age. And just as you get older to always be out in the sun all day. Yeah, I mean, it's just a pretty hard manual thing.

06:07 - 06:25
Aaron Craddock: And so that's honestly what led me to go back and get my master's and get into trucking and work really hard. I think all those steps. So I don't even think we would be on the podcast today without, you know, the influence of the agriculture side of farming in Alabama, which is kind of funny. I am. When we think about it.

06:25 - 06:34
Aaron Craddock: So that's awesome. Well, I know everybody's been waiting to get into recruiting. So we're gonna get into Sure. What are fleets getting wrong right now?

06:35 - 06:53
Rebecca Anderson: Oh, man. For recruiting wise, I would say fleets are getting wrong that it's easy. It's not easy. You're getting lots of leads. You're getting drivers that are interested, but connecting with them and actually finding out their motivation and matching it with what you have to offer and ensuring that it's a good fit, that is a dime in a dozen.

06:53 - 07:14
Rebecca Anderson: That's impossible to get. It's hard to find the right driver or the right fit because we want to make sure that they're making the right decision for themselves as well as their families and the company. We don't wanna come have a driver come join our team that's gonna be there for a few months. We want them to come there and stay there and be happy and be successful, honestly. We want them to be successful, their family to be successful, and then TransLand to be successful.

07:14 - 07:19
Rebecca Anderson: That's how we were founded by mister Glenn and missus Anna Walker back in 1982, and that's how we still operate today.

07:21 - 07:49
Aaron Craddock: That reminds me. So I did an episode, it hasn't come out yet, but with Willie Nelson that is with TXTA here in Texas. So on that episode, which will come out before this, he says specifically, he's like, Recruiting is like a marriage. I was like, Where are you going with this? But he was saying, like, there is the right fit of the driver with the fleet.

07:49 - 08:22
Aaron Craddock: And so you can't assume that every single driver coming into your pipeline. And so that really reminds me of that. And then just pairing radical honesty in your recruiting process with what makes them successful. And if you don't try to do that, then it's more likely that you're going to lose that driver in the first ninety days. So was that something that you guys did really well even ten years ago when you came on?

08:22 - 08:27
Aaron Craddock: Or has that been kind of an evolution? And like, how does the fleet get better at that?

08:27 - 08:44
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. I definitely think we've been very good at that, at finding the right drivers for the right fit for our company, but it ebbs and flows. So I mean, what I started eleven years ago, it was a completely different world than it is now. That was pre COVID. That was pre of the generation retiring and leaving.

08:44 - 08:58
Rebecca Anderson: I mean, it's a whole new generation in trucking. The professional driver looks different today than it did eleven years ago. So we had to, of course, adapt and find what works for them and then adapt our company too that works with our drivers as well as, you know, our customers. We're here to serve them as well.

08:59 - 09:09
Aaron Craddock: So you just said the professional driver looks different today than than eleven years ago and pre COVID. Like like, what do you mean by that? Like, what are what are you seeing on the ground?

09:09 - 09:21
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. We've seen lots of retirements, which is well earned and well deserved. So we want our drivers to retire. We want them to come here and then retire. So we're happy whenever they do retire, but always sad that we're missing a great driver that was here for a long time.

09:21 - 09:43
Rebecca Anderson: But the newer drivers is a different generation just like how I'm a different generation in the office. So from the one before me, we're seeing that with our drivers too. The home time needs are different. So we've adapted, and we are able to get a lot of our drivers home weekly. And if you drive by our facility here in Stratford, Missouri on a weekend, you'll see a lot of blue trucks on the yard, which is a great thing because that means our drivers are getting home to their families.

09:43 - 09:52
Rebecca Anderson: They're able to celebrate with their kids' soccer games or go see that dance recital. That's what's important. That's why we are founded as a company is for the family, and we really are doing that today.

09:54 - 10:11
Aaron Craddock: That's awesome. So you guys are able to prioritize that home time and those needs. What do you do when you can't, like, can't get them home? Is there just a certain profile of driver that that fits and wants that? Or or do you get them all home?

10:11 - 10:21
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. I would say we get them all home whenever they wanna get home. We are very, very good at that. We take a lot of pride on that, and we take that very seriously. Obviously, you have to have notice and good time, you know.

10:21 - 10:26
Rebecca Anderson: If there's an emergency, we'll get you home. We're not gonna wait. We're not gonna delay. We're not gonna find a load. We're gonna find a way to get you home.

10:27 - 10:43
Rebecca Anderson: But as for prioritizing that, yeah, we still see some of those more traditional older school drivers that wanna be out for weeks or months on end, And that's okay. We'll make it work for them too. However, I would say a majority anymore, they wanna get home more often, as I can completely understand and empathize with.

10:43 - 11:02
Aaron Craddock: Yeah. And so did that take like making that shift over the last eleven years, like did that take because that's not just recruiting, that's an operations thing, dispatch, upper management conversations, financial considerations. Like how did you guys make that pivot?

11:02 - 11:09
Rebecca Anderson: Oh, yeah. It involves every single department in the company to make that pivot. And it has. We've worked with our customers. We've seen that freight shift too.

11:09 - 11:35
Rebecca Anderson: We've seen the way the drivers shift, and we've had to kind of shift with our customers and our drivers and make it work for everyone. It's a puzzle piece every day, getting the drivers dispatched and getting them home when they need to. It's magical to watch the load planners and then the fleet managers and the customer service team work on that. I'm still in awe every day that they do that. But it's also kind of magic for getting a driver in to orientation and getting them into TransLink and into our culture and our values.

11:36 - 11:58
Aaron Craddock: Mhmm. And so we talked about where you know, how all the shifts we've made the last twelve years, but a lot of recruiting departments and C level, C suite at the largest fleets in the country are wondering what changes should they make now. And so with that, like are drivers responding differently today and do they have different needs than they did twelve months ago?

11:59 - 12:11
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. I would definitely say that there's been a shift in twelve months in trucking. We know fuel prices have had made a huge difference. So we're paying way more attention to our driver's efficiency and the fuel mileage. That's a huge cost for any trucking company.

12:11 - 12:29
Rebecca Anderson: And we're not huge. We're about 200 or less trucks and drivers. So that money really, really, really matters. And to be successful for ourselves and for our families and our customers, we have to pay attention to that. We've seen more drivers kind of applying just because they're interested but not really making moves, which is okay.

12:29 - 12:43
Rebecca Anderson: They're kind of maybe unhappy with some place that they're at, which is fine. We're willing to talk to them about that. And we're seeing, honestly, a lot more drivers come in and then starting to ghost us. We've seen that increase since COVID. It was really bad during 2020.

12:43 - 13:00
Rebecca Anderson: It got a lot better. And then this last twelve months, we're seeing a lot more drivers put interest, accept the offer, and then for some reason or another, just stop communicating even though we are reaching out. So it's been interesting. I'm kind of curious to see how that's shifting again. We've seen a little shift in the last month or so, so I'm anxious to see how it goes the rest of the year.

13:00 - 13:10
Aaron Craddock: That was that was my next question is, like, we went eleven years, twelve months. Now I'm going last forty five days. Yeah. So like, what are you seeing what are you seeing right now? Like, what are the what are the patterns?

13:10 - 13:14
Aaron Craddock: What are the changes? Just as everything seems to be moving under our feet.

13:15 - 13:32
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. We are seeing lots of drivers who used to drive for TransLane that went somewhere else, and then they're calling us back, which is great. We offer obviously wanna welcome someone back who was a great fit for our company and we were a great fit for them. And if they leave to go explore something else, you know, we're gonna encourage that. We're gonna say that's okay.

13:32 - 13:44
Rebecca Anderson: We understand. We want you to do what's best for you at that moment, But we're seeing more of them calling back and wanting to reapply and, you know, the grass wasn't always greener. But sometimes you have to experience that and learn from that and then find out what you really had and then come back home.

13:45 - 14:05
Aaron Craddock: Yeah. I think that's the mark of a really good culture and leadership. When you have people and you support them towards their goal and their family vision that might be outside of your org, and you're like, Hey, I'm not gonna hold it against you. And if down the road, you wanna come back, just have that conversation. That's really cool.

14:05 - 14:17
Aaron Craddock: And I think that's a mark of fleets doing it correctly, just when the drivers go try the other opportunity and then they're like, oh, wow. What TransLand has is really special. So that's pretty cool.

14:17 - 14:31
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. Those are my favorite phone calls. I'm calling a driver who left us, and then we want them back. I'm obviously wanting to, you know, bring them back, but my main purpose of the call is to find out how they're doing. Did they leave because they had to be home more often because of a child?

14:31 - 14:41
Rebecca Anderson: Did a spouse get sick that they need to be home to caretake more? Or did something else happen where they had to just go explore an opportunity? I wanna see if they're happy. If they are happy, great. I'm glad to hear that.

14:41 - 14:49
Rebecca Anderson: And I'm better off knowing that. Or, hey. Did they miss us and they wanna come back, but they didn't wanna call yet? I can help open that door for them.

14:50 - 14:51
Aaron Craddock: That's awesome.

14:51 - 15:06
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15:20 - 15:39
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15:39 - 15:51
Aaron Craddock: So next question, kinda going into marketing and recruiting trends is what makes recruiting marketing actually feel authentic to the driver?

15:51 - 15:58
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. Honesty. So real experiences. Having real people, that's how you're authentic, obviously. We are our people.

15:58 - 16:07
Rebecca Anderson: Transland is a trucking company. There's a million trucking companies out there. We all have great equipment. We all have great home time. There's probably a million more in just Missouri alone.

16:07 - 16:26
Rebecca Anderson: But what they don't have is our people. They don't have a fleet manager who knows these drivers by name that goes to their friends and family's funerals that's there whenever they need to be in the hospital. And they don't have that, but we have that with our people. And that's why we are authentic is because we can share our people's stories. Why are they successful?

16:26 - 16:29
Rebecca Anderson: What makes them unique? And what makes them part of TransLand?

16:31 - 16:54
Aaron Craddock: That's great. Just as a as from a high level. And and I'm curious to actually because you're over kind of a unique position where you're over recruiting, marketing, and communications, I'm specifically curious about content or marketing message to a driver. What do you guys do to convey that just in your messaging and in your marketing?

16:54 - 17:13
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. I am never bored with all my different head hats that I wear here at Transland. But what I really like to do is get anniversary photos. That's my very favorite thing to do is find a driver when it's their anniversary. Not only are we taking a photo and celebrating them on social media if they want to be celebrated, but we're also giving them an anniversary bag.

17:13 - 17:34
Rebecca Anderson: Our HR team kinda came up with that idea three to four years ago. Every year, we get a new bag of TransLand swag. Nothing is better than having a new hat for your company or a new t shirt or a sweatshirt or pin or, you know, notebook. That's a great way that we can celebrate our drivers by not only thanking them for their year of service, but really advocating for them and what they do for our company.

17:35 - 17:45
Aaron Craddock: I love that. That's awesome. Yeah. I think the I think in this era, like just those physical gifts, yeah, are just super powerful. That's awesome.

17:48 - 17:55
Aaron Craddock: Do you think trust and brand matter today more than lead volume.

17:55 - 18:12
Rebecca Anderson: Oh, yeah. 100%. If we can't have a great connection with them and then them trust who we are and that we're not selling them some story, then it's not gonna work out. If they come and find TransLand and they research us and they read our reviews, that's what we encourage drivers to do. We want them to stop in.

18:12 - 18:23
Rebecca Anderson: Hey. You're along the road or you're coming in for the weekend? Stop by TransLand. We'll meet you. We'll take you off a car tour, get you inside a truck, let you meet one of your fleet managers, and really hear what's really going on here.

18:23 - 18:27
Rebecca Anderson: We believe very fully in showing them what we can experience at TransLand.

18:28 - 18:33
Aaron Craddock: Do you have drivers that come in just to do that even though they're not scheduled for orientation yet?

18:33 - 18:46
Rebecca Anderson: Oh, yeah. All the time. We even have people who aren't even in CDL school that come in. We do take some trainees that recently graduated from entry level driver training schools. So before they even start that, we always encourage them to go check out trucking companies.

18:46 - 18:58
Rebecca Anderson: That's a huge career change. So make sure that you know what you're getting into. And it's obviously it's expensive to go to school. So we wanna make sure that they're making that right decision before putting that money down. And even experienced drivers.

18:58 - 19:07
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. Come in. Stop in. We are along I 44 right by Buc ee's. So obviously drivers aren't stopping there, but we have a truck stop not too far away.

19:07 - 19:09
Rebecca Anderson: So we encourage them to stop in. Come see us. Come meet us.

19:10 - 19:28
Aaron Craddock: So we're based in Texas. And so I would be remiss if I didn't say like how much my boys have an obsession with Buckeys. Of course. So we have the Buckeys slap on wrist thing. And then we have the Buckeys with the America hat, like the fourth of July Buckeys.

19:28 - 19:37
Aaron Craddock: We have a pillow Buckeys. We have the ball Bucky is what we We call have, I mean, one point we had the giant Bucky.

19:37 - 19:37
Rebecca Anderson: Oh my gosh.

19:38 - 19:46
Aaron Craddock: We, yeah, that's their favorite stuffed animal. And yeah, it is kinda sad that we don't have truck parking at Bucky's, but

19:46 - 19:52
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. But we'll let just buy it. So they can come park here, hang out, and then we can go get some lunch at Buc ee's.

19:52 - 19:54
Aaron Craddock: And that brisket is actually pretty good.

19:54 - 19:56
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah, that's what I've heard.

19:56 - 20:26
Aaron Craddock: Yep. So the next sections is, which I'm also really, really interested to talk to you about some of this, is like leadership and growth mindset. Because everything about just even your personal brand is kind of around that. Just growth mindset, making the industry better, making it better for drivers in this new generation that are coming in, just even everything we've talked about so far. And so what's a hard lesson that trucking has taught you personally?

20:26 - 20:51
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah, I've been very blessed that I have had some great mentors here. My boss, Laura Gates, who's the president, and then our chairman and CEO, Mark Walker, have been fantastic leaders, and they really care about educating and mentoring our staff. They've led some internal leadership programs. I've been able to get along with the Missouri Trucking Leadership Program as well as American Trucking Association. So those, I've learned a lot, but you make a lot of mistakes before you get there.

20:51 - 21:11
Rebecca Anderson: Making those mistakes is so hard, especially whenever you try to not make mistakes. But when you hit them and then you take the accountability of it and you say, hey. Here's where I messed up and here's where I need to get better and here's what I'm doing to fix it. That's what makes the difference. That's where you build leadership and build trust with your leaders at the company, and that's how you kinda move forward.

21:12 - 21:21
Aaron Craddock: So when you made, like, let's say that first big mistake, like like, how did you were you afraid to talk to leadership about it? Or or, like, how did you how did you go about that?

21:22 - 21:36
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. I that's a great question. So probably that very first big mistake I made, of course, you have that immediate freak out that you have that guilt. You, you know, you did something wrong, you knew better, but now you need to fix it. So it's hard the very first time you do it.

21:36 - 21:51
Rebecca Anderson: But, like I said, luckily, have great people and great leaders here at TransLand that are very understanding. They accept the mistake that you've made whenever you are accountable for it, and then they accept that you're moving forward and fixing it. They have that trust in you, which is really why I'm able to kind of go and grow and do more.

21:52 - 22:19
Aaron Craddock: That's awesome. That's cool. Yeah, I remember just yeah, some of the first mistakes I made are in early leadership. Like we had way we had one thing where we accidentally like being in marketing and advertising and then now technology, when I was leading a large marketing and advertising team, we had one day where we spent instead of 200 a day, we're spending 20,000 a day on an account. Yeah, and so it a big thing.

22:19 - 22:47
Aaron Craddock: And so when my account coordinator came to me, and was like, Hey, I made this mistake. I mean, he turned white. He was like, so paranoid. And honestly, when he delivered that news, and it was so much money, internally, I was like, Oh no, this is bad. But thankfully, was able to kind of like stay even keeled and not share my internal panic with them.

22:47 - 23:17
Aaron Craddock: We ended up finding a solution, that account, they were actually ecstatic that we were able to get that much traffic for them. So it ended up being a thing, and we just increased that month with the partner. It could have easily cost us a lot of money. There were several quarter million dollar mistakes that we had just over those years. But yeah, I found the same thing, just owning up to it.

23:18 - 23:31
Aaron Craddock: And not that it's without consequence, usually if you have a good leadership team, they're gonna be like, okay, what did we learn from this? How do we prevent it in the future? Like you said, And let's just keep moving.

23:32 - 23:35
Rebecca Anderson: Oh, yeah. You have to. We're human. We make mistakes. No one's perfect.

23:35 - 23:42
Rebecca Anderson: So I know I'm gonna make a mistake again, maybe today, maybe tomorrow. But knowing that I made the mistake, I learned from it, and I'm doing better. That's what matters.

23:43 - 23:46
Aaron Craddock: Mhmm. Yeah. And if you're not making mistakes, you're not growing.

23:46 - 23:46
Rebecca Anderson: Right.

23:46 - 24:07
Aaron Craddock: Like, it's like if you do your job perfectly, like in any given day or month, then you're probably not doing as much as you're capable of, and you're not growing. So I love it. Which which thankfully, this season, pretty much everybody in the industry is growing. Like in terms of like, it just it's a challenge. And so if you're in it, you're growing.

24:07 - 24:08
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah.

24:09 - 24:15
Aaron Craddock: So was there a season you almost quit or doubted yourself, like in the last eleven years?

24:15 - 24:23
Rebecca Anderson: Oh, yeah. I mean, I've had major doubt every day probably. Am I doing something right? Am I leading my team right? Am I not supporting them enough?

24:23 - 24:44
Rebecca Anderson: Am I supporting them too much? So you constantly have that doubt. That's the impostor syndrome in, any leadership type of role or any role where you're leading people. But there's been some hard days in trucking. I mean, COVID, we had to do a quick turnaround and figure out how to get our entire office remote, switch orientation from all in person, which is what we do really well here, to being almost completely virtual.

24:44 - 25:04
Rebecca Anderson: That was hard, especially when our brand and our values are just that in person and that communication and that connection. It was a really difficult thing to do. We learned from it. We were still able to stay relevant during that time frame, still hire drivers when it was really, really hard. And then we've adapted and grown as the industry changes, as the economy changes because you have to.

25:05 - 25:07
Rebecca Anderson: But there's doubt every day.

25:07 - 25:11
Aaron Craddock: What gives you what gives you optimism about trucking right now?

25:11 - 25:22
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. I see optimism every day with our new drivers that are coming into orientation. They're meeting our people. They're seeing that, hey, this is real. They were not, you know, telling me a story when they were recruiting me.

25:22 - 25:44
Rebecca Anderson: They're seeing that they can have a great future here for themselves, for their families, and I see optimism whenever we see teamwork. It's very easy to get siloed in what you do in trucking. Recruiting doesn't necessarily work day to day with a service center. But whenever there is that teamwork and you come together for a project and everyone's on the same team and going forward, that's where I see lots lots of optimism.

25:45 - 26:13
Aaron Craddock: That's awesome. One of the questions when I was just looking back at that I wanted to ask you is when you were on Break Check with Charles Gracie's, the Freight Wave Show, one of the things that you said was like the reality, it's not just about filling seats, it's about creating an environment where drivers want to come and stay. And the thing that really stuck out to me about that is the and stay piece. So yeah, elaborate on that a little bit.

26:14 - 26:36
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. So one of our quotes that we have used, gosh, probably for since I've been here, so ten ish, eleven years, is from orientation to retirement, TransLink offers a great career, which is true. We have fantastic career paths available for professional drivers, whether it's through driving or maybe, hey. You wanna come in office if we have an open availability. We hire students, the trainees straight out of school.

26:36 - 26:46
Rebecca Anderson: We have over the road. We have over the road flatbed fan. We have casual, which is a part time position. So you're out for a few days, you're home for a few days. We have independent contractors.

26:46 - 27:09
Rebecca Anderson: We have lease purchase. We have our community trucks, which is my favorite part of my job is our we're giving back. Every mile these trucks drive, TransLink donates 5¢. It's a fantastic idea that started before I was working here, and we could just get to continue it. So I get to go with our professional drivers to career days or go to touch a truck events or go to schools and really just start talking to the next generation about trucking.

27:11 - 27:20
Aaron Craddock: So walk me through the 5¢ thing. I haven't haven't heard of that before, like a fleet doing that. So who do like, who do you give to? Like, is that on every mile? Like, how does that work?

27:20 - 27:31
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. It's every mile. So our very first community truck was our pink Miles for Hope truck. We were one of the very first pink semi trucks out there. It started in 2012, obviously benefited breast cancer.

27:31 - 27:52
Rebecca Anderson: So we worked really closely with an organization called Breast Cancer Foundation of the Ozarks. So every single mile the truck drove, Transland donated 5¢ back to that organization, than a $120,000 in its timeframe. Right now, we have two additional veg or trucks. One is a veteran truck, and it is con partnered with Honor Flight of the Ozarks. Same thing.

27:52 - 28:11
Rebecca Anderson: Every mile the truck drives and our professional driver, Lee, drives, we donate 5¢ back. And then we have Care2Learn Truck, which is an organization founded in Missouri that has chapters statewide, and they meet emergent health, hunger, and hygiene needs of students. That way they can stay in school and be successful. Fantastic trucks, fantastic events. We're in parades.

28:11 - 28:31
Rebecca Anderson: We're going to the schools, and we're just showing kids what trucking is and life as a professional driver. Molly drives our Care to Learn truck and has been really heavily involved in the America's Road team. She's been a captain. So she's gone across the country representing trucking and her career in the industry, especially as a female, more than thirty years safe miles.

28:32 - 28:50
Aaron Craddock: So y'all are making the industry better, giving to charity, like inviting just other people into the industry. That's cool. So whose vision was that like on your team? Like was that the executive team like a long time back? Like who thought about that initial truck and then how has it grown to the three different ones?

28:51 - 29:11
Rebecca Anderson: Yeah. It was all completely employee inspired. So, an employee started the idea, said, hey, we should do some kind of truck, and then I think it was, idea of our leadership. So Mark previously worked in the nonprofit sector, has a huge heart for giving back the community, and that's what attracted me to TransLane as a whole. And I believe it kinda just sparked from there and grew.

29:11 - 29:22
Rebecca Anderson: The Care to Learn one, again, inspired by employees and then veterans. More than 40% of our professional drivers either have served or are currently serving. Made perfect sense. Why would we not do a veteran truck? Is the better question.

29:23 - 29:30
Aaron Craddock: That's awesome. Yeah. That's so cool. Well, is there anything that I should have asked today that I have not?

29:30 - 29:49
Rebecca Anderson: I don't think so. I just have a big passion for the trucking industry and the people that are involved in it. Some of the best people I've ever met my entire life, and everyone really cares about the safety of the drivers on the road, about the safety of passengers on the road, really and just making a good industry and a good place for people to work for themselves and their families.

29:50 - 30:07
Aaron Craddock: That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Rebecca, and jumping on on short notice. Yeah, just excited. I wanna have you back on at some point and just talk about the continued growth or have somebody on your executive team on. Because I think we added, again, spirit of this show is just adding value to the industry.

30:07 - 30:24
Aaron Craddock: I think you're gonna help just even new recruiting directors, new recruiters, just as they hear this and think about like how they can better integrate cross team and how they can better communicate to drivers. There were just so many nuggets from the show today. So I really appreciate you making the industry better and coming on today.

30:24 - 30:25
Rebecca Anderson: Thank you for having me.