Author: Drive for Bennett Motor Express

It’s a few days before Thanksgiving and truck driver Mark “Butch” Terry is hoping that Bennett will be able to assign him the next load soon. He has just delivered a drive train – a component for a cooling system – in Hampton GA, not far from Bennett’s headquarters in McDonough, GA, where he is now staying in his truck until the next job. While he’s here, he’ll get a chance to rest, catch up with Bennett employees and use the opportunity to satisfy his annual in-person safety meeting requirement.

Butch is walking around the office chatting with staff members when Lawrence Frye, who manages Bennett’s drivers for specialized and heavy haul services, waves Butch into his office and asks him to give input on the topic of safety. Butch agrees with Lawrence that having proper tie-downs for the equipment being transported is key.

“When picking up a load, you try to make sure you’ve got all your bases covered, and the biggest thing you need to worry about is securement,” says the tall and trim driver, who has zero CSA points in the categories that matter most to Bennett – health and fitness, unsafe driving, roadside inspections, vehicle maintenance and accidents. “If I don’t feel that the load is secured properly, I’m not going to feel good about moving it.”

A specialist in hauling 130,000- to 160,000-pound machine heads for wind energy systems, Butch is currently in between wind jobs. Butch is a full time contractor with Bennett. The company keeps him busy hauling other jobs when the wind business slows down, but he expects his next job will be wind. He just has to wait a few days. He knows it’s unlikely he’ll get home to Boerne, TX, a small town outside of San Antonio, in time for Thanksgiving. Shrugging his shoulders, he says, “I’m used to being out there on my own.”

Butch’s orange Kenworth truck stands out from all of the other trucks in Bennett’s yard. It has the biggest sleeping quarters and gigantic exhaust pipes on either side of the cab.  He says he tries to keep his truck and trailer in mint condition. He knows he has to commit to spending the money. “I try to make those repairs ahead of time,” he says, referring to his truck and 13-axle trailer he needs to haul the machine hubs. He doesn’t have the trailer today because he’s been using one of Bennett’s smaller trailers until he gets the next wind job. “One small thing can just explode into something big, if you’re not careful.”

Just as he suspected, Butch ends up staying at Bennett through Thanksgiving, but he doesn’t miss out on a good Thanksgiving meal or the camaraderie of family. Every year, Bennett serves Thanksgiving lunch to its family of employees and drivers who are in between jobs.

By the end of the week, Butch finally gets his next job. He leaves McDonough the following Sunday to pick up a small piece of wind equipment in Florida that he loads on Monday to take back to Texas for delivery to a wind farm. He’ll get a chance to stop at home where he lives with his sister, and spend some time with his cat. But not for long. Looks like the wind business is picking back up again.

If you attended the Mid America Trucking Show (MATS), you might’ve noticed hundreds of people walking around cooling themselves with emoji fans reflecting the Bennett and Ace Doran brands. If you followed the trail of fans, you would have ended up at the Bennett booth, where a constant throng of people crowded around a vehicle that was not a truck!

This year, Bennett decided to get creative and display a 1977 remodeled Ford Bronco as part of its American theme. Bennett team members dressed in tactical shirts and raffled off an AR-15 that was attached to the Bronco during the show.

Bennett Motor Express CEO David Lowry inherited the originally bright red Bronco from his late father and renamed it “Dirt Road Posse.”

We're going to chat with David Lowry, CEO of Bennett Motor Express about his 1977 Ford Bronco. Come see it at #MATS2017 booth #64032 #truckhappy

Posted by Bennett International Group, LLC on Thursday, March 23, 2017

The Bronco was such a hit, it just might have attracted even more crowds than those massive trucks filling the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center in Louisville. At times, it sure seemed like it!

Bennett Never Misses a MATS

Every year, Bennett uses the show to reward its great drivers, by conducting a series of events including Driver Advisory Board meetings, safety meetings, and a “Very Important Driver” dinner party at Captain’s Quarters. Bennett also uses its booth in the West Wing to attract new owner operators to the fleet. The hope was that drivers would come to register to win the custom AR-15 (the only one of its kind ever given away at the show), and leave wanting to #truckhappy by becoming a part of the Bennett fleet.

Bennett’s Ace Doran division has also had a booth at MATS for decades, and this year unveiled a new booth display where they held a raffle for a complete camping outfit for two and high-end portable grill. Both companies see the event as a way to meet with drivers to share about Bennett and spend time with their drivers who attend the show.

Also at the show, Bennett was a proud sponsor of Women in Trucking Association’s “Salute to Women Behind the Wheel” celebration. Female owner and CEO of Bennett, Marcia G. Taylor, is a huge proponent of women’s advancement in the industry. Through a program called “Women in the Driver’s Seat” she encourages all of Bennett’s women drivers to become a member of Women in Trucking and attend the event.

 

For Sheila Simms, who has been driving for 26 years, trucking is more than a job.

“It’s about performance, taking pride in what you do, and family,” she says. “When you drive a truck, you’re not just an individual in a commercial vehicle driving down the road. You’re a part of a family of drivers. Not only do you have to watch out for yourself, but you also have to watch out for them, too. If you see someone who needs help, you stop and help them.”

Sheila describes herself as “baffled” over winning the Woman Driver of Excellence Award for Bennett Motor Express (BME). “I do what I do because I love it,” she says. “It feels like I am just doing my thing and then someone hands me an award. Don’t get me wrong. I’m very proud of it!”

Known for her professionalism, and her impeccable driving and safety record, Sheila is described by BME Fleet Manager Harold Griffith as having a can-do attitude. “There is never a job too big or too small for Sheila,” he says. “When she says she is going to do something, she gets it done. She is a credit to all truck drivers.”

Sheila started out driving a dry van before switching to flatbed, which she describes as her “greatest challenge”.  She maintains a clean vehicle, has no CSA points, and is never late for a pick-up or delivery. With aspirations to grow her business, Sheila has two trucks. One of them is paid off and ready to lease. Sheila is also earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration and maintaining a 4.0 grade point average.

In addition to trucking, Sheila would like to investigate other business ventures as well. While she loves the adventure of starting a business and the challenge of determining the best ways to make a profit, she wants to use her earnings to help other people.

“I want to put my degree to use so that I’m not the only one that profits,” she says. “I had the kind of life where I had little help, and I know what that’s like.  If I see someone else struggling the way I did, I would truly like to be in the financial position to give them a hand up.”

As she is on the road so much, Sheila doesn’t have a lot of time to volunteer in her community, but she financially supports her local historical society. Last year, she won the bid to purchase a historical artifact and then donated it to a historical society. She also promotes historical society events by posting on Facebook.

Passionate about history, Sheila loves reading old newspapers that date back to the 19^th century. “It’s fascinating to read the things they posted,” she says. “What you’ll find in history is that what’s happened before is happening again. If you don’t understand where you were, you’ll never have a grip or understand where you’re going.”

Throughout her career as a truck driver, Sheila also managed to raise her son, Nick, as a single mother. He is now 20 years old and has a black belt in karate.

For the love of her shiny green truck.

For many women, perhaps, diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but for Guadalupe (Lupe) Potter, 73, of Kelso, Wash., she prefers a shiny, green tractor trailer.

Potter, who is a woman owner-operator for Bennett Motor Express, has been driving with Bennett for 26 years. She started out as a rider as part of a team with her husband, Larry. But about 15 years ago, Potter traded her rider status for her own license and is now a woman owner-operator carrying loads across the U.S.

Potter said when stopping at a truck stop, she hardly ever sees other women truck drivers unless they are part of a team, but she said things are changing in that respect.

“Truck stops are different now,” she said. “They have facilities for women, where before, they didn’t have showers for women only. Now it’s different. It’s better. They are recognizing the women.”

Since those early days, Potter has worn down some tread on the tires of her 2007 Volvo truck having become a member of the President’s Million Mile Club, and actually driven close to two million miles. Potter said she has carried loads such as trusses and non-secure government freight. In fact, during a recent stop at Bennett’s corporate headquarters, she said she just drove from Washington to make a government delivery, a striker, hauled to Anniston, Ala. And even though Potter is of small stature, she’s not afraid to “sling some tarps” if that’s what it takes to get her drop deck trailer loaded and the freight to its destination.

After driving with the company for many years, she said she really likes it at Bennett because of the people.

“Everyone has been friendly and family-like,” Potter said. “It’s just perfect.”

She said she works with dispatch on some loads, but she also likes the technology that Bennett offers, in that she doesn’t have to wait for a call from dispatch to get a load going since she can go online to Bennett’s site and find the loads that she is interested in hauling.

“It’s nice to see what’s available,” she said. “And sometimes the dispatcher is busy and doesn’t catch something. If you’re looking, you might find it before they do.”

As far as being a driver, Potter is very happy with her career choice because of the freedom it gives her. The mother of four, grandmother of seven, and great grandmother of five, said as she drives across the country she is able to stop along the way to visit with friends and family, and she said the view from her window isn’t bad either.

Bennett Motor Express Owner Operator, Allen Dettmer was interviewed for a NY Times Insider Feature on “Interviewing Truck Drivers at a Crossroads“. While Allen was featured with a beautiful cover photo of him in his 1997 Kenworth, the article did not include his commentary.

Here is a bit of background on Allen Dettmer:

• He worked for his mom for a while who was a freight agent in Baltimore, MD
• Allen is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. serving from 1988-92 in the first Gulf War
• Started working for former Bennett EVP Bill Ford in 1993 to gain experience. He worked in the yard or in the shop
• Mr. Dettmer gained enough experience being leased to Tennessee Steel Haulers to return to Bennett in January of 1999 as an Owner Operator
• He recently had 3 older trucks (including his ’97 KW) as he works as a small fleet owner. He replaced them with three 2013 Peterbilts
• Allen Dettmer became a President’s Million Mile Club Member in 2011
• Allen is not a big fan of the many government regulations that have come about in recent years, from eLogs to proposed speed limiters

Publication: The New York Times

Article: Interviewing Truck Drivers at a Crossroads, by Trip Gabriel

Date: May 22, 2017