What does it mean when you say you have no competition?
Greg Muirhead: "We won't play the 'haggling over price' game. We know what we need to make on every load - what we want to make on every load, and that's what we're going to get.
"If we have to compete with someone, we'll do it on the quantity and quality of our service, not on price."
How can you do that in today's competitive environment?
"We believe in creating enduring partnerships, not just temporary business relationships. We've had our largest customer for over 15 years, in large part because of our motto, 'On time and looking good.'
"The freight we haul is refrigerated, time-sensitive and food-related. Clearly, it needs to get where it's needed on time every time. And, when you haul food, your equipment has to be clean, inside and out.
"We believe absolutely in doing the best we can for all of our partners. The same attitude applies to our partnership with our drivers, our other employees and our vendors."
What do you mean by that?
"Take our employees, for example. In an industry where the turnover is about 125 percent per year, our turnover is only about 25 percent.
"To some extent, that's because we truly do treat our drivers as 'family,' but it's also because of the two parts of our motto.
"'On time' means we're going to run absolutely first class, well-maintained equipment. And 'looking good' means that equipment has to be spotlessly clean at all times. Plus we don't slip-seat drivers, and our tractors are married to our trailers. We're sticklers for that. Sometimes, we'll transfer freight from one trailer to another, just to keep drivers, tractors and trailers together.
"All of that, being on time, looking good and operating clean, dependable, top-notch equipment, gives our drivers a tremendous sense of pride in working here."
Are there other factors that contribute to driver retention?
"Sure. We're a dedicated hauler, running regular routes, and that means we are able to tell our drivers just about exactly when they'll be getting home.
"We insist they operate legally and we don't ask them to do maintenance."
What do you mean by that?
"Tire pressures, for example. We don't ask drivers to check and adjust them. We've found there are too many factors in it that can cause problems.
"Gauges can be way off. And temperature has a huge effect, so if a driver doesn't wait long enough for the tires to cool down, the pressures end up getting set wrong. We drive through some pretty hot - and cold - weather. We've also found that the valves in the stems can get stuck and leak.
"We make a point of getting our trucks into our shop every three to four weeks, and we take care of tire pressures then."
What do you haul?
"Our biggest customer makes flavorings that are used in things like yogurt and ice cream. That's about 90 percent of our business, and about 90 percent of it is to California, Utah, Tennessee and Florida. About 10 percent of it goes up to London, Ontario, in Canada.
"Plus, we haul frozen food for AAFES, which is the Army & Air Force Exchange Service. Most of that freight goes to the west coast, where it's shipped by boat to our service people overseas."
What form is the flavoring in?
"It's a liquid that's packaged in what we call 'totes.' These stainless steel containers cost about $2,500 each, and when they're full, they weigh about a ton each.
"We carry 20 of these per load, so you can see we're pretty heavily loaded most of the time."
And how many trucks and trailers do you have?
"We have 27 tractors and 32 trailers. We marry the tractors and trailers, but keep a few extra trailers so we can switch them out temporarily for maintenance."
What sort of maintenance program are you running?
"As I said, we see every unit about every three to four weeks. For us, that's about every 15 thousand miles.
"When we bring a unit in for maintenance, we go over the whole truck, doing lube, oil, fluids, tires and so on.
"We're constantly washing our tractors and trailers, and you'll notice we even wash our engines. It's all part of that 'looking good' line in our motto."
What kind of tires do you use?
"We're using Bridgestone. We tried cheap, off-brand tires in the past, and what we found was that you get what you pay for. Buy a tire for $250 and you get a $250 tire. Spend $400 and you get a $400 tire.
"With tires, as with every other piece of equipment we use, I am convinced that if you spend money on the right stuff you get every penny of it back.
"And because we have to be 'on time,' it's important for us to have the best possible tires on our vehicles.
"We use both Bridgestone R287 and R280 on our steers, M726 EL on our drives and R196 on our trailers."
How are the R287s and R280s doing for you?
"We're very happy. We use the R280 for most of ourlong haul work, and we can count on being able to pull them at about 95 to 115 thousand miles, then moving them to our trailers.
"Often times, when we do that, we find we have as much as 60 percent of the tread rubber left."
Then why pull and move them to your trailers?
"It goes along with our 'on time' concept. I figure, for safety and downtime's sake, the tires have paid for themselves at about 100 thousand miles. Why take a chance, especially with the high temperatures we have to drive through?
"Instead of pushing it, we move them back to trailers and run them out there."
How is the M726 EL doing?
"We're very happy with those too. We can expect to get between 280 and 325 thousand miles from an M726 EL."
And your trailer tires?
"It's harder to be precise on trailers. We don't run hub odometers and we're moving steers back there, but I'd say we can count on trailer tires lasting about 18 to 25 months. That probably works out to about 300 thousand miles."
Do you do your own tire work?
"We mount our drive and trailer tires, but all our steer tire work is done by our dealer."
What's that about?
"We have a policy that's worked very well for us. Every time we put on new steer tires, we align the vehicle, either just the steer axle or all three, depending on what kind of wear patterns we've been seeing.
"So, our dealer takes care of both jobs at the same time. That way, we know everything's set up the best it can be."
We also understand you enter some truck beauty contests.
"Of course, that goes along with the 'looking good' part of our philosophy. Because we're food haulers, we keep our trucks looking their best all the time.
"We've entered quite a number of truck beauty contests, both in the tractor and combination divisions, and have won a bunch of awards.
"It's an expensive proposition, though. It costs us quite a bit of money to pull a couple of trucks and drivers out of revenue-producing work and send them to a trade show. But it is fun!"
We didn't see many trucks on your lot. Where are they?
"On the road, making money. We're proud of the fact that we have a 97.8 percent efficiency level. So not only are we on time and looking good, but we're out there working as much as we can."
You range from California to Canada. What do you do when you have a breakdown?
"One thing we use is the Bridgestone National Preferred program. They'll find us a dealer or truckstop who can take care of tire problems and get us back on our way. The price for the tire and service is fixed, so we don't worry about getting gouged.
"The beauty of that is that once you've turned the problem over to them, you can go back to bed and not worry about it."
What's your plan for the future?
"Unlike some fleets, we're not interested in growing just for the sake of growing. Our priority is doing what's best for all of our partners,and I'm not sure a lot of growth would necessarily be good for that.
"So, I expect we'll continue to eliminate our competition by continuing to be 'On time and looking good,' just as we have since 1970." 
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