Arnold Transportation Services
Jacksonville, Fla.
Spearheaded a mobile business training initiative for owner-operators using a video it produced, written materials and a trailer it modified to provide training at truck stops
and trade shows around the country.
In early 2004, Dick Follis got what seemed to him to be a wild idea. Follis, director of fleet development for Jacksonville, Fla.-based Arnold Transportation Services, was frustrated by what he saw as a lack of basic business management skills among many owner-operators. Many were safe, dependable drivers, but they would go broke because they didn’t really know what they were doing financially, he says.
Follis thought that Arnold, which operates about 1,500 power units including nearly 500 owner-operators, should do something about the problem – and not just for his company’s benefit. The idea he took to upper management, including President and CEO Mike Walters, was a business education tour, taking presentations and materials out on the road.
“When I first suggested it, I didn’t think it would go past my boss,” Follis says. “I almost fainted when I brought this up to them and they thought it was a great idea. There has never once been a question about cost.”
For Walters, there was no question that Follis’ idea was the right thing to do. “I have been in this industry 27 years. You used to be able to get family members [to become owner-operators]. Today, one of the ways is to move a company driver into being an owner-operator.” The drawback, Walters says, is that everyone expects these newly minted owner-operators to suddenly know how to be businesspeople.
The ability of owner-operators to manage their costs is critical not just for the owner-operators themselves but for the industry as a whole, Walters says. “Customers can only pay so much for their services. There’s only so much you can pay an owner-operator and still make a buck on it.”
While Arnold was willing to spend some money, it wasn’t prepared for the full costs of building an owner-operator education program from scratch. So with the OK from the top, Follis set out to pull together the resources he needed to accomplish the daunting task.
