Pictured, from right: 3-10-trucks champ Wes Oberman of Oberman Logistics (his wife and business partner, Laura, couldn't be in attendance due to illness); Scott and Jana Denmark, and Billie Jo and Scott Cruthis of Thomasville Furniture Xpress out of Thomasville, North Carolina. Photos from the awards ceremony by Kathy Hendley
"It's beautiful to have this," said TFX's Scott Denmark from the stage in accepting the title belt in the 11-30 Truck Division. He thanked the many drivers and owner-operators over-the-road and other staff back in North Carolina at home base who've "made this for us. Our team's made it. We're just two team leaders. Our office manager, Stacy, our warehouse manager, Tim," he said. "It's nice to be out of the office for a day or two, and they make it happen."
Wes Oberman noted surprise at the win when it happened for his now-11-truck all-owner-operator business, headquartered in Huntingdon, Tennessee, a couple hours west of Nashville. He noted he'd been a NASTC member from the start when he was but a one-truck, one-driver outfit, with himself behind the wheel. He continues to lead by example, as it were, in that regard behind the wheel of a 10-plus-mpg Kenworth T680 these days.
Wes Oberman in his normal environment when we were able to catch up with him passing through the Nashville area along I-65 at the Love's on Trinity Lane a few weeks back.
"I would like to thank NASTC. ... Their fuel card is second to none, and I'd also like to thank their insurance department," he said. "Without them, I don't think we'd even be around at this point."
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One thing was different -- given the financial evaluation of entered fleets is based on past-year performance, "in this case 2024," he said, "a lot of entries we might have otherwise gotten just didn’t get across the finish line."
Dills, speaking from the stage and flanked by Robbie and Lori Turnage, finalists with their Tylertown, Mississippi-headquartered 29-truck fleet, Turnage & Sons, LLC.In a down period for trucking like these last years, there may be something of a "haves-and-have-nots aspect to the small-business trucking world" in some ways, Dills noted, yet it's also clear that small fleet and owner-operator business models can and do "thrive on adversity."
You see that quality in "all four of these Small Fleet Championship finalists, that's certain," he added.
In remarks immediately following the awards, NASTC President David Owen noted the first night's evening program at the long-running NASTC conference was traditionally called the "Transportation Trust Forum," and "we used to get carriers and brokers in here together to throw biscuits at each other," he said. But "the two words that kept coming to me" watching the procession of Small Fleet Champ finalists onto the stage "are family and relationships," he added. "Maybe our industry is so hard, so trying and so dynamic, and so damn much fun, that you have to include your family in the deal or you don't get there."
With the association at 38 years old, he reflected on the numerous relationships that had been built for business among thousands over the years. "The people you meet at this meeting are off the charts, they're brilliant, at the top of their game," he said. "I hope you'll take tomorrow and Saturday to truly drink it all in, and absorb the enthusiasm of what a collective 85,000-truck outfit can do and accomplish if nobody gives a crap about who gets the credit."
A big thanks from Overdrive and Small Fleet Champ sponsor NASTC to all who entered to compete. Entries for the 2026 award open in Spring next year.
Detail of the finalist Small Fleet Champs follows:
3-10 Truck Division
Clifford Hay II's first foray in business ownership came almost three decades ago when he bought the family business, Clifford C. Hay Inc., from his father. At the time, it was but a one-truck, one-trailer outfit. Today, Hay owns six trucks and 30 trailers, hauling hay, lumber and dry van freight, mostly operating in the Northeast and up into Canada out of his New York home base. Hay will be no stranger to Overdrive readers -- his personal 2007 Peterbilt 379 Legacy last year was crowned Overdrive’s Pride & Polish Limited Mileage champ. His is a comeback story, given in 2010 his garage caught fire and the building, tools, and rolling equipment was wiped out. Yet the setback wouldn't define the owner through the next 15 years. The business remains strong.
3-10-truck Small Fleet Champ Oberman Logistics got its start officially in October of 2019 after careful planning by its owner-operator Wes Oberman and his business partner and wife, Laura. It started with just a single truck OTR. Yet from the get-go the Obermans had a plan in place to expand, to build a small fleet with a stake in the success of other owner-operators. "I felt there was a gap in the industry for good, honest companies that wouldn’t gouge you" as an owner leased on with fees in excess of what's really necessary, he said. Fundamentally, Oberman wants to demonstrate to any leased owner he works with that he's truly invested in what they do. Not as a profit center for his business, but as real support for the long haul. He ran alone for a year or two, then started advertising via the Oberman Logistics website a 15% fee for a leased owner and options for assisted or self dispatch, with a quite low, flat and transparent per-week additional charge covering insurance, load board subscription and a variety of other support. A NASTC member company, Oberman's grown to a total 11 owners leased today, including his own 10-mpg T680 (pictured), all benefiting from the NASTC fuel-discount program, IFTA administration handled by the company, and increasingly expert negotiation provided by Laura to those who want or need it.
11-30 Truck Division
Father and son duo Robbie and Levi Turnage are fourth- and fifth-generation truckers, respectively. Robbie’s great-grandfather hauled milk in cans back in the day, then his grandfather did the same thing and then became the first person in the Tylertown, Mississippi, area to get a tractor-trailer tanker combination to haul milk. Robbie started the Turnage and Sons business almost two decades ago, which happened to coincide with many dairymen, some of whom he'd grown up knowing as more or less part of the family, going to certified organic product. In November 2006, he started hauling organic milk for three producers, and that number has since grown to 33. Much of the work takes Turnage drivers outbound from Mississippi and Louisiana to the Publix warehouse in Dacula, Georgia, with some going out to Dallas, Texas, and Lakeland, Florida. It's a 24/7 effort, Robbie said, and he strives to be the go-to service provider, often enough putting out 2 a.m. fires, so to speak, for customers in one bind or another. The fleet's grown in ebbs and flows through the years, once reaching 40 trucks before the fleet owner dialed it back in his own right-sizing effort to where it sits today, just under 30 power units, leaving time for the older Turnage to continue to school that fifth generation in small fleet ownership.
Scott Denmark (above, right) and Scott Cruthis, owners of 11-30-truck Small Fleet Champ Thomasville Furniture Xpress, specialize in the finished product in the fleet's name. The near-30-truck TFX gets it close to its final destination, whether a furniture store or warehouse, almost all of the work LTL. The pair of owners have known each other going back decades when both drove trucks as owner-operators. Denmark's been off the road for 25 years now, and was operations manager for close to 18 years at Shelba Johnson Trucking (since bought by another company) before founding TFX not long after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both Denmark and Cruthis came to the business with name recognition among furniture shippers and stores, and after early gains with equipment purchased from another business, word of mouth built the customer base somewhat organically. Word traveled fast when TFX's speed of service became clear during the COVID capacity crunch. Growth's come quick, yet hasn't felt overwhelming to either owner as they've really taken to the partnership. Barely four years into its history, with Denmark's operational expertise and Cruthis' oversight in the shop, they're getting close to 30 units running, with 17 full-time employee drivers and eight other operators either leased or (in the case of two) with authority but dedicated to TFX's customers.
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Pictured, from right: 3-10-trucks champ Wes Oberman of Oberman Logistics (his wife and business partner, Laura, couldn't be in attendance due to illness); Scott and Jana Denmark, and Billie Jo and Scott Cruthis of Thomasville Furniture Xpress out of Thomasville, North Carolina. Photos from the awards ceremony by Kathy Hendley
Wes Oberman in his normal environment when we were able to catch up with him passing through the Nashville area along I-65 at the Love's on Trinity Lane a few weeks back.
Wes Oberman, speaking from the stage flanked by fellow Small Fleet Champ finalist Clifford Hay, owner with his wife, Ann, of Clifford Hay Inc. of Cobleskill, New York. 
Dills, speaking from the stage and flanked by Robbie and Lori Turnage, finalists with their Tylertown, Mississippi-headquartered 29-truck fleet, Turnage & Sons, LLC. 
Clifford Hay II's first foray in business ownership came almost three decades ago when he bought the family business, Clifford C. Hay Inc., from his father. At the time, it was but a one-truck, one-trailer outfit. Today, Hay owns six trucks and 30 trailers, hauling hay, lumber and dry van freight, mostly operating in the Northeast and up into Canada out of his New York home base. Hay will be no stranger to Overdrive readers -- his personal 2007 Peterbilt 379 Legacy last year was crowned Overdrive’s Pride & Polish Limited Mileage champ. His is a comeback story, given in 2010 his garage caught fire and the building, tools, and rolling equipment was wiped out. Yet the setback wouldn't define the owner through the next 15 years. The business remains strong.
3-10-truck Small Fleet Champ Oberman Logistics got its start officially in October of 2019 after careful planning by its owner-operator Wes Oberman and his business partner and wife, Laura. It started with just a single truck OTR. Yet from the get-go the Obermans had a plan in place to expand, to build a small fleet with a stake in the success of other owner-operators. "I felt there was a gap in the industry for good, honest companies that wouldn’t gouge you" as an owner leased on with fees in excess of what's really necessary, he said. Fundamentally, Oberman wants to demonstrate to any leased owner he works with that he's truly invested in what they do. Not as a profit center for his business, but as real support for the long haul. He ran alone for a year or two, then started advertising via the Oberman Logistics website a 15% fee for a leased owner and options for assisted or self dispatch, with a quite low, flat and transparent per-week additional charge covering insurance, load board subscription and a variety of other support. A NASTC member company, Oberman's grown to a total 11 owners leased today, including his own 10-mpg T680 (pictured), all benefiting from the NASTC fuel-discount program, IFTA administration handled by the company, and increasingly expert negotiation provided by Laura to those who want or need it.
Father and son duo Robbie and Levi Turnage are fourth- and fifth-generation truckers, respectively. Robbie’s great-grandfather hauled milk in cans back in the day, then his grandfather did the same thing and then became the first person in the Tylertown, Mississippi, area to get a tractor-trailer tanker combination to haul milk. Robbie started the Turnage and Sons business almost two decades ago, which happened to coincide with many dairymen, some of whom he'd grown up knowing as more or less part of the family, going to certified organic product. In November 2006, he started hauling organic milk for three producers, and that number has since grown to 33. Much of the work takes Turnage drivers outbound from Mississippi and Louisiana to the Publix warehouse in Dacula, Georgia, with some going out to Dallas, Texas, and Lakeland, Florida. It's a 24/7 effort, Robbie said, and he strives to be the go-to service provider, often enough putting out 2 a.m. fires, so to speak, for customers in one bind or another. The fleet's grown in ebbs and flows through the years, once reaching 40 trucks before the fleet owner dialed it back in his own right-sizing effort to where it sits today, just under 30 power units, leaving time for the older Turnage to continue to school that fifth generation in small fleet ownership.
Father and son duo Robbie and Levi Turnage are fourth- and fifth-generation truckers, respectively. Robbie’s great-grandfather hauled milk in cans back in the day, then his grandfather did the same thing and then became the first person in the Tylertown, Mississippi, area to get a tractor-trailer tanker combination to haul milk. Robbie started the Turnage and Sons business almost two decades ago, which happened to coincide with many dairymen, some of whom he'd grown up knowing as more or less part of the family, going to certified organic product. In November 2006, he started hauling organic milk for three producers, and that number has since grown to 33. Much of the work takes Turnage drivers outbound from Mississippi and Louisiana to the Publix warehouse in Dacula, Georgia, with some going out to Dallas, Texas, and Lakeland, Florida. It's a 24/7 effort, Robbie said, and he strives to be the go-to service provider, often enough putting out 2 a.m. fires, so to speak, for customers in one bind or another. The fleet's grown in ebbs and flows through the years, once reaching 40 trucks before the fleet owner dialed it back in his own right-sizing effort to where it sits today, just under 30 power units, leaving time for the older Turnage to continue to school that fifth generation in small fleet ownership.
Scott Denmark (above, right) and Scott Cruthis, owners of 11-30-truck Small Fleet Champ Thomasville Furniture Xpress, specialize in the finished product in the fleet's name. The near-30-truck TFX gets it close to its final destination, whether a furniture store or warehouse, almost all of the work LTL. The pair of owners have known each other going back decades when both drove trucks as owner-operators. Denmark's been off the road for 25 years now, and was operations manager for close to 18 years at Shelba Johnson Trucking (since bought by another company) before founding TFX not long after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both Denmark and Cruthis came to the business with name recognition among furniture shippers and stores, and after early gains with equipment purchased from another business, word of mouth built the customer base somewhat organically. Word traveled fast when TFX's speed of service became clear during the COVID capacity crunch. Growth's come quick, yet hasn't felt overwhelming to either owner as they've really taken to the partnership. Barely four years into its history, with Denmark's operational expertise and Cruthis' oversight in the shop, they're getting close to 30 units running, with 17 full-time employee drivers and eight other operators either leased or (in the case of two) with authority but dedicated to TFX's customers.
