A Day In The Life: A Look Inside Trucking And Logistics with HTI's Jeff Hall

It's the first in what we plan on being a monthly series of "A Day in the Life" style episodes, where we highlight local businesses and industries and the challenges they are facing.

First up: What is it really like to run a trucking company?

In this episode of Chamber Amplified from the Findlay-Hancock County Chamber of Commerce, Doug Jenkins sits down with Jeff Hall of HTI Hall Trucking Express to break down the reality of the trucking and logistics industry.

From being on call 24/7 to dealing with rising fuel costs, regulations across multiple states, and constant operational challenges, Jeff shares what most people don’t see behind the scenes.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

-What a typical day looks like in trucking
-Why empty trucks still cost money
-How fuel prices impact operations
-The role of regulations and compliance
-Why it’s hard to find drivers today
-How technology is changing the industry
-What keeps trucking companies competitive

Trucking is one of the most essential industries in the economy, and this conversation gives you a real look at what it takes to keep it moving.

Music and sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com

Transcript

Welcome And New Monthly Format

Doug Jenkins 0:04

Hello and welcome back to Chamber Amplified, brought to you by the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. I'm your host, Doug Jenkins. Each week here on the podcast, we're talking about the things that mattered the most to local businesses and organizations, from workforce and leadership development to marketing, IT issues, just the everyday realities of running something that serves our community. Although doing something a little bit different this week, and something I think we're going to try and do monthly from now on. A day in the life of a local business. We're going to take a look at what makes businesses tick, what they have to get into, what are the challenges that they're facing. All of that. I think we're going to do that once a month from now on. So have you ever wondered what it looks like to run a trucking company? Well, it's not the typical nine to five type of job. It's 24-7, 365. I get the feeling that's going to be a recurring theme as we talk to different business owners in the area. I'll be talking to Jeff Hall of HTI today and talking about his years in the industry and everything that he's experienced. We're talking about things like why an empty truck is a big problem, how regulations impact every mile of what they do, and what it's truly like to be on call all the time for a company like that. It's one of those conversations that makes you appreciate just how much goes into getting the things that we use every single day. Of course, if you enjoy the podcast, don't forget to leave us a rating and review and share it with others. We're also on YouTube now. So if you really want to share the message, that's a real easy way to do it. Just grab the link off of YouTube, share it in your social media. Now let's get into it. So uh your daughter volunteered you as tribute for for this uh podcast. What we would like to start doing is sort of a day in the life, just kind of get a slice of life of our different businesses in the community. Uh and I wanted to start off in trucking in logistics. And Taylor said, I know just the guy, and then volunteered you to do it. So uh I'm sure you're you're happy for her to do that for you.

Jeff Hall 2:00

Oh, absolutely.

Doug Jenkins 2:02

So we're gonna talk about all things uh HTI, all things trucking today, but uh let's start off with the with the easy things. Uh you let's just get your job description and and what you do at HTI.

Jeff Hall 2:14

Oh, well, that's easy, Doug. I do whatever needs to be done. I'm I'm the final firewall, if you will, from changing motor oil to changing tires to helping with the dispatch, uh, taking care of the financial. And uh I I am right there for all of it.

Doug Jenkins 2:36

So yeah, involved in every aspect of the business, as most owners are, uh, which I would imagine means your day starts pretty early. What time, what time are we starting our day these days, Jeff?

Jeff Hall 2:46

Well, my day is a 24-7, 365 days a year. So I'm truly on call 24-7.

Doug Jenkins 2:54

That's fair. And that's I've there's a lot of, I mean, you've got to be prepared for just about anything with your with your drivers out on the road. So that phone, you don't put your phone on silent, is what I'm hearing. That's correct.

24-7 Ownership And Cost Checks

Jeff Hall 3:06

Yeah.

Doug Jenkins 3:06

So what so typical day though, what's the first thing you you deal with when you get up in the morning?

Jeff Hall 3:12

Uh two things, especially with fuel the way it is. I I always check our money at the bank because we've had people get into our money that they shouldn't have, and we've had to put some uh precautionary things in play for us there. So I make sure that nothing is wrong with our money, and then I'm always checking the price of fuel. So fuel's gone up $2 a gallon in the last five or six weeks because of Iran. I get that and I accept that, but you got to find out where you can buy it the cheapest because it's our number two cost.

Doug Jenkins 3:45

Yeah, and actually we'll dig into that in a little bit here because I want to talk about the challenges that the industry faces. Obviously, that's one of them. So we'll come back to it. But let's just walk through your typical day. Uh you you do that, you're in the office. What uh what does uh what does a typical Monday look like for you?

Jeff Hall 4:02

Well, I would check with our operations and see if there were any issues over the weekend that I was not uh made aware of. Uh and if there weren't, then we had a good weekend. And uh what are our um any issues that are in front of us that we got to look at today and try to be proactive with those as well. Like uh this morning, uh we had one of our trucks in New York uh went in to deliver. They were supposed to have had a reload for us, and we get there and they don't have a reload. So now you weren't planning to try to find a load from New York back to Ohio. So we struggled and and uh our operations team got the load for the truck to come back. But that was the first hiccup that we had today.

Doug Jenkins 4:48

And I would that's probably not something a lot of people think about when it comes to logistics. They just think about the trucks going somewhere and offloading. But as you're moving those trucks to bring them back to Ohio or something, if there's nothing on board, you're losing money then.

Jeff Hall 5:04

Oh, yeah, big time. Yeah, whether the trucks empty or loaded costs the same amount to move, same cost per mile, whether you're loaded or empty for the most part.

Empty Miles And Load Problems

Doug Jenkins 5:14

Is that something that people probably don't what are the things people don't understand about the industry? I have to imagine that's up there, but what else uh do you think the general public doesn't understand about transportation and logistics?

Hours Of Service And DOT Pressure

Jeff Hall 5:24

I would think the hours of service. Like for you, Doug, if you got up at uh eight o'clock and you decided you wanted to put a double shift in, you could. You don't have to ask anybody, you just do it and everything's fine. For us, our drivers can work 11 hours and they've got to be done. And if if something happens, there's an accident on the highway and it slows your drive time down, or you get held up at a shipper or a receiver for two or three hours, that goes against some of your drive time, and you now you can't you can't go, you're now shut down. So it's hard to really be detailed in I'm gonna be there at eight o'clock, they'll have me empty at 8 15. I can now drive 20 minutes to where I need to go to pick up my return load. In 15 minutes, they'll have me loaded and I'm gone. That's just not how it works in our industry. So we show up, you know, we've just done our 11 hours worth of work to get to the customer to be there on time. And a lot of the times uh they're not even at work yet. So we're waiting for them to show up. We don't get paid for that, and it's going against our time to be able to get back out of there and head back home. So I don't know that most people realize that we are that controlled on what we can and cannot do and the DOT Department of Transportation issues that come along. If you if you work one minute more than your 11 hours, you could be fined for that.

Doug Jenkins 6:58

Yeah, let's get into that. Because I won't, as we mentioned, we wanted to talk about the biggest challenges that you face as an industry. One, obviously gas prices, as you already talked about, but two, just the regulations, uh, and it's not just the state, it's not just the federal government, their regulations coming from all sorts of agencies and everything. It's one thing for the public maybe to not understand the what you face, but do you feel like the people who are regulating you face understand the challenges that you're facing?

Jeff Hall 7:27

You know, it used to be, Doug, years ago when I first got started, which was over 40 years ago, the Department of Transportation was your partner. You know, we got started, they came, they helped us, they guided us through different things, and then we, you know, we we were somewhat on our own. But it's changed from back around 2008 when we had financial uh pressures here in America. Uh, one of our drivers got stopped by the DOT, and the driver asked, You why you guys keep pulling our trucks over? We didn't have any issues. They said we were told if we don't start or step up law enforcement or start bringing in some monetary refinancial uh money coming in, we are at risk of losing our jobs. So they got put against us, and our industry is a moving target. So if we go from Ohio to Massachusetts, we're going through Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, uh, into Massachusetts, those four states, each of them have some type of different regulation. And years ago, back in the 80s, the state of Connecticut, so in our trucks, if we did not have white sheets in our trucks, they would fine us. That we we've always been the uh uh financial rewards for different states because they know that a trucking company from Ohio is not gonna come back to Massachusetts for a hundred dollar fine. They're just gonna pay the fine and keep going. And it's been like that for a long time. Uh breaks my heart that that's what it's turned into us against them, and they get a financial reward and get their retirement off of hard men and women out there busting their humps, going through traffic setups, speed traps. In fact, last week uh one of our drivers got stopped in Connecticut. You know, you you you you got 45 speed limit, then it goes right into 55, and then 65, and then drops right back down to 45. That's about a 15-mile range that's up, down, up, down, up, down, and they will find you. And they told the driver last week until your truck trailer is past when the sign says 55, you need to be at 45 until that whole truck of trailers passed that sign. We're telling you this now because we're giving you a warning, we're going to start finding you for it.

Doug Jenkins 10:03

This was last week. Sounds amazing to have to deal with for you and your drivers.

Jeff Hall 10:08

It's not amazing, Doug. It's it's uh disheartening.

Doug Jenkins 10:11

That was a sarcastic amazing.

Jeff Hall 10:13

Yeah, but it's disheartening that that's what happens to hardworking men and women away from their families a day or two or three at a time to be scolded like that for just doing their job.

Doug Jenkins 10:28

I gotta come back to it because it piqued my interest. And I what what is the possible reason for the white sheet that you have to have in Connecticut?

Jeff Hall 10:36

Financial rewards.

Safety Choices That Prevent Crashes

Doug Jenkins 10:37

There's no so I and I don't want to make it sound like you aren't concerned about safety, which obviously that's what the agencies are supposed to be doing, whether or not they are or if they're extracting money, but you guys do focus a lot on safety. Uh tell us about the things that uh what are your big conc concerns when it comes to safety in your industry and and how do you guys address it?

Jeff Hall 11:01

Well, uh safety, we don't have a lot of issues with safety, Doug. Uh in 2010, I made a decision to switch all of our trucks and all of our trailers to disc brakes. Most people weren't even aware of disc brakes. So from 2011 to today, that's been 15 years. We've not had a rear-end accident since we've done that.

Doug Jenkins 11:25

That's a reason, and that actually speaks to technology changes in the industry. When did the when did the disc brakes become available on on semis? Uh, and and is that an industry trend?

Fleet Tech You Can Control Remotely

Jeff Hall 11:37

Were you guys out ahead of that? Yeah, we were ahead of it, and now a lot of the manufacturers are just making them standard. Okay. And it's smart to do.

Doug Jenkins 11:47

What are some of the other big technological changes that you've seen in the industry over the years?

Jeff Hall 11:52

Well, you can talk to the trucks now from here to California. I can look at what the truck is doing, what the driver's doing. It can alert us that a driver might be dozing, uh, driving too fast, uh, idling too much, and our trailers, uh, all of our trailers are refrigerated, so we can see what temperature is in the trailer. If a reefer unit has an issue, we can turn them off, turn them on, we can reset the temperature from our office here, wherever the equipment's at.

Doug Jenkins 12:25

That is amazing. When you talk about uh that's not a sarcastic amazing, by the way. That's actually a really cool technology. Uh, when you talk about being able to communicate uh in that way, the first thing that came to my mind when it comes to trucks is CB culture. That's not really is that a thing anymore? That that the CB culture kind of went away.

Jeff Hall 12:44

It's not like it was back in the 60s and 70s with BJ the Bear and Smoking the Bandit. Right people uh we could get on the CB and you could have good conversations today. It's just it's filthy, it's nasty, and it's just a lot a lot of vulgar. And you know, Taylor rode with me years ago, and I remember her getting on uh on the CB and just saying, Hey, breaker breaker, this is Taylor Bug. That's what we called her. And you know, the guys would just talk to her and they had great conversations, but I wouldn't want uh one of my daughters being on a CB because it's just uh it's just not right.

Driver Shortage And Road Realities

Doug Jenkins 13:26

All right. We're gonna advise people to stay off the CB radio then. Uh that is an unfortunate change in in culture in general. Uh let's talk about workforce and trucking. I know obviously, not even several years ago, a few years ago, there was a really strong call for people to get their their CDC uh and and to be able to go into the industry. Is that still the case now? Or are you being able to find people go into the industry?

Jeff Hall 13:51

Yes, it's hard to find people to go into our industry. And think about it, Doug. You go into work, you don't have to worry about a hundred dollar fine because you were just showing up to do your job.

Doug Jenkins 14:03

Right.

Jeff Hall 14:03

You aren't away from your family, having to deal with all the issues that are out there. Uh, driving, uh, road being shut down, you stop to get diesel fuel because you need it, and the the fuel stop that you stopped at doesn't have any. So now you got to wait however long until they get fuel. Uh, food out on the road is not good. Why would anybody want to do that or put themselves through that? And for the biggest um, it's got to be for the financial compensation, you know. So, you know, we have drivers making over a hundred thousand a year driving for us. Um it's got to be the money. Uh that's got to be a large part of it, why you would give up your family and deal with all the uh hardship that's out here. It's got to be a financial reward.

Doug Jenkins 14:56

Well, and I think that's the great thing to hear is that we it is not an easy job, but it is one that you can support a family on and support a family well, uh, especially if you stick around in the industry for a while. And I think a job that people can be proud of doing. I mean, we don't I'm not the computer that I'm using to interview you, the computer that you are using to be on this interview, they don't get here by magic. It's because there are people running those trucks. Uh, you know, the food isn't getting where we need it to be. It is integral to the success of not just a business, but the backbone of the country.

Jeff Hall 15:30

Sure. Yeah.

Customer Expectations Then And Now

Doug Jenkins 15:31

There you go. Those aren't just platitudes. I'm always fascinated with how logistics come together and and how you guys have to juggle all of that. Uh, I guess the last thing to talk about here as we we do this first day in the life uh style segment is what do customer expectations look like now compared to when you first started in the industry?

Jeff Hall 15:51

Well, when I first started, um, you know, customers expected you to be on time, uh, not damage their equipment, and be respectful. That's you know a lot of that hasn't changed today. But what we're seeing is because there's a shortage of drivers, there's a shortage of quality carriers, the shipping community, receiving community is almost just accepting whatever a trucking company can do because sometimes they know that they're they're at uh risk um because there's only so many trucks out there, if that makes any sense to you.

Family Leadership And Taylor’s Return

Doug Jenkins 16:33

No, it does. It's uh it's actually it's both heartening and disheartening at the same time that they've they've come to not expect the quality that that maybe they want, but at the same time more understanding of what's happening within your industry and and being patient with that. I guess I suppose that adds the silver lining to that. Actually, Jeff, I have one last question for you. We joked about Taylor at the beginning of it, but HTI is a family business. Uh that's um I I think unique, but also something we have two of here in the community. You know Sherry Garner quite well, and and uh you have her and Taylor, and then Jenny Fall, who also works with women in trucking. It just kind of struck me that we have are very unique in Findlay that we have so many people associated with women in the trucking industry, which you typically would not see. Uh, I know that's not necessarily the goal or anything of what you're doing, but I would imagine you're you're quite proud to have the family tradition continue on with Taylor there.

Jeff Hall 17:31

Uh well, I am. And and Doug, honestly, uh I never saw Taylor being here in this leadership role that she's uh fitting into. Uh she hated the trucking because they all of our children were forced to work here when they were growing up to learn morals and values and hard work. And she left Findlay. She didn't want any part of this, and then she wanted to come back here and work, and I told her no. Then she asked me a second time, and I told her no. And then she asked me a third time and I said, Explain to me why, after all these years of hating this, why would you want to put yourself into this? And she said, Well I didn't think I would love it, but I I I love one being with my family, working with my family, being back home in Findlay, and um I didn't realize how much I liked trucking, but I I want to come back and do it. So my my wife, her mom and I talked about it, and we said, okay, we'll we'll give her a shot, see what she can do. And she's just been uh rock star ever since she walked back in the door. So we're very proud and honored to have her here. Uh again, all of our children have worked here. Our son works here, he helps with the maintenance, and it's it's nice for me uh to be able to work with my children and try to teach them what I've learned over all the years. It's nice to have somebody, which most everybody working here, uh good people. Um we get along great, uh, but it's nice to have family to maybe pass this on to if they want to take it over.

Doug Jenkins 19:13

Well, Jeff, we appreciate it uh and everything you do in the community and uh and appreciate you hopping on the podcast with us. If people want to learn more about HTI, maybe they want to learn more about the trucking industry, what are the best ways to do that?

Jeff Hall 19:25

Get a hold of Taylor.

Takeaways And Chamber Connection

Doug Jenkins 19:29

That's repentance for making you do the podcast. Jeff, thank you so much for your time today. Good to see you, Doug. Thanks for it. Certainly a lot to take away from this edition of the podcast. There's a lot of complexity in trucking that a lot of us probably don't realize, or we just assume but don't really dig into it. Certainly it's not just the driving, it's logistics, regulation, safety, constant problem solving that uh I would imagine would be kind of rewarding, but also a lot of a headache. The industry is certainly dealing with real challenges from workforce to regulations and cost pressures. At the same time, it's a career that helps support a family and play a huge role in the economy. And that's maybe the biggest takeaway. Everything that we use depends on people like Jeff and his team. I hope you enjoyed the format. I'm looking forward to doing more day-in-the-life type of episodes and highlighting the different businesses and industries that we have in Findlay and Hancock County. When we first started doing the podcast, I didn't really want to do just straight member profiles because that's just a way to make people angry. Why didn't you feature me? That type of thing. But as we're now 199 episodes in, I thought it would be interesting to just highlight different industries. And that gives us a little bit more. By the way, we do a weekly podcast, so we need content, so this is an easy one to do. And that will do it for another edition of Chamber Amplify. It's a free podcast available to the community, made possible by the investment of our members here at the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. If you're looking at ways to get your business involved in the community, oftentimes the chamber is the best place to start. If you'd like to learn more, just send me an email, Djenkins at Findlay Hancock Chamber.com, and we can talk about how an investment in the chamber not only helps your business, but the business community as a whole. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time on Chamber Amplified from the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce.