In this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, hear the clarion voices of a spectacular pair of owner-operators: Roger and Rita Wilson with their Chicago-area-based, two-truck Rita’s Absolute Trucking. The pair married in 1998 after separate histories trucking, Rita toting butter up and down the Eastern seaboard, Roger with a story that stretches way back to hauling swinging meat in 1970 his first time out over-the-road.
Through the 1980s, he worked with a friend in LTL consolidation out of the Chicago area, growing to 50 trucks there before venturing out on his own with five. Then Rita brought two of her own to the operation, becoming Rita's Absolute early this century and growing to 15 units. They’ve had big ups and downs managing fleets, but after a slow period of downsizing over more than decade, they are now settled squarely into a super-sweet niche moving reefer trailers full of finished chocolate mostly between Chicago and Pennsylvania, for a single customer.
The pair were our Truckers of the Month for September.
[Related: Beating the odds in a 1989 Marmon: Chicago construction dump to OTR]
When our first story about the Wilsons published two weeks back, it featured a Ryder System rep talking directly about the Wilsons’ work with their warehousing customer in Blommer Chocolate Company, who've been the Wilson's customer for two decades now. Ryder had nothing but praise for Rita’s Absolute Trucking, for sure. Yet after the story published, we also heard back finally from a direct rep from Blommer. Transportation manager Janie Moore called Rita and Roger Wilson’s Absolute Trucking the “Absolute best. If I could have more carriers like them it would be a joy!”
