'Trucker Josh' Giesbrecht building legacy for family, fellow truckers, people all around the world

This week on Overdrive Radio, look back into a little bit of Overdrive’s recent history, as you'll hear Canada-headquartered owner-operator Josh Giesbrecht suggest at the top of the podcast. Contracted to Keystone Western with a Kenworth W900 he calls his "dream truck," Giesbrecht notes Overdrive gave him his "first big break," expanding his influence around the world for his near-daily series of video blogs hosted now for nigh on a decade and a half on his "Trucker Josh" Youtube channel. To this day, he's executing a mission to bring the bedrock in-cab reality of Canadian and U.S. hauling to the masses.

Turns out Overdrive was among the first outlets to cover what he was doing way back near the start of it, as he tells it, and helped set the video blog off on a run toward a much bigger audience. The "Trucker Josh" channel's history is certainly a living one, though, as it continues as a repository of everything to landscapes and tarping tutorials, to mini rants and safety outreach, and so much more.

Josh Giesbrecht is the latest well-deserving honoree in a Hall of Fame hosted by a company regular listeners will be well aware of, Howes Products, Overdrive Radio's sponsor. (You can dive into the virtual Howes Hall of Fame, now featuring Giesbrecht, via this link.) 

Overdrive Radio's sponsor is Howes, longtime provider of fuel treatments like its Howes Diesel Treat anti-gel and Lifeline rescue treatment to get you through the coldest temps, likewise its all-weather Diesel Defender, among other products.I sat down with owner-operator Giesbrecht and Howes Executive Vice President Rob Howes II at the Mid-America Trucking Show at Giesbrecht's induction. Giesbrecht centers on this central reason for his continued, dogged pursuit of sharing the life of the over-the-road driver and truck owner day-in, day-out: "I want this to go throughout my life," he said of his daily chronicling, to be "the thing that I leave behind to my kids, my grandkids. Hopefully it's something that can earn their respect. 'He started from here, he ended here, and he did good.'"

[Related: Trucker's popular video blog includes four-legged costar]

For the trucking community, then, Giesbrecht's will be a legacy of improvement in public appreciation of the brass-tacks work of hauling. It’s somewhat easy to underestimate the impact video blogs like Trucker Josh’s have had on the better appreciation of the work of trucking by the general public. Geisbrecht’s was certainly among the first generation of those vlogs.

Now with a subscription base well in the six figures, it’s continuing to strike a nerve, or strike a chord, as it were, with a worldwide audience. Take a listen:

Other talks with Howes Hall of Fame honored owner-operators:
**Kate Whiting, about her journey to trucking and her show-worth 1973 custom-restored W900A:
**Angelique Temple, company hazmat driver-trainer turned owner-operator, on giving back, building community 

[Related: 'Hey shippers, we're out here': Post-Convoy collapse, small fleet owner resolved to pursue change]