Owner-op Kevin Bruns: A Millennial's journey through car haul and tanker to dump and now step deck

If the TikTok trucking Gen Z is here for the long haul, their elder Millennials might be well on their way to something even more formidable -- fully entrenched in business ownership with plenty history behind them beyond the social media platforms. 

This week in Overdrive Radio, walk through one such Millennial's story. Just a couple years ago, owner-op Kevin Bruns purchased a 2019 Cummins-powered International LoneStar after several years of local dump truck ownership and work around quarries and construction sites in the Nashville, Tennessee, region. That followed early experience with authority hauling cars a couple decades back, based outside Chicago where Bruns is from originally, then pneumatic tanker work as a company driver, all of it in prep for where the owner-operator is today. Bruns is married with two young children and back out on his own with authority as Bruns Trucking.

[Related: Trucking's TikTok generation reports harassment, but they're here for the long haul]

Owner-op Kevin BrunsHe restarted the authority a year and a half back, and with well-known authority-age requirements so many brokers have in place today, up until recently he was limited to power only with dry vans for several large outfits. Yet turns out June Trucker of the Month Scott Smith isn't the only owner-op newly testing the platform-freight waters. Bruns is in his second month hauling with a step deck trailer fairly recently purchased, where he's seeing better rates.

Bruns' LoneStar and step deck, loaded. 

The owner-op's making plenty time for outside pursuits, too. One of the reasons we came together last week for the talk was his then-impending competition in this past weekend's Semi Stampede uphill truck drag race competition at Kuhnle Motorsports Park due south of Cleveland, Ohio, one of the only such events in the U.S.