"I spend a lot of time making deliveries around here, so I have my little spots I know I can park." --Owner-operator Jason Shelly, speaking to knowledge borne of more than two decades' experience serving customers in Amish markets on the East Coast
The words up top were among the first owner-op Jason Shelly spoke when we talked back in early August attendant to my reporting on his longtime one-truck business, Overdrive's 2025 Trucker of the Month for August. He'd gotten parked up for the call mid-run on his regular route through the Washington, D.C., area, among the many destinations for his multistop reefer-haul business.
It sets the scene, as it were, but also demonstrates the expertise he's built through consistency through the years, through specialization in that now 20-plus-year run loaded with fresh meat bound for those Amish markets. In this week's Overdrive Radio edition, sit in with Shelly as he tells the story of how he proved his invaluable nature to the customers starting with a partner serving a premium pork producer, then following through with consistent customer service as demand grew and grew and grew for the product over those decades.
Headquartered in Pennsylvania in the town of Telford today, owner-operator Shelly's legacy is certainly a work in progress. He's got plenty of working years ahead of him, but he's been nothing if not outgoing in his efforts to lend the benefit of expertise to those coming up behind him. Those relationships then grow to the point of mutual business benefit, too, as the Trucker of the Month feature about Shelly last week illustrated.
[Related: Carving a niche in fresh meat, multistop delivery: Trucker of the Month]
Owner-operator Kris Bair, a decade and more Shelly's junior, calls him a mentor, no doubt, a sounding board for ideas and questions. He also bought his first truck, a restored 1980 A model Kenworth, from Shelly, with private financing worked out between the men.
When Shelly thought he was going to be potentially getting entirely out of trucking when he and his business partner sold their business to a larger operation, Bair then traded that W900A back to Shelly for his longtime runner, a 2000 W900 outfitted with a custom Double Eagle big bunk.
In the podcast, Shelly also tells the story of raising three children in part in that 2000 KW big bunk, with quite a lineage that traces back through its prior owner, Richie Acosta, who sadly passed several years back. Acosta was prepping a Peterbilt purchase for what would become his famous Project 350 rig, when Shelly bought this KW from him. Hear more of that story in the podcast.
Does Shelly still have that old W900A Bair traded back to him in his stable today? I asked him.
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He's been able to be that hand up the ladder, so to speak, for the generations of owners behind him "several times over the years," he added. Hear his story, in his own words, in this Part 1 of our talk with Shelly on the podcast today:
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