Overdrive 's 2022 Small Fleet Champ competition , sponsored by the National Association of Small Trucking Companies , will conclude with two winning fleets at NASTC's October 20-22 annual conference in Nashville. Meet the 10 semi-finalists for this year's awards below.
Since the initial entry period officially closed July 15, Overdrive 's Small Fleet Championship has nonetheless continued information gathering from and analysis of potential semi-finalists in an effort to evaluate fleets in two categories this year: companies with 3-10 trucks and those with 11-30 trucks at the end of 2021. Today, we're announcing five semi-finalists in each category.
In September, we'll be featuring stories about all of them ahead of announcement of the final four who will be attending the awards ceremony in Nashville, Tennessee, at the conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies in October.
Without further ado, in the 3-10-trucks-and-under category:
Chris Porricelli's five-truck operation has maintained its size at five trucks hauling cold/frozen foods over the Small Fleet Champ's evaluation period from 2018 through 2021.
Among CAP Trucking's power units is this one, hooked to one among the company's 53-foot reefer trailers.
Kay Creech notes the now 10-truck operation, hauling commodities in support of the dairy industry, has grown from six trucks in 2018 utilizing belt trailers and flatbeds, with numerous family members newly involved in the multigenerational family business.
Seven-truck carrier Suprise Trucking's working mostly with contracted owner-operators hauling reefer freight, and since Jason Cannon wrote their story as part of the 2021 Small Fleet Championship , when Suprise was also a semi-finalist, at least one owner-operator has moved on from the company into an independent business himself, said Bryon Stoll, who runs the business with his wife, Holly. The Stolls helped that owner-operator on that path toward achieving his personal goals, Bryon said, a primary mission of Suprise's business as it relates to the owners it works with. Bryon notes the Stolls are proud to have been "part of his stepping stones to get to where he wanted to be."
Five-truck Til Friday Trucking was but a one-truck carrier in 2018, and after a couple of years began to focus on lean operation and expansion to where they are today, said Michelle Hefner, with a variety of duties at the primarily dry-van-pulling company. In recent years they've expanded with some contract business and with a flatbed as well.
Since Matt Cole wrote then-eight-truck Triple R Trucking's story last year, when the company was also a semi-finalist, the fleet has expanded to 10 total trucks, including 9 owner-operators leased on, a primary focus for owner-manager Krystal Raue being to satisfy the freight needs of those owner-ops. Much of it is reefer freight, but the company's also capable in other freight niches, depending on an owner's needs, as the photo here illustrates. Additional freight areas of focus represented within the company include hotshot, flatbed and stepdeck.
And in the 11-30-truck category:
Globex Transport, Boise, Idaho The 22-truck reefer and dry-van operation of Globex Transport is helmed by Tommy Piluyev, managing a mix of company drivers and leased owner-operators and small fleets. Since launching the company within the last decade's worth of time, in 2018 Globex was a six-truck fleet, experiencing fairly quick growth over the subsequent period.
Les Holtkamp and his fiancee, Tina, founded Holtkamp Transportation as 50/50 partners after Les had dipped his toes into trucking starting about a decade ago. By 2018, the company was at 20 trucks, with a mix of owner-operators and company equipment, pulling dry vans. Today, the company sits at 30 trucks, with a team of full-time employees and a quite profitable operation.
Owners John (pictured with one of the Mack Pinnacles the company runs) and Brenda McGee have diversified into flatbed operations since the company was one of three finalists for the very first Overdrive 's Small Fleet Champ award in 2020. Growth in power-unit numbers has proceeded apace to 19, an additional two added just this year. Better yet, profits last year were 200% above year 2018, impressive given revenues didn't rise nearly by the same percentage. In addition to the growing flatbed business, the company's principal niche is in liquid-bulk hauling for oilfield customers, including produced water, completion fluids, freshwater and waste water.
Growing from 14-20 trucks from 2018 to 2021, aviation- and retail-fuel hauler Lamb Fuels has added a couple more trucks so far this year, as the company has continued to focus on developing new business, said General Manager Jeff Lisowski. Pulling Beall aluminum petroleum tankers, including doubles, the company focuses closely on keeping safety metrics in the best-possible territory, with great profit results.
Soldwedel & Horn Enterprises is a 15-truck carrier moving frozen and refrigerated foods, principally, and has exhibited measured growth from 12 trucks since 2018. That follows two decades of growth from start in the late 1990s, backed up by "a solid relationship with our customers and our long-term driver base," said co-owner Harlan Martin.
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