“It’s almost like banker’s hours in a way” for the drivers employed at now-15-truck Brian Brewer Trucking out of DeGraff, Ohio, serving a diverse set of customers mostly locally. That’s according to small fleet owner Brewer, who cut his teeth trucking as an owner starting in 2000 with a friend he knew from local/regional auto-racing circuits, still more than a pastime for him with a custom-fab shop for racecars attached to his 10,000-square-foot trucking-company headquarters.
“My father trucked back in the day some,” Brewer said, describing himself then as “that guy that said, ‘I don’t want to do that’,” growing up.
He wanted to be a lawyer, of all things, when he was a kid, but never got any sort of college behind him to help make that a reality. Yet he’s learned and is still learning enough the old-fashioned way, as it were, doing the work of running a small fleet, particularly with growth BBT has experienced in recent years. “It’s a learning curve trying to treat my guys the way we want to be treated,” he said. “I don’t want my guys to be a number.”
Brian Brewer
“They run every day, three-five trucks every day for us,” said Franklin’s Greg Clouse, who notes Brewer’s quite responsive to the company’s needs, particularly recently as he’s added trucks to BBT in direct response to Franklin’s growing needs on the various accounts BBT helps handle. “They’ve been very reliable,” Clouse added.
Clearly, BBT’s doing a lot right. In 2023 BBT added three trucks to grow to a total of 10 in response to demand for their service Brewer called “aggressive,” then five more just this year. It’s such that Brewer’s been canvassing the area for a bigger facility to “continue to grow” the business, he said.
Brewer and BBT are one of five semi-finalists for Overdrive’s 2024 Small Fleet Champ award, in the 11-30-truck division.
Five of the units, many of them daycab Cascadias powered by Detroit motors with 10-speed transmissions, in BBT's stable at headquarters in Ohio.All photos courtesy of Brian Brewer Trucking
‘We need some trucks -- can you help us out?’ Close partnerships seed growth
BBT’s history has closely followed his service to Franklin Iron and Metal, for whom he first got the opportunity to haul scrapped cars in mid-2017, he said, when another of their trucking suppliers' owners was getting ready to retire.
“I never really dreamed I would be financially in position to do anything,” said Brewer. Yet he had help. Working with his bank as well as the customer, the latter of whom bought the necessary trailers and helped finance the trucks, Brewer set out with BBT as the sole operator in a Cummins-powered Volvo with a 13 speed. The Volvo was a sleeper tractor that was a little too much truck, “too heavy for what we were doing,” really, Brewer said. Yet he made it work. He also “had an old International, a 9400 stretched out with a Cat motor in it” as a spare.
This is one of several Small Fleet Champ semi-finalist profiles that will air throughout this month. (Access all of the published profiles via this link.) Two finalists in each category (3-10 trucks, 11-30 trucks) will be announced in October.
He continues to use that shop, K.M. Walker Garage, for much of BBT’s day-to-day maintenance needs, though “we do some work for ourselves,” Brewer said, employing a mechanic now who works at night. “We still go to K.M. if something happens on the road” during work hours.
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By 2020, Brewer had added his son as a second operator, and growth has proceeded in the years since with BBT’s reputation with customers as word's gotten around in both Dayton and Columbus, Ohio, metro areas. There, Brewer’s come to be known as a problem solver, a man who can make something happen.
“Some people say, ‘Oh, gosh, that guy’s calling again,’” he said about fielding customer contacts, and the day-to-day annoyances that might be a part of any working life. Yet when it comes to customers, “those are the people who pay the bills.”
Service is a must.
Kurtz Bros.’ Lenny Neal deals daily with BBT, who hauls topsoil, mulch and more for the supplier of erosion control products and aggregates. “When you call him, he never hesitates to try to help,” said Neal of Brewer. “Brian is a go-to guy when we need something,” always with “a positive attitude.”
A BBT unit is shown here hooked to a BBT-sponsored race team trailer. Brewer remains active in racing communities in his area and around the wider region today, among other side efforts. BBT tries to "help when we can in sponsoring little-league" ball teams as well as "up-and-coming race teams to keep them involved in the sport."
A racing interest held in common led Brewer to connect with a representative of the Kurtz Bros. company initially, which also led to a referral to and contract with a fertilizer supplier in the Columbus area, Brewer said. “We have three to six trucks with the fertilizer company” most days, today, and Brewer bought two straight dumps this year for ag work with Kurtz.
More investments could be on the way with that business’s expansion. More and more, Brewer noted, “We need some trucks -- can you help us out?” is a question BBT can answer in the affirmative. “I’ll make the investment now if I have security the work is there.”
With fairly quick growth even through the difficult recent period for more over-the-road operations, there’s been plenty in the way of learning curves. Brewer’s wife is intimately involved in the back office these days, and his insurance company wanted to see some particular criteria met.
“My wife helped me there,” he added, noting he’s managed all aspects of the business to date but with increased workload comes the necessity to delegate. “She’s part-time-managing the office,” in essence.
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Both Brewer’s son and stepson remained involved in the business as operators and, in his son’s case, as “computer guru” of sorts, Brewer said. “They help the mechanics in the evenings, too,” when need be, among other miscellaneous off-road tasks. “We’re a family-run business,” and that extends to operators employed in a father-son team who drive for BBT. "The son was my son's best friend in elementary school” all the way up through high school.
“So he’s kind of like a family member, him and his dad, too,” Brewer added.
Company employees often enough attend family functions together, and “come Christmas time, we do a little Christmas party. I'll take them out somewhere, to dinner, Top Golf, or something like that to just show my appreciation for what they do.”
Operator appreciation extends to the pocketbook, where it counts
Brewer’s top driver did about $80K last year in income, he said, earning performance-based compensation based on a percentage of revenue to the truck, which varies according to the particular home-every-night job the operator happens to be working any particular week. The percentage itself varies with experience, Brewer said, from a base 25% up to as high as 32%.
On top of that, there’s a $100 weekly bonus for hitting a minimum revenue per week, and being available. “It’s not super-high,” Brewer said of the revenue target, “it’s attainable … if they show up Monday through Friday” for those banker’s hours, though weather can throw a wrench into some of the work.
Benefits like health insurance and retirement savings aren’t part of the formal compensation package with the exception of BBT delivering $400-$500 monthly to drivers to obtain health insurance on their own.
“I want to give my guys more,” he said, but “I have to look at the cost of operations in order for us to keep going.” The high cost of insurance, fuel, and so much else -- “tires aren't exactly cheap,” he added -- push his compensation focus more toward maximizing rates to get the most out of customers' work to keep operators well in the black as they build their own families’ nest eggs.
In efforts to minimize costs where he can, BBT's tried bulk fuel, with a 2,000-gallon tank at their facility, yet found use of the Mudflap app's service at independent stops has proven more cost-effective, saving anywhere from 20 to 60 cents and more off the price of a gallon.
Brewer's truck purchasing strategy generally is to buy used with lower miles in efforts to maximize reliability. "I buy a lot of them from Ryder Corporation," he said. "I look around. I've flown to Texas and picked trucks up. I've been to Pennsylvania and picked trucks up and bought them." Ryder he lauds for a sense of certainty on maintenance. "I get maintenance records with them. Ryder keeps up really well with their trucks, I believe," and the company hasn't been shy about sharing maintenance histories.
“We're still a mom-and-pop trucking company in my eyes,” he said. “Some people may look at us like we're” getting to be a “little bit of a larger fleet, but I try to operate it like we're still a mom-and-pop company.”
In just its sixth year of operation, despite the quick growth, Brian Brewer Trucking remains “my baby,” he said. “Did I think I'd have this growth by now? Not by any means. I thought maybe I'd have, you know, two or three trucks to where it would just be me and my boys. And we'd be able to run a business right out of my backyard at my home and not have to worry about it.”
The National Association of Small Trucking Companies is sponsoring this year's Small Fleet Championship program. Finalists receive a year's worth of membership in the association, with access to a myriad of benefits from NASTC's well-known fuel program to drug and alcohol testing services and much more. All will be recognized at the association's annual conference, where the winner will be announced in November in Nashville, Tennessee. Find more about the association via their website.
Kurtz Bros.’ Lenny Neal sees a shrewd operator in Brewer when it comes to balancing needs of the business with the needs of its employees and the customer. “He’s very cognizant of the rate” and what he needs to effectively balance business imperatives, Neal noted. “Too many people will do any job regardless of what the pay is.” Brian Brewer, however, well “knows he has to make $130 an hour on a truck in a vocational” application. “If the truck isn’t making that much,” the business just isn’t sustainable.
Kurtz noted, without a doubt, his company is “going to keep using” BBT for its work as long as BBT’s got the available trucks and drivers.
Though a generally uncertain economic outlook could always throw another wrench into things, the future looks bright for continued growth, Brewer said.
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