Owner-operator Jason Shelly trucks today in a modified 2007 Western Star 4900 that was a car-haul rig in its prior life -- a "body-dropped EX with a short hood," he said, and "obviously I took the rack off of it when I bought it." Shelly today pulls one of a few reefers he owns in the fresh meat-hauling niche he's carved, moving multidrop loads to Amish markets east, north and south of his Telford, Pennsylvania, home base.
He bought the Western Star initially to flip it. "I like playing with trucks," he said, offering up a few examples in the collage below of trucks he's owned and worked on through the years.
The four-wheeler up top is a GMC Sonoma Shelly used for years as a shop truck -- and a handily ready manual transmission for his kids to learn on when they hit driving age.
Yet it was around the time of the COVID pandemic that "used-truck prices kinda went nuts." Prospects for finding a replacement for the Western Star at a reasonable cost fell down the tubes. Several years later, it remains his workaday unit, cutting a fine picture running for direct customers to markets all along the Eastern seaboard.
Owner-operator Shelly's three trailers provide versatility for sometimes tight deliveries. Most often today he's hooked to a 53-foot 2017 Great Dane, 102-inch wide, an upgrade from a 2012 96-inch Utility. "I still run an '04 48-foot/96-inch-wide reefer occasionallly," too, he said. "My trailers are aged, but they’re in great shape." As is evidenced in the picture.
What more to know about owner-operator Jason Shelly?
- His accounting secret weapon is his longtime truck owner-operator father. Like his father's business, Shelly's set up to file as an S Corp, saving on self-employment taxes while building the nest egg for the future with his family's investments.
- He turned down a college-football scholarship as a young man to follow his true passion as a career: OTR trucking.
- Shelly's side enthusiast business in custom vehicle work is reflected in the trucking business's name, Triple B Hot Rodz n Haulin', LLC.
- Jason Shelly is Overdrive's Trucker of the Month for August, putting him in the running for the 2025 Trucker of the Year honor.
Overdrive's 2025 Trucker of the Year competition, sponsored by Commercial Vehicle Group and Bostrom Seating, recognizes business acumen and unique or time-honored recipes for success among owner-operators. Nominations are open through October for exceptional owner-operators, whether leased or independent.
His advice for those new to trucking as an owner-operator is nothing if not multifaceted, yet one piece of it is evident in the owner-operator's disciplined pursuit of happiness. "If you find something you love to do, you’ll never work a day in your life," he said, something he tells his five children, not to mention others he's mentored and fostered with his wife, Renita. And in trucking with his own authority for much of a career as an owner that stretches back to the late 1990s, Shelly's living it.
Jason and Renita Shelly in a grainy old shot early on in his time as an owner
Security in specialization
Not every day is an easy day. Shelly's loads originate most often at a single pickup point, but all are multi-stop on the offload, sometimes requiring maneuvering through very tight spots. There's security in the difficulty, he knows, and not just those tight spots. An awful lot of physical labor goes into the drop-by-drop unload of the trailer.
"What I found throughout my career is if I'm willing to do something the other guy's not willing to do," he said, "I might be more consistent in what I have work-wise. And the physical side of my job I know isn't for everybody."
In less sanguine moments he tells himself, "Nobody else is dumb enough to do what I do. But there's security that goes along with that."
The principal delivery operation he serves today grew out of a smaller one he happened to be among the very first large-truck businesses to service. "A friend from church had been working for a pork producer," as Shelly told the story, delivering to "Amish markets in metro areas" all around the region, including D.C. and elsewhere. Coming out of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Amish people "commuted to these markets Thursday-Saturday," he added, and they "wanted fresh, high-quality pork, beef, water fowl. We even did rabbits for a while."
His friend had left a sales job and gone out on his own delivering the product to markets with straight trucks. "I went with him one night," Shelly said. "I’m a young guy, I’m aggressive -- had a baby on the way" and thought, "You know what? This, this is something I can do." And he did, taking on a route with his truck and trailer that grew and grew in demand to the point that his regular load couldn't fit in just his reefer trailer anymore.
[Related: Owner-operator holy grail: Decades of direct freight in a custom '81 359]
"He and I worked as partners" through the years, Shelly said. "He was on the sales side, customer relations. I was on the transportation side." Washington, D.C., metro was huge for them even through the 2008 downturn, and other, lesser economic hits. "We knew that the metro D.C. area was the only area that was growing because of government," he said.
Over time, his business partner was getting up in age, grooming his son to take over his side of the business. Yet after the son spent six months with Shelly on the truck to learn the transport side of the operation, "he saw how hard his dad and I worked," Shelly said, and "got into real estate."
This all happened about seven years ago. Shelly was either going to take over the whole business himself, or with his partner find a buyer. "It was really on his heart to find someone that would treat these customers the way that we treated them all these years," said Shelly.
They found that company in a larger food distributor. "Not mega-large like a Sysco or McLane or U.S. Foods," he said. Shelly was prepared to make a change. He actually sold the truck and trailer he mainly used at the time. Yet within "two weeks of the sale," Shelly said, the company came calling: "Hey, we're having trouble getting our guys to make these deliveries. Is there any way you could come back and help?"
Remember: Security in specialization. Shelly had a 1980 Kenworth W900A in reserve, an old restoration project, and put it into service, "tagged it, and bought that 48-foot, 96-inch-wide" aforementioned trailer for $2,500.
The 1982 Kenworth W900A project of Shelly's is shown here back when it was under his tutelage.
It wouldn't do, but he made it work for a short period. "I thought I'd help him out for a few months," Shelly said. "Now, six years going, almost seven years later, I'm still doing the route. They've grown the business again, offering product that we had never offered. And it's been a great partnership."
Fit for the work, fit for the family
Before owner-operator Shelly ever even got his CDL, he was a high-school athlete poised to attend college on a football scholarship. He'd grown up "around trucks and farming," as his grandfather was a dairy farmer, and to supplement his income he would deliver fuel. "He could milk cows morning and evening, and fit in gas deliveries during the day and overnight," Shelly said. His father then went the trucking direction whole hog, spending much of his own career as an owner-operator.
"Through grade school and high school I was focused on what I wanted to do," Shelly said, not necessarily trucking. The scholarship came from a Division 2 school in his native Pennsylvania. But when he turned 18 during his senior year, he got his CDL and started trucking at night, graduating and skipping senior week to truck full-time. "By mid-July I hadn’t lifted weights, hadn’t done a single wind sprint."
Enter your business in Overdrive's Trucker of the Year competition for a chance to win a custom scale replica of your tractor as trophy but also a new seat and/or other perks from program sponsor Bostrom Seating.
A couple years into it, Shelly was already thinking about buying a truck. Horseless Carriage's owner insisted on a T600 or T2000 at the time to fit his fleet. Yet Shelly found a deal on a 1997 W900. "I thought I would be able to put it on," he said.
But it wasn't to be. He bought a covered wagon with flatbed freight "still pretty good in our area" at that time, he said. "Bethlehem Steel was still cranking pretty good. So I did the covered wagon thing for a few years" before joining his owner-operator father in the operation he hauled for, running all over with a "pretty steady gig to Florida."
By this time, though, he'd met and married a woman who would be his "biggest cheerleader" in business and life through the next decades. Renita Shelly had also been an athlete in high school, college and later professionally in her case, in field hockey. He'd known her since grade school, and the pair started dating when she was in college and he trucked.
Today, fitness remains important for both parents, their three children either in or fast approaching adulthood at this point. The couple's basement is set up with equipment to do regular workouts. "We used to go to the local Y," Shelly said, yet pandemic-period restrictions on the facility spurred them to investment in minimal equipment installed in their basement. Shelly's routine is a "light weight workout," paired with calisthenics like "deep knee bends, squats, push-ups," use of a stepper.
The necessity of so much physical labor with his multistop deliveries keeps him motivated to maintain that "functional fitness" Overdrive's 2024 Trucker of the Year memorably emphasized, too.
[Related: 7-step in-cab workout plan for long-term trucking]
The basement has also provided refuge through the years for children the pair have "unofficially fostered" when in need, particularly when their own children were young, Shelly said. And for many years Shelly himself homeschooled the kids, in part from the cab of the truck.
"Our oldest son prospered in that, but part of the deal was he was going to have to go in a truck at least Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday," with Shelly by then working to deliver to Amish markets. Child number two and number three came along. "There were several years that there were three kids in the truck."
For most of those years Shelly trucked in this 2000 Kenworth W9 he owned for 17-18 years in total. He'd "put a Double Eagle sleeper on it with bunk beds and a potty and a fridge and a desk," he said. "So it was a lot easier to have three children and a dog most weeks." And though it's hard to make out in the picture, trailer-side advertising for Goods Insurance, long Shelly's coverage partner, adorns the box, one of several side revenue streams the owner-operator found through his decades trucking.
It made for some "challenging, long days," he said, but he cherishes the memories overall. Even as young adults today, he catches one or another of his children "reflecting and talking of those times, the things that we ended up seeing and working through, and the fun that we had and the detours we made."
The Shellys oldest son, Bryce, is pictured at center with his now wife, Abby, at their wedding this past September. The pair are flanked at right by Renita and Jason and their daughter, Brooklyn. At left is their son, Brandt, and his fiancee, Avy.
Just this past weekend, father and son finished reburbishing the 2017 Great Dane reefer trailer here pictured. They purchased it locally after it had been sitting in a truck stop for a few years and showed.
The refurbed Great Dane hooked to Shelly's Western Star
His father's intimately involved on the accounting side of the business, too. "Dad has an accountant's mind," Shelly said. "We're still in that LLC, S Corp," structured in a rough 90/10 partnership. "He likes doing the books, he likes doing the billing. He likes to go to the mailbox and see revenue coming in," today going on 80 years old.
The father-son partnership has been key for Shelly in that regard. Until recently, his mother was still involved, too. She "did IFTA fuel taxes for 40 years," he said. "And until Pennsylvania said, 'Hey, we want to do this all electronic,' she wanted to do it. And I said, 'Well, that's great, mom, go for it.'"
From 10,000 feet, when it comes to managing the affairs of the business all these years, "we're all in on that together," Shelly said, with simplification, mutual aid in mind.
A little help from family, from friends.
Grizzly Brokerage owner and truck owner-operator Kris Bair today owns that 2000 Kenworth W9 Shelly homeschooled his children in. So "it's still in the family," so to speak, said Shelly.
Bair considers Shelly a prime mentor to him going back many years now. "He sold me my first truck," Bair said, with a privately-worked-out financing arrangement. Years later "I bought his black Kenworth big-bunk. That’s the same truck I have to this day -- I bought that from him almost seven years ago next month."
It's the prime mover in Bair's business, though he's been operating a brokerage for a couple years that he opened with hopes to better serve direct customers he'd made inroads with. "I didn't want to lose them, and they were growing," he said.
Jason Shelly's been a part of that, the pair covering for each other time to time. For Bair, a decade and more Shelly's junior, the owner-operator's been more than just a business asset, as it were. "Jason has always helped me out," Bair said. "He's a guy I can talk to and bounce ideas off of. ... I'd call him a mentor and a friend, not just in trucking but life in general."
Bair recalls a time very early in his career when he had first begun to draw direct contracts, in part initially with referrals from owner-operator Shelly. After, "when I got into some of these other customers, he was one of the first guys I called for help," Bair said. "He’s always been willing to help, really willing, and always pushed me to take a step in faith."
When he truly began to go out on his own "four-five years ago," Bair said, "it was really scary. I’d just gotten married, and now someone’s counting on me to provide."
Jason Shelly had been there himself, of course.
"Take that jump," he told Bair. "You don't want to look back 10 years later and wonder what might have been."
His reassurance, and a willing ear, helped build the young Bair's confidence. Diving into his business headfirst "really opened up so many more doors," Bair said.
As for Jason Shelly, he remains in the Western Star -- COVID's impact on the used truck market isn't over yet, in his view. "We haven't hit rock bottom," he said, but "now things are correcting themselves." He's looking ahead to the finish line. Investments in properties in the Southeast that Renita runs as short-term rentals, among other longer-term investments, are evidence of the family's eye on the future.
"We're diversifying that way," he said. Yet "at the same time, my wife and I at our age, we're having those conversations. I don't look to retire, exactly. I may slow down. But biblically, there's no verse that I've ever found in the Bible that says you retire at this age" or that age.
Rather, "it says to finish strong," Shelly said. "So that's kind of where I'm setting my sights for."
Enter your own or another deserving owner's business (up to 3 trucks) in Overdrive's 2025 Trucker of the Year competition via this link. Hear interviews with 2025 Truckers of the Month via the playlist below.
