There’s something to be said for following your dream and achieving it, and that’s just what independent owner-operator John Treadway has done over the course of a 35-year trucking career.
Treadway's been independent for six years now, launching his Tway Rose Transport LLC business in 2019 after just shy of 30 years OTR as a leased owner-operator. There's a lot that distinguishes Treadway's trucking career
- Treadway's reefer-haul work has been dedicated to a direct customer outbound from his Indiana home base for the time since getting his own authority.
- His 1998 Peterbilt 379 is a show-worthy unit, backed up against any significant downtime by a spare 2006 379 he also runs in winter months to keep the 1998 off treated roads.
- It's been a long road for Treadway in trucking since he got his start as an owner-operator from the jump with a 1985 Kenworth Liberty Edition cabover.
- Prep for the future: The owner-operator's biggest piece of advice for the younger generation of owners coming up in the business, something he wishes he'd done a better job of himself when it comes to retirement savings.
John Treadway's trucking career began, of a fashion, before he really even knew anything about the business. “I think it goes back to being a kid," seeing "all the guys around the neighborhood driving the cool trucks,” he said. He later lived in a town with a grain elevator, where he saw the truckers “come in with some old A-models and, of course, I didn’t know what that was at the time," just that the "cool-looking trucks” appealed to him.
His brother became a truck driver, and Treadway got an up-close-and-personal look at the equipment when the brother was home on weekends with the unit he drove. Treadway would “sneak out there and jump in it and pull it forward in the driveway and back it up and think that I was being really cool,” he said.
John Treadway
This became the young Treadway's dream -- being the driver, the owner of the truck that everybody in the community recognized. “We called them the big boys,” he said, the trucks that “had a lot of chrome or the truck was clean, and you never knew their names, but you knew them by that truck. It was just always a vision I had of someday doing something similar to that.”
He has owned a number of trucks through the years, but it’s his current rig -- a 1998 Peterbilt 379, nicknamed “Teal Appeal” -- with which he started to achieve that dream, that vision. As reported when we caught up with Treadway at the 2025 Mid-America Trucking Show, he bought the truck in 2016. It wasn’t in great shape at the time. Five years later in 2021, he'd saved enough to begin a build process to make the old dream a reality. (Read more about his custom build here, the paint scheme for which was inspired by his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, also featured here.)
As any owner-operator knows, chrome, immaculate interior, paint job -- these things are nice to have, but that's not usually what's paying the bills. Nathan Gapinski, dispatcher for Treadway’s primary customer Heartland Growers, said the now-independent owner-operator has been hauling for him since he moved into his role in 2014. At that time, Treadway was leased to another company.
“We don’t really run 52 weeks a year, but we’re really close,” Gapinski said. “I’d probably say, you know, 45 weeks a year that we’re running, and he’s my best driver. And it’s not close.”
Even though Treadway isn’t an employee of Heartland, Gapinski said he’s been around for so long and is there so often, “a lot of guys say that he works for us. He wears all of our gear and stuff like that. He’s been great.”
Treadway’s dedication -- building that truck of youthful dreams, his clear commitment to his customer service -- earn the owner-operator the honor of being Overdrive’s Trucker of the Month for September, putting him in the running for the 2025 Trucker of the Year award.
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.
All in on trucking, on business
John Treadway didn’t have the usual company-driver trial-by-fire to start his trucking career. In 1990, when he was 20, he bought a 1985 Kenworth Liberty Edition cabover and went to work hauling grain with his brother, eventually moving on to pull flatbeds and a variety of other trailers. For the last 20 years, he’s been running reefer freight -- much of it flowers.
He upgraded trucks along the way, buying a ’92 Peterbilt 379 in 1995 and, two years later, trading it for a brand-new 1997 379. He held onto that truck for almost 20 years before he found his current 1998 379.
“The old trucks are my thing,” he said. “All my buddies, we all have older trucks, and that’s just our era that we want to stick in.”
Treadway’s decision to jump from being leased to going out on his own as an independent came when he got a chance to haul for Heartland independently, he said. “I’ve been very fortunate doing what I do," with "help from friends and family" -- he counts his parts shop, Rowe Truck Equipment in his Kokomo, Indiana, hometown among those friends and family. “You always get chrome and you keep your truck shiny, but you got to keep them going down the road mechanically, and the guys up at Rowe Truck Equipment … really take care of me.”
Maintenance on Treadway’s ’98 379 is handled by a combination of Rowe, a couple other nearby shops and a friend of Treadway’s who “lets me come over to his shop, and we do a lot there,” he said. “Some of the smaller things for the most part. Just getting help from friends is a really big thing nowadays.”
Since MATS earlier this year, Treadway had his 2017 Great Dane reefer painted to match the Pete and is looking to compete in combo classes at truck shows next show season. He calls the trailer "Chill Appeal" to go along with his tractor's "Teal Appeal" moniker.
Oil is changed every 10,000 miles, and Treadway lubes the truck every couple of weeks. He’s routinely inspecting everything to make sure nothing needs immediate attention. Since he doesn’t have his own shop, he doesn’t store much in the way of extra parts, but he does keep extra oil and filters on hand for smaller things he can do himself. “The other bigger stuff I just order as I need it,” he said.
When setting out to rebuild the unit in 2021, his intention wasn’t to build a show truck, yet that’s what it has become. Even if it doesn’t win big at truck shows (though it did pick up a second-place trophy in its class at the Walcott Truckers Jamboree this summer), “the big trophy is driving it every day,” he said. “I want to keep it as well-maintained as I can,” adding further custom touches along the way.
Owner-operator Treadway's got a backstop for downtime, too -- a 2006 Peterbilt 379 he can use to make sure he can service his customer if and when his primary truck is in the shop. He runs the ’06 during the worst of the winter months, too, to keep the show-worthy ’98 off treated roads.
[Related: Betting on equipment diversity as failsafe: Trucker of the Month Scott Smith]
Dedication to customers delivers steady business
With freight markets generally in the doldrums for the last three and more years, Treadway's business has rolled steadily forward. He hasn’t “seen a lot of the effects of it as much as the next guy," he said. "My haul is direct, I have a rate that I’m at with them and the economy goes up and down, but we pretty much stay the same.”
He’s fortunate to be in the situation he’s in, as he watches the rest of the industry and sees rates tied to fuel, yet other costs remain high. “Fuel’s only the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “Tires are outrageous. All the parts are just outrageous nowadays. They’re two or three times the prices that they used to be. Harder to find. So it’s really difficult to keep a positive attitude and keep going.”
That’s also the biggest thing he advises up-and-coming and aspiring owner-operators about -- “just be prepared. You got to have your mindset and make sure that’s really what you want to do. A lot of the pricing is affecting guys.”
It can be difficult for a one-truck owner-operator to get in with a direct customer, and Treadway understands how rare his situation can be. He credits it to “a lot of luck” and “a lot of sweat and tears and dedication.”
[Related: Owner-op holy grail: Decades of direct freight in a custom '81 359]
While he’s not under contract with Heartland Growers, he still aims to provide the best service possible, he noted. That’s what led to him purchasing the 2006 Peterbilt 379 a few years ago, he said. “When one truck’s down, I have the alternative to get in the other one and just keep right on moving with them and try not to miss loads, be on-time, put out the extra effort.”
He said that mindset goes back to his upbringing, where he was told that “no matter what you’re going to be in life, be the best," as he put it. "I try to put out the extra effort and try to lead by example to friends or an upcoming younger truck driver that sees it and sees what it takes.”
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.
He added that it’s “been a really good relationship” with both Waitt and Treadway, who each understand their lane when it comes to the business. “They don’t really step on each other’s toes,” he said. With Treadway, “he’s willing to do everything, even the small loads.”
Beyond that, Treadway takes something of a do as I say, not as I do approach to advice about retirement planning with younger operators. He hasn’t personally done much in that area, but when asked, he calls prep for the future with savings "the smartest thing you could do. ... Prepare for the future.
"And I’m sure somebody probably told me that along the line, too, when I was younger, but when you’re younger, you know everything and you’re never going to be that old guy. So I’ve got to look at some other avenues to try to come up with later in life income and to try to retire, but it gets harder every day.”
Behind the eight ball on that front, the owner-operator might be able to make up for some of it, “but I’ll never recover as fully as the younger guy” who starts saving early to allow investments to grow, he added.
[Related: Carving a niche in fresh meat, multistop delivery: Trucker of the Month Jason Shelly]
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. Just one Trucker of the Month slot remains to compete for the 2025 award, yet nominations received after the final semi-finalist is determined will be considered for the 2026 honor. Hear interviews with 2025 Truckers of the Month via the playlist below.
