Ron Schreiner and his siblings were born in trucking. Their parents and grandparents started L&B Produce Trucking in Denver, Colorado, in 1957.
Schreiner’s career behind the wheel started in 1990 after Marine Corps service, and through the years he's hauled just about everything:
- Livestock, aggregates in belly, side and end dumps.
- Schreiner's pulled flatbeds and reefers.
- Today, leased to Pejsa Family Transportation out of Sterling, Colorado, Schreiner moves tankers hauling propane and natural gas.
- His 5S Express business builds on the long L&B Produce legacy in Colorado.
Owner-operator Schreiner leased to the family business first, with a 1973 Kenworth W900A his father previously owned. His dad gave Schreiner's brother another of his older trucks, a 1962 Kenworth, upon his high-school graduation.
When Ron finished school himself, he got the ’73 A model. Another driver piloted the truck through Schreiner’s tour of duty, then he was back behind the wheel through the 1990s leased to L&B.
Schreiner's dad passed away in 2001. L&B was a "sole proprietorship, so that business went away when he passed," Schreiner said. He'd spend most of the next 17 years away from truck ownership entirely, working for others as a company driver.
In 2018, though, he launched a new venture -- 5S Express LLC -- with his wife, Kay, and their three children McKaylin, Bobbie and Justin. That's right: "5S" for those five Schreiners.
“It’s been working out pretty darn good,” Schreiner said of efforts to extend the family legacy into the present.
Ron and Kay Schreiner
His sister, Laura Mansfield, is also part of the operation and handles the books -- “all the paperwork, all the tax returns, all the permits and all that other stuff,” she said.
Mansfield nominated her brother for Overdrive’s 2026 Trucker of the Year award, noting how proud she is of “how far he’s come since he really started.”
The family business of old had up to 14 trucks running at one time, yet since Schreiner's truck purchase in 2018 he's kept the main thing main, leased to Pejsa. “He’s just done a phenomenal job, and pretty much everybody that he works with kind of says the same thing," according to Mansfield. "He just takes the lead and he just goes with it.”
Denee Pejsa-Woodward of Pejsa Family Transportation concurs, calling Schreiner their go-to, a man "that we always count on to get the job done,” she said. “Ronnie’s great. He always goes above and beyond what’s asked of him. He always puts the customer first and the company first. He represents us with integrity and respect.”
A specialized load, or just something new that needs to be done: “We always send him because we know that he will represent us very well,” Pejsa-Woodward added.
Ron Schreiner is Overdrive's Trucker of the Month for May, putting him in the running for the 2026 Trucker of the Year honor.
Owner-operator Schreiner joins fellow Truckers of the Month in competition for Overdrive's 2026 Trucker of the Year award. Nominations are open for exceptional owners, whether leased or independent (up to three trucks). Enter your own or another owner-operator business you admire via this link.
[Related: The costs, broader considerations to keep in mind when leasing to a carrier]
Biz reboot, finding a home
Schreiner's move back to ownership came first in a 2009 Peterbilt 386 -- “a good little truck,” he said. Specs didn't quite fit the work he does with propane and natural gas, though, so in 2022, he upgraded to a 2007 Peterbilt 379.
“When we’re empty, we’re running around at 44,000 pounds,” he said. “When we’re loaded, we’ve got the overweight permits up here in Colorado, so we’re running 92,000-93,000.”
The 386 “just wasn’t equipped for that,” he added. A friend owned the ’07 379, equipped with 40,000-pound rear suspension. “We worked out a deal, and I sold my 386 and bought that 379 from him.”
The 379 “works out a heck of a lot better at what we’re doing and handles the weight a little better,” Schreiner added. The rig is powered by an Acert Cat C15 with a 13-speed transmission and 3.36 rears.
Before 5S Express, he hauled crude oil and would see Pejsa trucks on job sites time to time.
His cold call to Pejsa early on with 5S found mutual interest.
The team at Pejsa “takes care of their people very well,” he said.
A typical day starts just after midnight, when he leaves to “get a load of condensate out of the field, and then I haul natural gas out of a couple little gas plants.” Those are shorter hauls, he said, “but you got four of them in the day, and I usually end my day about 2:30, 3 o’clock, 3:30 in the afternoon.”
Schreiner’s work takes him off-road on lease roads -- more wear and tear on the equipment, no doubt. Yet there's benefits, too, “running out in the dirt. You can slow down and go as slow as you want to,” he said, unlike owners running a rough interstate with the pressure to maintain highway speed.
“It’s almost better running out in dirt" in his view. "The roads from coast to coast have gone completely to crap. They’re not well taken care of, and it’s almost easier for me to run the dirt because I can control how fast I want to go on it.”
[Related: Fix the potholes! Truckers Highway Report Card 'Best Roads' states point the path forward]
Better thus to keep the 379 tip-top. When he was growing up, his dad always told him grease and oil are cheap: “You either schedule maintenance, or it schedules it for you,” he said.
He works on the truck every weekend, changing oil on a 10K-mile interval, making sure everything is greased properly, changing filters when needed.
Major maintenance is handled by Tower Annex in Sterling, Colorado, where Schreiner has taken his equipment “for a long time," he said. "When she needs major stuff, that’s who works on her, but most of the time, it’s my family and I working on her.”
Up until just a few weeks ago, Schreiner’s ’07 Pete hadn’t needed much major maintenance other than an engine rebuild around the time of purchase.
On April 29, he and a cow got into a game of chicken around 12:45 a.m. that resulted in the rig needing a front-end rebuild.
“It could have been a heck of a lot worse,” he said.
Dashcam footage showed him running about 50 mph in a 55 mph zone when the cow “popped up out of the ditch. For a second there, I thought she was going to stay running to the left side of the road, and I was going to go around her on the right side, and then she stopped. So, I started going left, and she kept moving, and I was about 30 miles an hour when I hit her.”
He was temporarily in a spare Pejsa truck until the 379 was ready to get back out on the road.
Managing through tough times, with help from partners, family
Despite a difficult freight environment over several years, Schreiner credits Pejsa for being proactive and working with customers to keep rates at profitable levels.
The company has “been able to go in and negotiate the rates to get a little bit better rate and get a little bit higher rate,” he said. “The people we haul for, the outfits we haul for understand that. They help us out.”
Pejsa's not shy about explaining cost inflation, he said, “and we’re very fortunate … that they are very vigilant on keeping our rates up to where we can actually make a living and not just get by.”
Even with the understanding from customers, 2025 was a tougher year financially for Schreiner with a slowdown in the propane and natural gas industries. “But it picked up” this year as prices for the commodities soared with other fuels, he said. Fuel surcharges, too, have risen with rates. “That really offsets the cost a little bit.”
[Related: More ways to take the horror out of high fuel]
Schreiner will almost certainly gross more than he did a year ago to keep the business on track, if conditions hold, he said.
The biggest piece of advice he'd offer new or prospective owner-operators is to be ready to devote “all your time to that truck and the business you’re trying to build, and your family better be on board … because they’re going to sacrifice whatever time that you had before” working as a company driver.
“It’s important to have your family be able to back you and to understand that your time is going to be dedicated to that truck or to getting that business running. Because if you don’t have that, you’re not going to make it.” --Ron Schreiner, pictured with family here.
At 58 years old, the owner-operator looks ahead to another decade in business. In a recent conversation with his wife, Kay, he told her when he turns 68, “whatever is paid for stays, whatever isn’t paid for goes down the road.”
As long as he stays healthy, his goal is to retire at 68. Yet in some ways he's cynical in that respect.
“I don’t think anybody truly gets to retire anymore," he said. "Doesn’t matter what job you’re in or what occupation or what you’ve done. Costs are just too high. I really don’t give it much thought because it’s kind of like the unicorn. It’s a fabled, mythical beast that you’ll never see.”
He's doing what he can to prepare, nonetheless.
Remember that ’73 A-model from his first stint in business?
He’s now handed it down to his son, Justin, and they’re planning to “get her all fixed up again so he can fiddle around with her.”
[Related: The problem-solver: Trucker of the Month Sam Kelly's big biz comeback]
Enter your business or nominate any exceptional owner-op to contend for the 2026 Trucker of the Year award via the form on this page. Nominations made there. Hear all 2026 contenders' stories so far in their own words via the Overdrive Radio playlist below.
