Beating the odds in a 1989 Marmon, from Chicago construction dump to OTR

Owner-operator Steven Massat is today headquartered in Addison, Illinois, and leased to nearby small fleet T Max Transportation with quite a special truck. Regular Overdrive readers may well have seen his when he was recognized as our August 2023 Trucker of the Month, putting him in the the running for Overdrive's 2023 Trucker of the Year award. 

We’ve been counting down the months this year with profiles of and podcasts with each of the individual monthly semi-finalist owners -- or teams of owners, as it were. In this week's edition, Massat tells Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole all about the teamwork he and his wife make of the one-truck business -- she handles much of the back office work while he runs the roads and, on the weekend, uses a purpose-built shop to maintain the late 1980s-built B-model Cat engine in that special rig of his, a beautiful 1989 Marmon.

Overdrive Radio's sponsor is Back-office and other family support proves critical for the owner. When he was just 18 years old he was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis -- his life since that has been one of managing pain and complications day after day. He’s 53 now, though, and for decades worked with a variety of Chicago construction outfits as an owner-operator pulling dump trailers or driving straight dumps. Through much of that time, during winter he'd lease to small fleet T Max Transportation for more OTR hauling when construction slowed way down.

Today, what used to be a winter gig with T Max is now full-time, year-round. 

Outbound from the Chicago area, he serves T Max's direct customers, often running spot market loads back, however slim pickings have been for those returns of late. His success sits on a foundation of conservative maintenance intervals, a laser focus on efficiency, and other smart business basics. Sit in on his history, in his own words, via the podcast: