Terry Horn, co-owner of Plymouth, Wisconsin-based Soldwedel & Horn, started his trucking career in 1995, and at that time "did just about every outlaw trucking thing there was to do" before coming around to the notion that the "best way to keep running the things was to stay between the lines."
Now, his 17-truck outfit ranks among 5 semi-finalists in the 11-30-truck category of Overdrive's Small Fleet Championship.
While Horn changed his ways since his early days trucking, so too did the legislators and regulators at state and federal levels. Today, where Horn doesn't feel welcome, Horn doesn't go, nor will he send his drivers.
Soldwedel & Horn pulls reefer trailers, and almost always for two big companies with poultry and dairy to move. His fleet of 17 trucks and 17 company drivers "hasn't been east of the Ohio-Pennsylvania line in seven years, and hasn't been west of Dallas in five years," he said. Those borders extend to the Rolodex of 20 or so owner-operators that pick up loads off his company's brokerage, a complementary operation run by his business partner and Soldwedel's co-owner, Harlan Martin.
This is one of 10 profiles of carrier semifinalists for Overdrive's
"When I first started, I ran 48 states, did all the stuff going everywhere," Horn said. "As the years went by my personality was such that when California started passing laws where you couldn’t idle" or drive older-model-year trucks he said, "I'm not coming here anymore."
The same quickly followed with New York City and its parking ordinances. Now, as states like Connecticut institute a vehicle miles tax on trucking, he sees himself as an early adopter in making a much-needed stand.
