What, in this market, whom do you think of the OEMs that has the best product lineup? Does Paccar have the right product lineup for this market, or do you think that Daimler or Volvo are a better position, or international?

I think they're all positioned pretty well for this type of market.

But, you know, Petcar has been pretty innovative in a lot of their products, especially having Peterbilt, which a lot of truckers think is probably one of the better driver-type trucks in the market.

Kenworth has been pretty innovative in a lot of their fuel economy.

Yeah.

But Petcar is a very strong company.

You know, they bring a lot to the industry, and they've helped redefine this industry quite a bit over the last probably 30, 40 years.

Dad, when you're hiring drivers, when you have a tight market, how much is new truck important to attract drivers? And do the new drivers get the new trucks, or does it go to the more veteran drivers to retain

I don't think there's a driver shortage, perpetual driver shortage, an endless driver shortage, clearly not one of the last couple weeks.

Well, I think the demographics in this country are going to make it worse.

Yeah.

And I really think that as we re-industrialize this country, that those type of jobs are going to be much harder to find.

So we may actually have some of the worst driver shortage that we've ever had.

Yeah.

I think COVID was a true driver shortage.

What in this market, whom do you think of the OEMs that has the best product lineup? Does Paccar have the right product lineup for this market or do you think that Daimler or Volvo are a better position or international?

And if you don't have a good defense lawyer, well, then you better get a new one.

Yeah.

And running a large carrier, uh, we would actually have, uh, claims during the year where no one can prove a truck was involved, but we're in a lawsuit.

And w- and on an average year, we would settle almost $20 million worth of claims that we, you know, in most cases we knew that we weren't involved in any form, but it's cheaper to pay the claim than it was to go to court, which I don't think is fair.

And of course, the insurance companies don't think it's fair either.

Sometimes you have to sue your own insurance company to get them to, to actually go fight some of these suits.

But between intermodal and brokerage, it totally obliterated that market.

Well, actually, before, before, uh, the big rail mergers in the late '90s, you know, we, we did a lot of, uh, Southern California to points east, you know.

... or is it a technology limitation? Where, where are we at?

It's gonna be a combination of things.

You know, the legal framework is gonna be very important You know, getting the federal government basically to allow trucks from s- you know, to cross state lines, uh, is gonna be extremely important.

In fact, there's a precedent, uh, on how the federal government has dealt with those local entities, and that's when they did the 53-foot, uh, length laws.

You know, the s- the local entities could say, "This road or these, this area is not allowed for trucks." You know, and but then the federal highways, the state highways, you know, they, they basically kept those open.

You know, so I think there's already a framework that they can, they can pursue, uh, to get there.

But I really think autonomous trucks are coming, uh, coming on very strong.

I mean, do you, do you think that's where it's gonna be?

W- I- if you were in the market right now, and I was to describe this as the most difficult recruiting market ever, would you be adding trucks?

Of course.

You know, when you look at the super cycle that's being developed, uh, looks like it's gonna be much longer term with, uh, the Trump, Trump, uh, tax credits for companies to re-industrialize this country.

Yes, I think, uh, I'd be adding trucks, and I'd try to add drivers.

You know, one thing that happens in a big fleet, because the cycle time to, to order maybe 2,000 or 3,000 trucks a year, sometimes you have to put those orders in almost a year in advance in order to get those, uh, slots to get trucks built.

You know, so sometimes you put orders in, especially when it looks like the order bank is, is being filled, then you put orders in to, to protect those order slots.

At the same time, you know, maybe you don't have the drivers.

... or is it a technology limitation? Where, where are we at?

Do we, do you think that getting rid of small fleet operators means that you're gonna have more trailers in the market, the used market? Or is it, is the typical trailer that's being bought such that it's not being bought by these operators? Um, what, what, what do you, what is your read on that?

Typically, your smaller, uh, operators have used trailers.

The problem is the trailer can stay in the market for 15 to 20 years.

You know, and especially when you get into, like, the Wabash DuraPlatees, you know, those, those trailers, there's actually some that I bought 20 years ago, they're still running, and they still look good.

You know, so that, that's part of the problem, too, is they stay there.

But small carriers typically buy used equipment.

That used equipment sometimes goes away relatively fast, especially on the tractor side, but not necessarily on the trailer side.

Can Max elaborate more on why utilization is such an important metric? How does it versus rate impact a truck- trucking company's overall profitability and OR?

And it was just largely because the company was broken and trying to fix that company with the same management team.

I had to change the culture.

I had to change the mentality.

I had to change the way they thought about things.

Yeah, and at U.S. Express, we're always very aggressive in how we looked at things.

We also gave our employees, like back then, the federal tax rate on companies was almost 70%, so we basically said we'd give the employees 20% of the profits because the government was paying a big chunk of it.

And so we had very highly motivated people, and when we went into Southwest, those people weren't nearly as motivated, and we really had to come up with what I call call a game changer, and the game changer was we had to change management.

Tell us a little bit about how you learned to manage cash flow by working for your father.

And so he was very against putting his name on the side of a truck because he didn't want anyone to know it was him.

Well, if you go back to the old co-op days, you didn't want to be very visible and you had to keep your company small.

So you weren't visible, but your door signs would be very small where people really couldn't read the name from a distance.

There's regulations about how small it could get, but we basically made it as small as you possibly could to be somewhat invisible.

As we get into the Southwest Motor Freight days, after deregulation, I basically was doing a mock-up of a trailer with the big logo down the side.

And my dad had always been one of these people that you've got to be invisible.

And he had been in California, and he came back a day early.

You've borrowed all this money, and you now have the capital to go buy Southwest Motor Freight, right? Because Clyde is taking back over, and he gets

But what is the matchup like for the Wolves taking on OKC? Is this a good matchup for us, or is it, uh-

Hmm.

This is- this is the least ideal matchup, I would say, in all of the Western Conference playoff.

When the Western Conference playoffs started, you're like, "Let's hope that LA or em- Memphis or Denver or someone could take care of OK- KC for us, so we wouldn't have to deal with it." 'Cause this is the team that's...

I mean, they were the standard of excellence th- all throughout the regular season.

That Western Conference was a dog fight, two through ten.

OKC was chilling up top.

That's the kind of power they have.