I mean, is this your, well, how involved were you in the launching of this marketplace? Or where did you take over in the

process? I was involved in a different regard.

So when I, so I had, in 2019, I took over as CEO of a company called Q Carriers out of Minnesota.

So refrigerated food and beverage asset-based business with the brokerage as well.

And so I was working on a hybrid asset solution with a brokerage power only solution.

And that's when I first got introduced to Repower when they were in their early days of starting up.

And so I loved the concept, the idea, and started working with the guys here.

But if I need a particular trailer, what's the fastest I'm going to be able to use your network to get something moved from A to B to get a trailer repositioned?

for politics.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Sign me up.

But there's multiple pressures there, right? The shippers demand, if you want the freight in a lot of instances, the shippers demand a certain amount of trailers, right? And a need for amount of trailers.

But then I have additional customers that I want to grow and my sales team wants to grow over here.

And so we need to add additional.

But then when you start to hear some of these numbers, when you start to see that Repower you know fits in one of those solution buckets where it's like i can help you make money i can help you save money or a combination of both that's a true value that's a partner that's what people need in today's world let's talk about the other side of that transaction though let's talk about the elephant in the trailer yard i'm supposed to hand a fifty thousand dollar piece of equipment to somebody i don't know what protects me when it leaves

Uh, but how many carriers do you talk to actually know what their trailer costs them per day, whether it moves or not?

Yeah.

And, and not many.

There, there's certainly some that understand that, right? Um, and so there's two components is, one, understanding the cost, but then knowing what to do about it, right? And so if, if we understand and have this cost, but our perspective is, "Well, I need a trailer, so I need the cost, and there's nothing I can do about it," whereas someone like Repower enables flexible trailer capacity that lets you be more strategic, more aligned to your freight, as well as, um, uh, opportunistic or gives you additional optionality to be able to ebb and flow with your business more, uh, more smartly and intelligently.

So now we're e- enabling or having the answer to that question is they might understand.

Some certainly don't, but the ones that do might understand it but not have any options to address it or to make an impact.

And so now through Repower, there's multiple ways we see carriers using the platform to, uh, gain access to additional trailer equipment when their, uh, trailers are down, to utilize it to rent a trailer, and/or not have a trailer at all and be a power-only carrier that lets them, uh, be so much more flexible to meet, uh, different customers' demand and ebbing and shifting of markets, um, from that perspective.

What protects me when it leaves?

What gap did Wise Load fill for Truck Stop?

yeah absolutely it's it's we we've really focused on the the heavy haul and specialty carriers how can we continue to evolve the tools and solutions for them and so we launched our heavy haul load board um all freight is not the same and so we have um you know the the typical van over the road reefer freight but we also realize and recognize that a lot of a lot of the customers we have in the heavy all space needed more intelligent tools and information.

And so that heavy haul load board was built on a foundation or supported with the wise load system already from a rating and pricing standpoint.

And so this acquisition then helps us get even closer and more integrated with a company that has much more extensive data and information in this heavy haul specialty space.

Getting a load for a heavy haul carrier and quoting a load is much more complex and different than an over-the-road freight shipment.

This acquisition really helps meet the carriers where they're at and provide them the information, whether it's routing information, permitting, escort services, other things that you need to support these shipments.

There's a lot more that goes into the rating and pricing.

When we're talking about what's next, what do these integrations and updates mean in the future for these carriers? What can they look forward to?

Is there anything

we could talk about right now that's being unveiled? I would say one of the things we just released is the load boost feature, which for brokers on the broker sides allows you to put your load and post your load to the top of the list.

For carriers and drivers then, you're able to see the hot loads that they're trying to get covered and putting the extra investment into getting covered.

So you're able to see those at the top of your list to be able to see where, hey, you might have a chance to have some more negotiation power with this load and be able to see it.

So that's one of them.

Yep.

And then we got like the factoring team here talking to carriers about factoring.

So you know how to pivot and adjust and better serve not only the direct customers, but the indirect

Where does things kind of break first? Is it pricing, service expectations, like you kind of mentioned, communication, or is it truly trust? I mean, where does it kind of just burst?

Yeah.

I think the easy answer is pricing because that's what typically shows up or where it typically shows up.

But if you look at it, the real breakdown happens in the communication or lack thereof, right? And so I think what we consistently see is a failure to, again, set those expectations and then communicate effectively when those change.

If I promise a carrier X loads a week, the market softens and I'm not getting them, but nobody communicates that to them, right? then that's where the breakdown happens.

Bad news sounds better early should be at the root of these partnerships and this communication that says, hey, this is how we're going to operate and we're going to let you know when things change.

I can't control then how you respond to that, however.

But then also it's like, I'm almost running stuff for free if not taking a loss just to meet shipper expectations.

But based on conversations and being on the career experience board, anything you can kind of share with us anecdotally to help support some of these predictions moving into Thanksgiving?

Yeah.

Um, you know, it's like there's, there's these, it's like everything that's happening, there's two sides to the, to the equation or to the coin.

It's like, yeah, we have strong retail sales, but credit, um, card, uh, debt is up.

Right.

And, um, there's some conversations of, of buyers kind of buying less or smaller gifts or lower amounts of gifts and things like that.

Um, or, or being very price conscious on what they're buying.

Tell us a little bit about what we've all been working on this year, and then let's dive into some of the technology trends that you're seeing.

You guys have figured this out.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

I think there's this healthy path to AI.

We've created our own MCP server and our own centralized database of all of our data that then we can connect and control into what AI sources we work with and utilize.

That opens this door for us being able to control and manage and maintain what datasets we connect and allow as we understand how customers will digest AI tools.

Voice AI is in one of this, the Gentic AI, right? And so we're working on that like everybody else, but again, being cautious with the roadmap.

How do you see this meshing and evolving as we get into 2026 and beyond?