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by Jared Flinn
A trucking podcast that covers all aspects of bulk freight trucking. Hosted by Jared Flinn, owner of multiple trucking-related businesses. Jared brings on a new guest weekly to discuss technology, innovation, safety & compliance, insurance, trucking success stories, and much more related to the bulk freight trucking industry. This podcast hits on all aspects of the industry, our audience includes bulk haulers, shippers, brokers, merchandisers, farmers, and more.
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They fined him $18 million. He built a diesel empire anyway. Jerad Wittwer grew up the son of a St. George milkman and rancher, overhauled his first engine at 13, and turned a passion for horsepower into Performance Diesel Inc. (PDI) — one of the most recognized names in diesel performance. But the road there ran straight through one of the most controversial chapters in trucking: EPA investigations, deleted trucks, and an $18 million federal fine. In this episode, Jerad sits down with Jared Flinn for an unfiltered conversation about the whole journey — the rise, the reckoning, and the redemption. He opens up about the mistakes he made at the top, how his faith and family pulled him back, and how PDI reinvented itself into a manufacturer building 12,000+ part numbers that beat OEM quality. Today the company is on track for $55–60 million in revenue, growing 22% a year — and Jerad still isn't for sale. This is a story about horsepower, risk, faith, and the relentless pursuit of building something better. ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 – Welcome & St. George Roots 2:07 – His Grandpa, His Dad & the Milk Route 6:08 – Work Ethic & Overhauling His First Engine at 13 9:57 – Trade School & Early Mechanic Days 12:02 – Marriage, the Milk Route & a Walmart Detour 17:33 – Taking the Leap: Starting Performance Diesel 21:57 – The Tune-Up Boom Years 28:28 – "The Smoke Don't Mean It's Broke" 30:35 – Getting Into Semis & Manufacturing Parts 35:00 – When Emissions Regulations Hit 37:00 – The EPA Comes Knocking 44:58 – The $18 Million Fine 46:07 – The Comeback & Being the Only Company Released 47:36 – Reinventing PDI: 12,000 Parts & Better Than OEM 54:01 – Going Global & the "Gucci of Diesel" 55:45 – The Partner Buyout & Funding Growth 1:01:37 – Vision, Family & the $200 Million Goal 1:08:16 – The Future of Trucking: Autonomous & Electric 1:11:27 – Faith, Peace & Staying Grounded 1:16:14 – Dream It & Do It
Bill Wallis went to work at 13 to help his family. He served in the 101st Airborne, came home, and bought a single gas station in Cuba, Missouri in 1968. Today Wallis Companies runs 67 stores, a 42 truck bulk fleet moving 120 loads a day, and employs around 1,400 people. In this episode, Matt and Alan take us inside the fuel hauling world most truckers never see: the predictive dispatch tech, the back to back state safety awards, why their turnover is almost zero, and the tribute show truck they built for Bill called "Blue Collar Roots." CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro: Meet Matt and Alan 0:41 From a K9 trainer and a livestock hauler to Wallis 5:18 How Bill Wallis started it all in 1968 8:34 One gas station to 67 stores and 1,400 employees 12:40 The Covid pivot into ag hauling (and finding BulkLoads) 15:10 Inside the fleet: 42 trucks running 24/7 18:26 Where the fuel actually comes from 19:13 The art of maximizing every load 21:13 What keeps them up at night 25:37 Three generations of a family run company 32:30 Hauling hazmat: the safety culture 34:23 Winning the state fleet safety award twice 38:38 "Blue Collar Roots": the tribute show truck Subscribe for more real stories from the people moving America's bulk freight. #trucking #fuelhauling #familybusiness #bulkfreight #BulkLoads
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qF-YbIEGZJM Rob and Kate have been together since high school. Years ago they took over the family farm and trucking operation, doubled the business, and then watched 2025 turn into the hardest year of their lives. In this episode they get honest about what it actually takes to run a trucking company as a husband and wife team. The 16-hour days through the freight recession. The financial calls that kept them up at night. The hardest decision they ever had to make. And how they protected their marriage and their kids while fighting to keep the trucks moving. If you run a fleet, drive for one, or you are trying to survive this market alongside the people you love, this conversation is going to hit home. Chapters 00:00 A Different Company Than the Last Time We Talked 01:51 Building Trucking Jobs Young Families Actually Want 02:50 Why Kate Walked Away From Her Career 05:39 Cutting Costs by Bringing Everything In-House 08:00 How They Doubled the Business in 5 Years 09:14 "2025 Was a Bloodbath" 09:34 When the Freight Recession Followed Them Home 10:52 The Support That Got Them Through the Worst Year 13:23 Trauma Bonding and Mental Health in Trucking 15:40 Yin and Yang: How Two Opposites Run a Company 17:21 "I Haven't Seen Our Bank Account in 5 Years" 17:53 Why Rob Has to Pitch His Own Wife to Buy a Truck 22:15 "I Have a Name": More Than the Owner's Wife 22:46 The Hardest Call They Ever Had to Make 26:43 Retire at 52? Building the Long-Term Vision 29:10 Working Yourself Out of Your Own Business 30:05 The One Job Rob Can't Replace: Sales 34:07 Will Their Kids Take Over the Family Business? 38:01 Legacy Without Setting Your Kids Up to Fail 41:30 Real Advice for Surviving a Freight Recession 43:46 The Covid Mistake That Cost Them Later 45:36 Who's Really in Your Corner When It Gets Hard 50:06 Closing: People Serving People BulkLoads.com - https://www.bulkloads.com/?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=Video&utm_campaign=Grover_Podcast Bulk Insurance Group - https://www.bulkinsurancegroup.com/?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=Video&utm_campaign=Grover_Podcast BulkLoads Factoring - https://www.smartfreightfunding.com/?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=Video&utm_campaign=Grover_Podcast BulkLoads TMS - https://www.bulktms.com/?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=Video&utm_campaign=Grover_Podcast BulkInsights - https://www.bulkfreightinsights.com/?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=Video&utm_campaign=Grover_Podcast
Tom Keller spec'd his first truck at 20 years old to haul watermelons off his family's farm. He'd drive a load to Indianapolis, not like the price, keep driving to Detroit, sell them, and set the cash on the kitchen table — then do it again the next morning. That hustle became Keller Logistics Group: 350 trucks, four divisions, and $200 million in sales out of Defiance, Ohio. In this episode, Jared Flinn sits down with Bryan Keller and Jonathan Wolfrum to unpack how a melon farmer's instinct for finding the next opportunity built a company that's survived every freight cycle since — including the recession that just leveled half the dry van market. They get into the speculative warehouse bets, walking away from General Motors, why they moved into bulk and ag freight, and what it actually takes to be named a Best Fleet to Drive For nine years running. If you're a carrier, owner-operator, or fleet owner trying to figure out your next move, this one's full of plays you can run. ➡️ Hauling bulk or looking to grow your freight? Find loads and grow your operation at https://bulkloads.com?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=Video&utm_campaign=Keller_Podcast 🎥 Want your story featured on the channel? Get featured at https://bulkloadsmedia.com CHAPTERS 00:00 – Meeting Tom Keller 00:24 – The watermelon farm that started it all 01:22 – The Detroit melon run (cash on the kitchen table) 03:05 – From farm machinery to five trucks 04:10 – The thank-you card that landed Bryan the job 05:48 – "Bryan, we gotta be organized" 07:14 – Out-engineering the big carriers 08:58 – Scaling from 20 trucks and the warehouse gamble 12:39 – The 332,000 sq ft Dallas bet 15:04 – Walking away from General Motors 16:17 – The Campbell Soup phone call that changed everything 17:08 – Jonathan joins — 350 trucks today 20:48 – Faith, the prayer room, and "give to grow" 21:38 – Inside the Ignite Academy 25:29 – Why Keller moved into bulk and ag 29:54 – Farm roots run deep 32:12 – Breaking through growth plateaus with EOS 35:36 – Building a legacy, not a payday 36:39 – 9 years as a Best Fleet to Drive For 38:37 – The driver advisory board 42:53 – Closing thoughts
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vMtf0ZtSbbA Fleet maintenance isn't sexy — but it's one of the highest expenses in trucking, the most controllable, and by far the most ignored. Justin Brevik of Bosch FleetMe returns to the BulkLoads Podcast to break down exactly where fleets bleed money on maintenance and how to fix it, whether you run 3 trucks or 3,000. Host Jared Flinn and Justin cover the real cost of letting a truck sit at a dealership, the oil-change myth costing you thousands, why tires are your #1 maintenance expense (and the cheap fix almost nobody does), and how to move your operation from reactive to preventative to predictive maintenance. If you're an owner-operator, carrier, or fleet manager trying to protect your margins, this one pays for itself. Want to be featured on the BulkLoads Podcast? https://www.bulkloadsmedia.com/ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 Joining Bosch's Fleet Maintenance Team 05:23 Fleet maintenance strategies 09:55 360-degree DVIR integration 11:18 Streamlining fleet breakdown response 14:40 Evaluating and training technicians 19:00 Dealership repair and staffing insights 22:11 Tire maintenance and oil changes 23:45 Fleet management tools overview
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/OUVacbL2k7g For Matt and Sharon Kill, the goal was never to have the biggest fleet. But it took growing to 21 trucks — and nearly losing what mattered — to figure that out. The family started with nothing: one truck, a borrowed belt trailer, and a 1950s pay loader that lost steering every time you let off the throttle. After Matt got let go from John Deere, they accidentally built a four-way ag operation — trucking, manure spreading, farming, and feed commodity trading out of Saint Mary's, Ohio. 🎙️ Brought to you by BulkLoads — the bulk freight marketplace built for carriers, brokers, and shippers. Matt and Sharon have been members since the very beginning. Find loads, grow your operation, and connect with the bulk trucking community at https://bulkloads.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 Meeting the Kill family 01:00 From John Deere to a borrowed belt trailer: how it started 04:10 Four businesses under one roof 04:32 The roller coaster: scaling from 8 to 21 trucks 06:42 Inside Ohio's massive ag country 07:08 The poultry litter business explained 09:20 "We started from nothing" — the old equipment days 11:07 Buying totaled belt trailers for pennies 11:49 The hardest part of the job 13:15 "Maybe we should just give this up" 15:31 Matt's learning disabilities and building it anyway 16:26 Who runs what: the team behind the operation 18:27 Where the business goes from here 20:25 Why no two farming operations are the same 22:28 Best advice for someone starting in trucking 26:33 Building it together from day one 28:42 What they pull from the BulkLoads podcast 29:13 Thank you
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/n2-i0RKCoWs Craig Broerman left a corporate mechanical engineering career, sold the money meant for his grandparents' farm, and bought a belt trailer in 2019. Six years later, he and his cousin Alan Lennartz are running 7–10 trucks across the Midwest hauling DDGs, soybean meal, cottonseed, and industrial products — and they did it before either of them turned 32. In this episode, Jared sits down with Craig and Alan on location in Portland, Indiana to talk about the BulkLoads find that changed everything, the phone call in a North Carolina cornfield that made Craig get out of the truck for good, the mistakes they made buying "shiny" equipment, and the insurance and scaling realities nobody warns young carriers about. If you're an owner-operator, small fleet, or thinking about getting into bulk trucking — this one's a roadmap. ⏱ TIMECODES 00:00 – On location in Portland, Indiana 00:43 – From mechanical engineer to belt trailer owner 02:25 – Finding BulkLoads and the first direct customer 03:25 – Retiring his wife from her corporate job 04:40 – Alan's path: asphalt, COVID, and "buy a truck" 06:00 – The conversation that split the businesses 06:30 – The cornfield phone call that changed everything 09:40 – How they funded the first truck (the farm gamble) 11:00 – Why posted loads = desperation (and opportunity) 13:30 – Reading the cottonseed market before it shifted 15:30 – Playing the long game on rates and relationships 17:15 – Why Craig thinks 5 years ahead, not 5 days 20:30 – What's actually moving in/out of Ohio–Indiana ag country 22:18 – Why they can't run hoppers in this region 24:40 – The real ROI of the BulkLoads Conference 27:30 – Trust, transparency, and family in business 28:00 – Biggest mistakes: overpriced trucks and hiring too soon 31:30 – How they decide when to scale (and when to wait) 36:50 – Spec'ing equipment: powertrains, trailers, and tonnage 39:00 – 48' vs 53' Conestoga — three months of research 42:30 – DDG market shifts and lane risk 44:00 – The insurance ceiling nobody talks about 47:20 – Advice for young people getting into trucking and logistics 51:30 – Why this part of the country looks the way it does 🚛 ABOUT BULKLOADS BulkLoads is the freight marketplace built for bulk carriers, brokers, and shippers. From the load board to Smart Freight Funding, Bulk Insurance, Permitting, and BulkTMS — we're the operating system for bulk trucking. 👉 Become a member: https://bulkloads.com?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=Video&utm_campaign=BNW+PODCAST 🎙 Subscribe for more carrier stories every week 🎤 Join us at the next BulkLoads Conference
Watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xnLyii6krVg What does it take to run a four-generation family business through cotton, cattle, pipeline restoration, AND a 7-truck hopper fleet — all at the same time? This week we sat down with Bob Blackwell and his son-in-law Jared Reaves at Blackwell Trucking in Wayne, Oklahoma. Three generations of Blackwells have worked this land. Bob started chasing pipeline restoration jobs 25 years ago when one came across his field — and built Blackwell Trucking on the side just to keep his own equipment moving. Then the last four years took a swing at them. Pipeline work went quiet. Solar customers walked off with over half a million dollars of unpaid work. Flatbed rates collapsed. And the family that had survived everything from boll weevils to a 1970s farm bankruptcy was looking for a way forward. Then Jared heard a podcast in his pig barn that changed everything. In this conversation we get into the full picture: how pipeline restoration actually works, why Bob won't buy stockers, the brutal economics of cattle and cotton, why he calls solar "a shell game," the wreck-truck rebuild, the engine that came apart in the shop, the role of faith in their business, and the very human moments behind the family's "GIG, GAP" philosophy — God Is Good, God Always Provides. If you're a carrier wondering whether there's a more consistent path than flatbed, a shipper looking for hard-working family operators, or a farm-and-ranch family trying to figure out the next chapter — this episode is for you. ▶ Find consistent hopper and bulk freight: https://bulkloads.com?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=Video&utm_campaign=Blackwell+Podcast ▶ Are you a shipper looking for family carriers like the Blackwells? https://bulkloads.com?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=Video&utm_campaign=Blackwell+Podcast ▶ Subscribe wherever you listen: Apple, Spotify, YouTube CHAPTERS 00:00 — Meet the Blackwells: 3 Generations on the Same Land 00:55 — How a Pipeline Across Bob's Field Started Everything 02:30 — Why They Started Blackwell Trucking 03:00 — Today: 7 Trucks, Goal of 10 04:34 — The Podcast in the Pig Barn That Changed Everything 05:30 — Why Hoppers Are More Consistent Than Flatbed 06:00 — Working with Chris & Michael at RFG 06:50 — The End Game: Cutting Out the Middleman 07:30 — "It's a Turtle Race" 08:00 — Cattle, Wildfires, and What Bad Land Management Looks Like 09:30 — The Engine That Came Apart in the Shop 10:00 — What Pipeline Restoration Actually Is 12:53 — Inside a 100-Mile Pipeline Project 13:30 — The $500,000 Solar Disaster 14:30 — "Solar is a Shell Game" 17:30 — Three Generations of Blackwells 18:00 — Why Bob Won't Buy Stockers 20:40 — The 8-Cent Brangus Lesson That Changed His Cattle Operation 22:00 — When Bob Got Into Rodeo Stock 23:30 — Where He Markets His Cattle Today 25:40 — Cattle Prices: Then vs. Now 28:20 — Cotton Country: How an Entire Region Dried Up 29:30 — Milo, Sorghum, and Fallow-Ground Decisions 31:42 — "The Only Difference Between Farming and Vegas..." 32:30 — Why Weather Is 95% of the Business 33:30 — What They Do for Fun: Lake Murray 34:30 — How Jared Got Here: Saint Louis → Mizzou → Bartlett → Springfield 37:00 — Why Joplin Stockyards Surpassed Oklahoma City 38:30 — "The Wealthiest Companies Got Wealthy off the Backs of Farmers" 39:50 — Why Cotton Doesn't Pencil Anymore 41:00 — The Peanut Program and Government Subsidies 43:00 — The Soybean Crop That Paid for His Son's Birth 45:30 — Why Equipment Payments Don't Work Anymore 46:30 — Converting Cropland to Bermuda Grass 47:04 — How Faith Holds the Whole Operation Together 48:30 — "GIG. GAP. God Is Good. God Always Provides." 48:50 — The Check-in-the-Mail Moments CONNECT WITH BLACKWELL TRUCKING Wayne, Oklahoma CONNECT WITH BULKLOADS Website: https://bulkloads.com?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=Video&utm_campaign=Blackwell+Podcast #BulkLoads #FamilyTrucking #HopperFreight #AgTrucking #PipelineRestoration #CattleBusiness #SmallBusinessAmerica #TruckingPodcast
A trucking podcast that covers all aspects of bulk freight trucking. Hosted by Jared Flinn, owner of multiple trucking-related businesses. Jared brings on a new guest weekly to discuss technology, innovation, safety & compliance, insurance, trucking success stories, and much more related to the bulk freight trucking industry. This podcast hits on all aspects of the industry, our audience includes bulk haulers, shippers, brokers, merchandisers, farmers, and more.
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