Rollin' 18 Podcast

NATSO's CEO rides with Werner driver to better understand what drivers go through.

• Walter Gatlin • Season 1 • Episode 28

Share episode

Send us a text

What does it really take to be a professional truck driver on America's highways? Join us on the Rollin' 18 Podcast as we bring you firsthand insights from NATSO's CEO, Lisa Mullings, and Werner Enterprises driver, Jennifer Evans. After a week-long, 1,200-mile journey together, Lisa and Jennifer share their unique perspectives on the daily challenges faced by truck drivers and how these experiences can drive improvements at truck stops and travel plazas. We promise this conversation will be a game-changer in understanding and addressing the needs of those who keep our economy moving.

But that's not all – we'll also explore the often-overlooked benefits of having precise location information for parking spaces. Imagine the advantage of being able to direct emergency services or delivery drivers to a specific spot without any hassle. Whether it's a DoorDash delivery or an unexpected encounter with wildlife, knowing exactly where you are can make a world of difference. As always, we extend our heartfelt gratitude for your continued support and encourage you to connect with us on social media. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!

BuzzSprout
www.rollin18podcast.com

YouTube
www.youtube.com/@rollin18podcast

Rumble
rumble.com/user/Rollin18Podcast

Facebook
www.facebook.com/rollin18podcast/

Instagram
www.instagram.com/rollin18podcast

X - Twitter
www.x.com/Rollin18podcast



NATSO Facebook

Email me anytime with news, suggestions, and stories at rollin18podcast@gmail.com. God bless, be safe, and keep it between the lines drivers.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Rollin' 18 Podcast. This 40-year veteran is here for anyone wanting to stay up to date with the trucking world. Grab your coffee, hop on board and let's get on down the road with Walter Gatlin.

Speaker 2:

Hello everybody and welcome back to Rollin' 18 Podcast. I'm your host, walter Gatlin. I hope you guys enjoyed your 4th of July celebration. It is a celebration for the United States of America. I know there's a lot of discrepancies out there by anti-Americans, but they can pretty much keep that to themselves. History is what it is. It is history. We can all learn from it. We can't change it, but we can move forward. Don't worry, america is still the greatest nation on the planet and the vast majority of Americans say so, including a lot of people that are not Americans around the world that still love our country. So with that I say God bless America.

Speaker 2:

Today's story is about NATSO. Have you ever heard of NATSO? Natso is a truck stop owners and operators type of organization. Basically, what they do is NATSO serves as a vital advocate for a diverse range of stakeholders within the truck stop industry, for most among these are truck stop owners and operators. Just like there's a truck owner operator, there is a NATSO, a truck stop owner operator organization. You see what I'm saying? Kind of like the OOIDA, but this is NATSO N-A-T-S-O.

Speaker 2:

Now the interesting thing, and the reason I bring this up, is because they have a CEO that decided she wanted to go out on the road with a driver and see what it was like on this end of the spectrum in order to figure out what we could do, what they could do, to improve Natso's involvement with the owner-operator truck stops, and she went out there. Well, let me start from the beginning. I guess Now Natso, representing Truck Stops and Travel Plazas, and Werner Enterprises Incorporated, one of the nation's largest transportation and logistics providers, kicked off a CEO ride-along as part of a unique safety collaboration between the travel center industry and professional truck drivers. We understand the logistics of truck stops because that's why they call them that. The vast majority of people that need those are the trucks they have placed in gas stations and stuff like that, stuff for four-wheelers, which is nice. They don't completely cater to the four-wheeler. Their vast majority of their business is going to be the truck driver, I would assume. But you know they do provide us with showers. They provide us with all kinds of different things we can purchase. They do provide us with amenities that regular gas stations and fuel stops do not.

Speaker 2:

Now Natsuo president and CEO Lisa Mullings is joining Werner driver Jennifer Evans on a week-long 1,200-mile trip beginning in Juliet, illinois. They will stop along the way at truck stops and travel centers so that Mullins can experience life on the road professional truck drivers have to deal with, and Mullins will document her experience, delivering insights to the travel center executives, owners and operators. Now, before you say it, oh my God, they're going to take a whole week to do 1200 miles. I could do that in my sleep, going backwards overnight, yeah right. Well, no, that's not going to happen. Anyway, I understand what you mean. No, they're not doing this to win any races or to go on a 6,000 mile trip or whatever you know, so they can cover the whole week. No, they're going to take the week to primarily concentrate on the information they need to better themselves for you, and that is an enormous challenge. Even though you're only looking at 1,200 miles, you're probably looking at quite a few stops.

Speaker 2:

I am hoping that I can talk with Lisa Mullings and find out her experiences while she was on the road. See how many truck drivers she talked to, see what kind of ideas they come up with. You know, owner-operators of the truck stops, things like that. I mean, this is such valuable information that she can gather and she seems like a very smart woman, so I imagine she's going to ask very legitimate questions and, being on the road, you know I've been a truck driver for over 40 years. A lot of you guys have been out there. It doesn't matter if you've been out there a year or 40 years or 60 years.

Speaker 2:

The thing of it is things need to get better.

Speaker 2:

As we end up with more trucks on the road, more cars on the road, as we end up with more congestion in general, as we end up with more freight that has to be hauled because more people are buying products and that includes everything in between picking up the freight and dropping it off, which primarily would be your truck stops Because you need to stop to fuel, you need to stop to get supplies, you need to stop to sleep, you need to stop to take a shower, you need to stop to do a lot of things, and it is a primary safe space for drivers out there on the road so that they can, number one, be safe, number two, take care of what they need to do and, number three, continue on with their load in order to deliver it in a timely and safe fashion. Now, according to natso's facebook page, they put down that natso representing truck stops and travel plazas and warner enterprises, one of the nation's largest transportation and logistics providers, today kicked off a, a CEO ride-along as part of a unique safety collaboration between the travel center industry and its professional truck driving customers. And that was dated on the 24th, so I imagine the week is pretty much up by today, you know, which is Friday. So I'm thinking that maybe hopefully within the next week or so, I can get some answers as to how the ride went. I'm also going to call Werner Enterprises and see if I can talk to that driver as well, because we it's important to us and it's important to everybody. I know they want to, you know, go out and do this thing together, and they did, and they want to provide the information with the truck stop owners. That's cool, but maybe there's an audience out there of truck drivers that can also benefit on what they've learned on the road.

Speaker 2:

And they did post a couple of few posts here. Natso president and ceo lissy mullins stopped for a break with a one million miler, jennifer evans and buddy, which is the dog at natso member will's Racine Petro as part of the Warner Enterprises ride-along. I'm not sure where that's at. It didn't give a city or state that could be. It Looks like it might be a quick trip, so I don't use quick trips very often. In the next post on the 27th, natatsos president and CEO Lisa Mullins stopped for a break at the member quick trip as part of the Warner Enterprises and they didn't put city or state, which is unusual. But anyway, that's the whole deal there and I'm going to see if I can get a hold of these ladies, do a small five-minute interview and see if I can pick their brain to see what they found out.

Speaker 2:

Now, aaa had predicted 71 million Americans would hit the road on the 4th of July week and I'm assuming a good portion of that was probably going to be on the 4th of July, day before or day after. That is a 5% jump from last year and 8% more than pre-pandemic levels. And they were telling people safe travels, get your supplies here, blah, blah, blah. All that good stuff. But I'm I'm amazed, uh, by the fact that the CEO decided to go out and spend a week with Jennifer. Now, I'm assuming when they stopped they stopped and did a bunch of investigations, asked a bunch of questions. I imagine she stayed in a hotel during their stopover or whatever. You know, 1,200 miles isn't very far to go to spend a whole week out of the truck, but the week could be the five days as well. This is stuff we're going to ask and find out exactly what route they took, what stops they made and what questions they asked.

Speaker 2:

Now the important thing here to realize is that now that you have this information about NATSO, n-a-t-s-o I'm going to put a link down below in the description of this podcast. I want you to click on it. I want you to read it. We are the customers and if you guys have issues with certain truck stops, that NATSO is a part of. This gives you another avenue on who to contact to see if we can rectify some of them problems. We know what the problems are. Some truck stops have more of those issues than others. It just gives us another tool. If we take the time and be cordial about it, be diligent during our off time, you know, send off an email, call them, contact them however you like to do things, and then bring up your concerns about that particular truck stop, natso can get involved. The truck stop owners can get involved and maybe they can solve that problem where you don't have to deal with that again, if you stop there quite often or if it's a one-off, you can keep the next driver from having to go through it. It's very important that we work together and that things like this click. It just gives us another tool to use in order to make our lives on the road a lot better and more efficient.

Speaker 2:

Now, I did not tell you guys on Monday that I was taking Wednesday off simply because of the fact that I forgot and I need to start making show notes. Even though my podcasts are only 15 minutes long, I need to start using show notes so that I remember what to tell you. But I would suggest you become, you know, like my Facebook page. I got Roland18podcast. All the links are down below in the description and that way you can click on it, you can follow me and when I put up posts and stuff, you'll be able to see exactly what I'm going to do, and that's important to all of us in order to keep track of whatever discussions we're having. So I apologize for not taking the time to let you know there was not going to be a Wednesday podcast. If you notice there's going to be a holiday falling around that time and I do forget. At least you'll go. Well, it's a holiday, that's probably why he's Now.

Speaker 2:

I want to remind you drivers to do a great post-trip. Pre-trip Only takes a few minutes. Look at the very important things your connections, your tires. Check out your rims. Make sure there's no damage that wasn't there before. Look in between the tires on your tandems.

Speaker 2:

I noticed a picture on the internet the other day of a cat that was stuck inside between the two tires on the front left tandem of a semi and to me that was scary. I mean, I love animals and it's understandable if one gets to, you know, a bird slams into the windshield and gets killed while you're going down the road or you hit a deer. But if we can prevent stuff like that and we do a pre-trip, we can check to make sure there is nothing that is crawled underneath your hood, underneath your trailer, inside your tandem wheels. They literally had to take the wheels off to rescue that cat and I thought it was pretty cool that they actually took the time to do that, because I know some good old boys that would say, well, you have bad luck today and it's going to get worse, and then they would take off, so let's not try and squeeze them cats and make them sound like ketchup packs. Let's do our best to save their lives and do a walk around Pre-trip, post-trip, whatever your company requires, and then go above and beyond that Because ultimately it's going to be your time that's going to be wasted and your company's money or your money and that's something that just deteriorates bonuses, deteriorates other things, raises things like that. Let's keep track of what we're doing and let's stay safe on the road, and the best way to do that is pre-trips, post-trips, and do a full walk around each and every time. Every time I stop, I walk around my truck. I don't care if it's for five minutes to grab a sandwich. I do a complete loop around my truck Takes all of 60 seconds and my eyes are everywhere. That way, I can see any anomalies, any discrepancies, and I can point it out and say, okay, I need to get something done about this.

Speaker 2:

Now I don't know if you've noticed, love's have started numbering their parking spots and a lot of people were concerned as to whether or not Loveowe's was going to start going all paid or half paid or whatever. Cdl Life reached out to them and here's what they said the truck parking spaces at new locations are now numbered so we can better serve our customers. One way they're currently being used is for safety reasons. If there's an issue with a driver, we can easily direct emergency services to that truck. Additionally, it helps map out the truck parking area for Love's team drivers as they go about their daily duties.

Speaker 2:

Some truckers say that they are using the new numbered spots in order to help food delivery drivers find them more easily, which sounds pretty reasonable to me. They have asked Loves and they said it's for deliveries like DoorDash and Walmart. You can give them a spot number so they can find your truck easier. Otherwise they will get lost with the you know five blue freight liners next to each other and stuff like that. So all that's reasonable. So if you see numbers at the new parking spots at New Loves, just remember new and old. They're going to start doing that.

Speaker 2:

Number one for emergency purposes. Number two DoorDash can reach you a lot easier. Number three they can identify certain things for you. You can say hey, look, I'm at space number 15, and there's a bear behind my truck. Dnr can show up and take care of the bear. I don't know, sounds reasonable to me. But anyway, I appreciate you folks listening to and or downloading my podcast. Check out all my links down below for Facebook, for Instagram, for YouTube, for Rumble. I'm all over the place and I appreciate you folks supporting me, as always. God bless, be safe. Keep it between the lines. Driver.

Speaker 1:

God bless, be safe. Keep it between the lines, driver.