STARTING a trucking company requires huge investments of time and capital with no guarantee of success. The entrepreneur must dedicate himself totally to the enterprise, says Mark Branson, president and CEO of HaulMark Trucking Inc in Houston. Branson started HaulMark nearly two years ago and has 11 years of previous experience in refrigerated trucking.
“Actually I've been in trucking all of my life,” Branson says. “My father was a vice-president for United Parcel Service. During vacations while I was in college, I worked as a loader, and eventually became a UPS terminal manager in Houston.”
Branson worked for MW McCurdy & Company, a refrigerated carrier in Houston, for more than five years. Most recently, he worked as a national account manager for KLLM, one of the largest refrigerated carriers in the US. His father Jack, who now serves as HaulMark's safety manager, was a KLLM terminal manager for for 11 years. About five years ago, KLLM closed its Houston terminal, and Branson decided to start a brokerage, HaulMark Services Inc. His sales experience helped win national accounts, he says.
Branson notes that he started the brokerage two years before hiring drivers and starting the trucking operation. The two companies work as a team, he says. “We designed HaulMark Services to feed HaulMark Trucking. We're not like a lot of other companies that add a brokerage to existing trucking. Our 26-tractor fleet operates in all 48 states.”
Building a solid customer base and hiring good drivers, dispatchers, and office personnel didn't happen overnight. “It's been challenging for four straight years of seven-day workweeks,” Branson says.
The long hours paid off, he adds. Business is growing. HaulMark is well on track to accomplishing its goal this year of adding a tractor a month to the fleet, bringing the total to 38 power units. Twenty of the tractors currently in the fleet are leased from independent drivers contractors. Employees drive the other six tractors. HaulMark owns the company tractors and 28 refrigerated trailers.
HaulMark runs late-model equipment to minimize downtime and help ensure on-time delivery, Branson says. “Our tractors and trailers are practically new,” he says. “We require owner-operators to run tractors that are no more than four years old.”
HaulMark runs a mix of Freightliner and Peterbilt tractors, including Freightliner Classic XLs. The most recent company trucks are Peterbilt Model 379s, powered by Caterpillar C15 engines rated at 475 horsepower at 2100 rpm. They run Fuller RTLP-18918B 18-speed transmissions. Fleet fuel economy averages six miles per gallon.
“We go to the equipment vendors for preventive maintenance and repair,” Branson says. “Engines carry a 500,000-mile warranty, and coverage for transmissions is 750,000 miles. Our goal is to trade tractors after 420,000 miles. Some of our owner-operators have expressed an interest in purchasing our used tractors.”
Trailers are mostly 48/102s from Wabash National. Newer purchases are 53 footers. HaulMark ordinarily runs single-temperature loads, either frozen or chilled. Mixed loads use movable bulkheads with the frozen freight in the nose. Trailers are equipped with Carrier Transicold Ultra XL units. HaulMark has a close relationship with W&B Refrigeration, the Carrier Transicold dealer in Houston. Trailers are parked at W&B between loads where W&B mechanics check them after each run.
“Ultra units have six-cylinder compressors for quick temperature recovery after door openings in hot weather,” Branson says. “We haul a lot of melons from Arizona. Growers use high-powered chillers to get the heat out. We want to keep cantaloupes at 38° F and honeydews at 45° F.”
Drivers have digital analog mobile phones for communication from the road. The company soon will test a global-positioning system using wireless Internet technology from @Road, which is based in Fremont, California, Branson says. The system provides a module to send and receive messages instantaneously. Real-time truck location tracking is updated every two seconds.
Regional and Long Hauls
HaulMark delivers a lot of local and regional freight as well as longhaul loads, Branson says. This could be 30 to 35 local and regional loads per week in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, and 45 to 50 longhaul loads. Longhauls go from Houston to New Jersey to Florida, and back to Houston. Another long lane is from Houston to California and back.
“We provide weekly truckload service to New Jersey and Florida,” Branson says. “Of course, we have regular customers in those areas and we are building our account base between the Northeast, Southeast, and California.”
Outbound, HaulMark hauls meat to California and produce on the way back. Produce moves to Kansas and Iowa, where drivers pick up processed meat. Cut flowers and strawberries move outbound from Florida. “We try to stay out of Wyoming, but we have authority in all 48 contiguous states,” Branson jokes. “Usually our goal is to cover 500 to 600 miles a day. For teams, it's 1,000 miles in 24 hours. Six pairs of drivers work in teams. One of our selling points is coast-to-coast service in three days. It takes some large fleets four to five days to do that.”
HaulMark tries to accommodate drivers' requests for runs, he says. Teams typically like to be on the road for two to three weeks at a time, for example. But company drivers also run directly between California and Houston, or between Florida and Houston.
“We serve major supermarket chains who have zero tolerance for late deliveries,” Branson says. “Many of our deliveries must be made between 5 am and noon. We have an on-time delivery rate of about 99%.”
HaulMark's drivers are the key to its successful operation. The company requires that new hires have at least three years' commercial driving experience and a clean record. HaulMark seeks drivers with a positive attitude who get along well with customers.
Cautious Hiring
“We've been very cautious about hiring,” Branson says. “We want only topnotch drivers, and we offer incentives to keep them happy. Of course, we operate only late-model equipment. We soon will offer a 401k program and paid vacation after a year's work.”
HaulMark stresses safety and will begin giving bonuses up to $1,000 to drivers who have no traffic citations and no accidents. “We're pretty hardcore on safety,” Branson says. “We've implemented the same policies and procedures they use at UPS. If a driver has one avoidable accident, he may keep his job. If he has another, he's gone.”
Low accident rates also help lower expenses. Because of HaulMark's excellent safety record last year, the company's insurance premium was reduced by $26,000, he adds.
While HaulMark strives for 100% on-time delivery, the company realizes that many obstacles make it difficult to achieve this all the time. “What happens if a driver terminates a load and can't get an outbound?” Branson asks. “In the first quarter of this year, we've had to lay over very few drivers while waiting for a load. That's the result of teamwork, which we demand of everyone.”
Operations managers for both the brokerage and trucking companies work regular office hours but are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In this way, they can deal with emergencies. “Our goal is to provide exceptional service,” Branson says. “We e-mail customers a status report by 8 am each day. We're in the office by 7 am every morning. We print a map showing the location of all trucks and give them to office workers each morning.”
