“Buying used trucks can make good business sense.” –Jason Cluck

Spent some time talking with Jason Cluck, branch manager for Arrow Truck Sales in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Richard Holmes, a sales consultant who is brand new to the world of trucks. Arrow – a national used truck dealership chain owned by the Volvo Group, which also owns Volvo Trucks North America and Mack Trucks – is in the midst of rolling out a new used truck program aimed at fleets for a bunch of 2005 Volvo VNL 670 tractors.

The upshot of these new offers – a group lease package or straight up sale – is that used trucks aren’t afterthoughts in the trucking business anymore. The lease deal is for a minimum of five units for fleets in business for five years or more. With the average purchase price of the fleet program truck at $60,750, the average down payment per truck is $1,251.37 with an average monthly payment of $,1,226.00 based on 48 months. Therefore for a five truck package the average total down payment is approximately $6,256.85. Buying one of these used tractors outright costs about $1,249 a month with $10,000 down.

In fact, Cluck told me Arrow tailored these plans – entitled the “Expand your Fleet” program – specifically to appeal to small fleets operating 25 to 100 trucks, as the company feels there’s a lot more value to be had in used trucks today than many fleets might think.

“We’re talking about used fleet trucks, with about 300,000 to 450,000 miles on them, that are set up specifically to maximize fuel economy and driver comfort,” said Cluck, a former golf pro from Texas turned truck salesman, who’s been with Arrow for almost five years now. “They’ve only used up about a third of their expected life, yet cost half the original price of a new truck. And they are fleet trucks; meaning that they’ve been on a regular maintenance program for oil changes, tire work, etc. It’s good value for the money.”

Also, as Arrow is owned by Volvo, they get first dibs on Volvo-brand tractor trade ins – meaning they stand to get the best of the bunch, Holmes told me. “Not only that, we put them through an extensive inspection and reconditioning process,” he stressed. “On average we put about $4,000 into each tractor we get in, making sure they are road ready, so the customer can put them directly into service and start making money with them.”

And it’s not just buyers in the U.S. that are shopping used trucks more frequently. European buyers are sniffing around used lots in the U.S. as well, as demand for trucks is rising overseas while, at the same time, the Euro is gaining a lot more buying power against the dollar right now. “Russia is becoming a big market in particular, as businesses over there have a ton of cash from the rise in oil prices and are working on infrastructure projects at a growing rate,” said Holmes.

Cluck noted that used truck sales have been pretty steady over the last year in the U.S., as opposed to big drop in new equipment sales – largely because those used vehicles don’t come with the pricey emission-control technology mandated by federal regulations that went into effect Jan. 1 last year. However, what used truck buyers are really after both of them say is a vehicle with good overall value – one with a low purchase price, good operating metrics, minimum downtime, and good warranty options.

“They want the complete package, not just a truck,” said Holmes, who, despite his relative inexperience in trucking, has decades of hard-won sales knowledge (he once sold a fully equipped ice skating rink to a buyer in Seoul, South Korea – now that’s a deal you don’t see very day.) “You may not be buying the cheapest used truck, but you’re getting one you know that’s been maintained well and is backed with solid warranty coverage.”

That’s the other thing going on in the used truck market – more warranty coverage options. Cluck said on this current program, buyers can get up to three years or 300,000 miles worth of coverage through warranty provider National Truck Protection.

“Look, fleet trucks like these may not have all the bells and whistles, but they’ve been well maintained and are spec’d for maximum fuel efficiency and driver comfort,” said Cluck. “We can also set the customer up with a variety of financing options, help them get plates and insurance, etc. Like Richard said, it’s all about giving the customer a complete package, not just a truck. That’s what’s moving iron in this market today is all about.”

(And being the consummate salesman, Richard Holmes wanted me to make sure I’d include his contact information – so here it is, by email at rholmes@arrowtruck.com or by phone at 1-800-827 7692.)

“Kick the hell out of the status quo.” –Motto of Ed Cole, master automotive engineer

If you are a car enthusiast, you know who Edward Nicholas Cole is – the man who directed the invention of the small-block V8 engine to power the 1955 Chevy passenger car. We’re not just talking about some one-off racing engine either, or something relevant only to halcyon automotive age of the 1950s. Oh no.

According to Larry Carley, blogger and car fanatic, Chevrolet has produced about 90 million small block V8s since 1955 – following an evolutionary arc that took it from 265 cubic inches and 110 horsepower in 1955 to 427 cubic inches (7.0 liters) and more than 500 horsepower for today’s smokin’ Corvette LS7. “That’s a huge number of engines, probably more than any other engine that’s ever been built – an amazing record of longevity,” said Carley.

Think about this for minute. Cole – killed tragically in a light plane crash in 1977 while flying solo in the rain and fog on his approach to an airport in Mendon, Michigan – single-handedly revolutionized the design of the V8 automotive engine on the one hand while also creating a platform that could be improved upon for decades to come. Quite an accomplishment for a Michigan native born on a farm in 1909 who originally wanted to be a lawyer, yet found his instinctive – some say obsessive – need to tinker with things drove him into vehicle engineering.

I bring Cole up because I wonder where the trucking version of him exists today – indeed, where a near-aproximation of him might be found anywhere in the automotive world of the 21st century. I mean, he’s the “classic” engineer, if you ask me: a guy so consumed with building something new, something better, something that breaks the mold, that he kept a prototype of the ’55 Chevy and his V8 in his garage at home, tinkering with it endlessly on weekends and at night.

Back then, GM’s executives were all in his corner, too, giving him almost carte blanche to create an engine that would blow the doors off the competition. The ranks of Chevrolet’s engineers ballooned from 850 to 3,000 between 1952 and 1954 as Cole directed the creation of the small block V8 (a process vividly chronicled in the late, great David Halberstam’s book “The Fifties.”)

That kind of engineering derring-do is needed today, I think, as trucking grapples with the need to lower emissions, improve fuel economy, maintain power and performance, while in many cases burning non-petroleum fuels. That’s a tall order, but one I think the Cole’s of the world would relish and, perhaps, achieve.

Cole proved a classic in other ways, too – a break-the-rules, bull-in-the-china shop type of personality, totally focused on building great cars … and then fighting on to make them better. And then there’s the sad epilogue to his GM career – the 1959 Corvair, a “small car” project that got hamstrung by the same GM brass that once backed his engineering efforts to the hilt. For these executives in many ways become focused solely on profits and stock prices, not good products.

“The issue … was nothing less than the entire purpose of American industry: whether it was to make the best product possible or whether it was merely to make the maximum profit possible each year,” Halberstam wrote. “The two, as it turned out, were not compatible – not by a longshot.”

Cost cutting condemned Cole’s Corvair design, as the car’s power overwhelmed the suspension system. He wanted to add a stabilizing system to the rear end – something that would’ve cost a mere $14 to $15 more per car back then – but GM nixed it. The car — though now considered a classic — proved disastrous for GM.

GM executive Harlow Curtice’s comments to Cole about the Corvair sums up, I think, why American automotive engineering went off track – and would take a generation or two to fully recover. “This is amazing – there’s as much headroom in here as a Buick,” Curtice said. Then, according to Halberstam, he paused for a long moment. “Take some of the headroom out. We can’t have a little car like this with as much room as a big car.”

Cole’s iron will didn’t help matters, either, as he forged ahead with the Corvair despite major engineering compromises that made it difficult to handle, especially at high speeds and around sharp turns. Ralph Nader, as we all know, used the Corvair to humble GM and put product safety on the map, but GM learned the wrong lesson from this experience, said Halberstam, “convinced that their great mistake had not been in trying to do the car too cheaply, thus making it a dangerous vehicle, but in bothering to produce a small car in the first place.”

Still, the engineering acumen of Cole – despite his flaws – would be well used today, I think. And who knows? Maybe there is indeed a later-day Cole (make or female, I stress) waiting in the wings out there to lead the industry in new and perhaps surprising directions.

“We need to encourage fleets to invest in safety systems. We need to make the decision to purchase this technology easier.” –Stephen Campbell, executive director, CVSA.

No doubt by now you’ve heard of the growing push to get Congress to pass H.R. 3820, a bill known as the “Commercial Motor Vehicle Advanced Safety Technology Tax Act.” This bill offers tax credits to trucking fleets larger and small worth 50% of the purchase price for various safety systems: up to $1,500 per system, with a maximum of $3,500 per vehicle and a maximum of $350,000 per fleet per taxable year. Technologies covered by the bill include collision warning, lane departure warning, blind spot warning, vehicle stability, and brake stroke monitoring.

The “fiscal encouragement” proposed by this bill and being pushed hard by the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association (MEMA) and the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) really is a “no brainer” for trucking in my estimation. I mean, seriously: doesn’t this make sense? Give fleets a tax break for installing a set of safety technologies with well-established track records – systems that’ve proven to reduce commerical truck accidents of all sorts.

We need to do this, too, because as Stephen Campbell – a longtime highway safety advocate for this industry – noted so directly above, fleets need help getting over the “cost hump” if you will. “Unfortunately, many fleets look at safety technology just from a dollars and cents perspective,” he said during a press briefing held with reporters this week. “They don’t invest in this technology when times get tight.” And as we all know, times are tight right now.

But we need to look at the larger picture here: the number of people being killed in truck crashes every year in this country. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) paints a pretty grim picture where that’s concerned in its latest dissection of roadway crash statistics for 2006, the latest year for which details are available.

According to NHTSA, in 2006, 385,000 large trucks (with a gross vehicle weight rating greater than 10,000 pounds) were involved in traffic crashes in the U.S.: killing 4,995 people and injuring 106,000. That means one out of nine traffic fatalities in 2006 resulted from a collision involving a large truck.

Of the fatalities that resulted from crashes involving large trucks, said NHTSA, 75% were occupants of another vehicle, with 76% of the occupants in the other vehicle suffering the injuries.

NHTSA also found large trucks were much more likely to be involved in a fatal multiple-vehicle crash – as opposed to a fatal single-vehicle crash – than were passenger vehicles (82% of all large trucks involved in fatal crashes, compared with 60% of all passenger vehicles), with the truck was struck in the rear 2.7 times as often as the other vehicle (19% and 7%, respectively).

Now, the technologies covered under H.R. 3820’s tax credits can definitely help reduce and probably even eliminate many of these numbers, but they’re not an “automatic” panacea by any means. Truck drivers need to be retrained in many ways so they fully understand how these systems affect the vehicle – especially in terms of their limitations.

At one safety demonstration I attended recently, for example, I talked with some engineers about driver reaction to electronic stability control – a system that cuts the engine power and selectively applies the brakes to prevent rollovers if a driver takes a turn too fast. Many drivers at one fleet using this technology complained that their new trucks didn’t have the power they used to have. In reality, they’d been taking turns way too fast, activating the safety systems.

Speed management is a critical issue here. According to NHTSA, nearly one-fourth (24%) of all large truck drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2006 had at least one prior speeding conviction, compared to 19% of the passenger car drivers involved in fatal crashes.

Drivers are a critical component to getting the full benefit of this technology. They must “buy in” to all this stuff and use it properly – and frankly, they can be won over simply by applying incentives, such as bonuses for safety records. And don’t pooh-pooh that idea out of hand – look at drunk driving rates as an example of the truck driving community’s eye on safety. Less than 1% of commercial trucker drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2006 were legally drunk, compared to 23% of passenger car drivers, according to NHTSA’s figures.

We also need the insurance industry to get off its duff, too. All the technologies promoted by the tax credit bill have been around for years now – lots of real-world data exists backing up their ability to reduce accidents. I mean, come on – the insurance industry gives passenger car and light truck owners a break on premiums if they install car alarms, for goodness sake – one of the truly worthless pieces of technology around. Everyone ignores them today due to their high rates of false alarms. The kind of technology we’re talking about for trucking actively steps takes a role in preventing crashes – the kinds of accidents that cost millions of dollars, especially when someone gets killed. The insurance industry should be falling over itself to help out here.

Then there’s the final point CVSA’s Campbell eloquently illustrated at the briefing: if this stuff is so good, why not just mandate its use by the industry?

“It’s perfectly legitimate to suggest a mandate for these systems,” he said. “But we’re painfully aware that it can take from two to five years for the federal rulemaking process to put such a mandate in place. In the meantime, people will be dying. We need to do something now that will improve safety faster than the rulemaking process can.”

I can think of no stronger argument in favor of H.R. 3820 than that.

Snow is a familiar sight to any trucker that’s plied Interstate 80 that links Nevada and Northern California over the gorgeous Sierra Nevada mountain range. But this year’s storms give the word ‘snow’ a whole new meaning.

(Snowfall in Tahoe by Mike Kilcarr)

The storms hitting the Donner pass this year (yes, THAT Donner pass – the infamous place where pioneers trapped by winter’s icy clutches resorted to cannibalism to stay alive) are dumping boatloads of the white stuff up there – over 12 feet of snow now packs the slopes in and around Lake Tahoe now.

(The snow may be deep — but Amelia the dog doesn’t mind)

The scary thing is the real heavy snow cycle for the Sierra range hasn’t hit yet. This weekend alone the forecasters are predicting another foot of snow and wind velocities exceeding 100 mph in some spots in the mountains. None of that makes driving a tractor-trailer over the I-80 gap much fun, I’d think.

(When it takes front loaders to remove the snow, you know it’s deep)

My brother lives out there, so I get a pretty frequent update on the snow as well as the ski conditions. (Nothing like being a single, dedicated skiing fanatic, with deep powder as far as the eye can see. Talk about luck of the Irish!) He sends a lot of photos back to me of what the area looks like under 12 feet of snow – and talks about the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) staffers that must clear it day in and day out.

(Amelia takes a walk in her own winter wonderland)

Caltrans has a big depot right at the crest of I-80, next door to the town of Truckee, home base for all the big orange equipment needed to keep the roads clear. I’ve passed by it many a time (in much more agreeable weather!) wondering at the hardiness of the folks manning it that must venture forth in some truly nasty conditions to keep the highways passable. At some points this year, the snow fell at a rate of six inches per HOUR, which is just an unfathomable amount for me to get my brain around.

(All in a wintry days work for the local Caterpillar operator)

This year, the challenge’s been to find a place to dump all the snow, for they are running out of room in the Tahoe area. Route 89 – also known as West Rive Road – snakes from I-80 south in Lake Tahoe along the Truckee river, graced by high alpine vistas of stone and pine trees. Now it resembles something more like an ice canyon, with walls of snow bordering it from the highway down to the lake shore – not something a big rig driver looks forward to navigating, I am sure.

(Even the local roads are canyons cut from the snowfields now)

So props to Caltrans for keeping the roads clear out there – and good luck to the truckers out there driving in those tricky conditions. While it sure looks pretty in the pictures, it’s not something I’d want to pilot an 80,000-pound rig through, let me tell you!

(Ah, but it’s postcard picture perfect, all that snow, isn’t it? A big shout out of thanks to my brother for these shots, by the way.)

“You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don’t trust enough.” –Frank Crane

This is the reef where driver recruiting and retention efforts run aground and come to grief in the trucking business: Trust. Too many times, I’ve heard from drivers about pay packages, benefits, and home time offered at signing that never materialize once they get behind the wheel. And too many times I hear from fleets about drivers that hide traffic accidents, jail time, and other potentially damaging information at signing time, only to see all the dirty laundry aired at a later and most unwelcome date – like during a roadside inspection.

Let’s face it: with the truckload industry facing turnover rates in excess of 120% on AVERAGE in recent times, we know that trust (and other virtues, such as ‘loyalty’ and ‘respect’) is in short supply these days. Not to paint this industry with a broad brush here, but such turnover numbers indicate a mammoth problem before both drivers and fleets. Pay, benefits, and home time are all critical issues, of course, and must be addressed, but without trust, none of them are worth a hill of beans. You can’t get drivers to stay on if you say one thing but do another, and fleets can’t rely on drivers that fudge their records and pay only lip service to professional and safe conduct on the highway.

As usual, I’d like to turn to Professor Jerry Osteryoung, one of resident sages at Florida State University’s college of business. After working with business entrepreneurs for years, he knows a thing or two about the critical importance of trust – and has his own tale to tell where this virtue is concerned. Professor Osteryoung, the floor is yours, sir:

“I have been at Florida State University for 34 years, and I really love this university. Before I came to FSU, however, I taught for two years at another university. I left that position because the dean promised me research support and a higher salary, neither of which ever materialized. When I approached him about these two items, he said that it was his sole prerogative to make or break promises.

After this discussion, I felt that there had been a complete breach of trust. My wife and I left the university and came to FSU, leaving our house unsold. It was worth it to me to pay almost any cost to get out from underneath a boss that I could no longer trust.

Employees need to be able to trust you, or your credibility goes out the window. A firm that we were trying to help had some cash flow problems, so they unilaterally cut the sales staff salaries and commissions in order to balance the budget. You guessed it: they lost every single sales person, as they no longer trusted management.

Sure, this firm had some serious financial issues, but they should have gone to their employees and gotten some feedback before they cut salaries. Lowering employee salaries is a sure way to lose the trust of your staff and send them looking for new jobs.

Another entrepreneur decided she needed to improve profitability and, without notice, eliminated the coffee and coffee makers that she had been providing for over five years. Obviously, the staff felt as if they were blindsided, and the morale of the organization plummeted as trust was destroyed.

In yet another case, an entrepreneur wanted to improve the profitability of his business, and he told his staff that he would distribute 10% of the increase in net profits among the staff. The staff really liked this idea and worked much harder to make this happen. The employees knew that profits were increasing, yet they never received a cent or an explanation as to why. In fact, the entrepreneur never even mentioned the arrangement again. Obviously, morale declined, and employee turnover increased dramatically.

I like to say that leaders have a ‘trust bank’ with each employee. Funds are added to the bank when the leader demonstrates trustworthiness, either through actions perceived or actions viewed by the employee. Funds are deducted, however, when trust is breached in some fashion. For example, if the employee feels that a leader is not being consistent, funds are withdrawn.

Leaders and managers can only be effective if employees feel as though there is a positive balance of trust in the bank. If the bank hits zero or drops into the negative, employees will simply be unable and unwilling to trust the manager. The employees will either begin seeking other jobs, or they will just reduce their work output to the absolute minimum.

Trust is such an important part of the leadership of any business. You must make sure that your staff trusts you both now and in the future to ensure that your ‘trust bank’ stays full.”

You can reach Professor Osteryoung by e-mail at jostery@comcast.net or by phone at 850-644-3372.

Recently, LTL carrier New Penn celebrated the achievement of one million miles driven without a preventable accident by 21 of its drivers and gave props to two others – Keith Degler of Reading, PA, and Michael Swingle of Scranton, PA – for reaching the two-million mile safe driving mark: truly astounding accomplishments all the way around.

I mean, one million miles is about equal to driving around the world at its widest point – the equator – about 40 times, meaning Degler and Swingle did that 80 times. (Just think if they’d racked up that mileage in a commercial jetliner! They’d have free airline tickets for a lifetime and then some!)

“We are all extremely proud of our skilled drivers for their outstanding achievement. They exemplify the engagement and pride essential to make our highways safe while meeting our customers’ needs,” said Steven Gast, president and CEO of Lebanon, PA-based New Penn, which is a subsidiary of transportation conglomerate YRC Worldwide, which is headquartered in Overland Park, KS.

That comment, taken from New Penn’s press release announcing their drivers’ achievements, is expected – if not demanded – from a trucking executive, for safe driving of this extraordinary caliber is absolutely vital to carriers, knowing how crowded the highways are these days.

But what do million-mile safety records really mean? What’s its true value to a carrier, much less the general public?

I talked to Andy Kerlik, vice president of safety at New Penn, about this and he told me that while million-mile safety records are a big deal internally, they usually fall on deaf ears outside the trucking community. “We advertise these records both internally and externally. But it really has the most value internally to us and our driver corps,” he told me. “While we broadcast these achievements outside our company, they are just not recognized by the public. It’s the same old story: good news doesn’t make the paper, especially when it comes to big trucks.”

Kerlik’s been at New Penn for close to 36 years now, with the safety department since 1981, and has watched the company go from a $12 million a year carrier to one garnering $300 million annually in revenue – all without compromising safety one iota. “We have it easier, in many ways, because as an LTL we have very little turnover,” he said. “Our guys are driving set routes and are home almost every night. And it’s a lot easier to build up a focus on safety when you know a driver is going to be with you for decade, instead of seeing new faces every couple of weeks or months.”

And safety is a big deal at new Penn – like at most carriers – because it recognizes safety is integrally tied into revenues and profits. “One hand feeds the other,” Kerlik explained to me. “Good drivers plus good equipment plus good safety adds up to good operating results.”

And it’s not just about driving skills completely anymore, either, Kerlik said: attitude and physical well-being are key components in the mix as well. “Our best drivers are calm people, because they know driving on the highway can be extremely difficult with all the rudeness and road rage out there,” he said. “More and more of them are also getting into physical fitness as they realize that has an impact on their capability behind the wheel. And they love what they do – most of our successful drivers really love driving trucks. That really ties them into the profession in a positive way.”

On a final note, Kerlik stressed that New Penn doesn’t wait to give praise to drivers until they compile stratospheric numbers like a million miles – that’s a career’s worth of driving. The company strives to recognize safety accomplishments on a yearly basis, awarding watches, rings, jackets and other goodies to mark those achievements in a very public way among its drivers.

“You’ve got to have near-term goals most everyone can achieve,” Kerlik said. “And that means looking at both the positive and the negative. I’ve got three safety supervisors that go out in the field every day making sure our drivers are doing their best, going on check rides with them, etc. Safety is in constant focus here.”

To make hybrid technology even more viable for commercial vehicles – especially for Class 8 trucks – it’s all going to come down to the batteries. They are the make-or-break lynchpin for hybrid vehicle growth in the commercial market.

Develop a battery that’s lighter and can hold more electricity for longer intervals between re-charging – as well as one that can do double-duty by not only helping propel the vehicle but also providing power for heating, cooling, and other onboard needs – and hybrid systems will really catch fire with fleets.

So, what kind of battery will fit that bill? We know tried-and-true lead-acid batteries are just too heavy and don’t hold enough juice. Lithium-ion seems to be the frontrunner, but there’s a spate of other technologies out there, too, such as absorbed glass mat (AGM) batteries, which are getting close attention for anti-idling systems.

And things are moving fast in the battery arena. In an effort to jump-start the mass production of lithium-ion batteries, Nissan Motor Co., fellow Japanese firm NEC Corp. and subsidiary, NEC Tokin Corp., formed a special joint-venture company in April last year called Automotive Energy Supply Corp. (AESC). Nissan said it expects the joint venture to begin mass-producing lithium-ion batteries for vehicle applications by 2009.

Milwaukee, WI-based Johnson Controls-Saft Advanced Power Solutions (JCS) got the green light in 2006 to start work on developing longer-life lithium-ion batteries for hybrids, part of a 24-month contract partially funded by the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), a group that includes the Dept. of Energy, Daimler AG, Ford and General Motors.

Then there’s the new joint venture between truck maker Paccar and component supplier Eaton Corp. to develop a Class 8 hybrid truck by 2009. Eaton is providing the hybrid drivetrain system — a traction motor married to a Fuller UltraShift 10-sp. automated transmission and four lithium ion batteries — while Paccar subsidiaries Kenworth and Peterbilt provide the chassis, diesel engine and engineering assistance to integrate everything.

(For a video report on Paccar’s Class 8 hybrid, developed with Eaton, click on the link below.)

Paccar’s Class 8 hybrid prototype

Todd Graham, Eaton’s account manager for Peterbilt, explained to me last August that hybrid technology would only add about 300 lb. to a Class 8 tractor, mainly from the traction motor and power electric carrier (PEC), which holds four lithium ion batteries and replaces the standard batteries normally used to power the starter. Eaton is shooting for a five-year life cycle for the lithium ion batteries, he added.

Eaton’s heavy-duty hybrid electric power system will be built using an automated manual transmission with a parallel-type “direct” hybrid system, incorporating an electric motor/generator located between the output of an automated clutch and the input to the transmission.

One benefit of this approach, Graham told me, will be that braking energy captured and then stored as electric energy in the batteries can be used to provide torque from the electric motor and blended with engine torque to improve vehicle performance, operate the engine in a more fuel-efficient range for a given speed, or run the truck with electric power only, said Graham.

The other trick here is to make sure the batteries used on a Class 8 hybrid can withstand trucking’s at-times extremely harsh operating environment. That’s the challenge John Duffy, Kenworth’s manager of advanced technology, faced when developing factory-built battery-based auxiliary power units (APUs) on his company’s trucks, know as the “Clean Power” system.

“We deliberately developed our Clean Power System to run on batteries to totally eliminate any issues with emissions,” he told me during a special ride and drive held at the Paccar Technical Center in Mount Vernon, WA, last year.

“The first stage of that challenge is to improve the efficiency and life cycle of a battery-powered system operating in the harsh environment of trucking,” said Duffy. “The bar we have to meet as an OEM is much higher in terms of reliability and durability, since we are the ones putting this into the vehicle. The actual concept of integrating an all battery-powered APU into a Class 8 tractor took just six months; the other 18 months were spent hardening it.”

Duffy feels that the battery-powered APU not only allows the vehicle to burn less fuel but also to stay ahead of state or local diesel emission restrictions. He said the system uses roughly a gallon’s worth of fuel to be fully recharged by the truck’s engine over the course of the day and consumes energy at about 1/10th of a gallon per hour, compared to 3/10th to 5/10th of a gallon per hour of a traditional diesel-fired APU.

It’s a tricky issue, developing batteries that can do all of this yet be as cheap as possible so the price tag to truckers doesn’t get too extreme. But we’ll be seeing the fruits of all that research very soon, I expect.

You know, when you begin talking about “brand names” and all the advertising and hoopla that goes along with them, most people start rolling their eyes with impatience – and for good reason. We’re constantly bombarded these days with “brand” messages – heck, we even wear them on our clothing. The commercials we watch, hear, and read have become just another part of the landscape for most of us – part of the daily background noise we must wade through in the course of our lives.

And yet … there’s a point to all of it because – believe it or not – it works. That steady drumbeat, be it from fast food joints or soda pop makers, keeps the brand name lodged in out consciousness so when we go to eat or drink, there it is, in living color, subtly influencing our choices.

(And making us fat, I might add: too bad ‘broccoli’ and ‘regular exercise’ don’t have the same high level Madison Avenue help McDonald’s and Coca-Cola do!)

For truckers, all this stuff boils down to keeping your brand name alive in the minds of shippers – a brand name that should be synonmous with on-time delivery and highway safety – so when they need to move freight, your name is in the forefront of their mind when they pick up the phone (or send an email).

Jim Walton, president of Indianapolis, IN-based PR firm Brand Acceleration knows all about this – and writes a regular online newsletter addressing branding issues. He knows his stuff, so I am going to share his much wiser thoughts on this subject. Jim, the floor is yours:

“Building the brand in the consumer’s mind is one thing. Positioning it in the heart of consumers is another. There is much more to branding than just creating an attractive logo or an inexpensive brochure. Without discovering what will resonate with target audiences, companies often communicate a message that means little or nothing to the people who might purchase their goods or services. Simply put, they don’t believe it! Strong brands are emotionally connected, resulting in a trust that leads to long-term customer relationships and that competitors find hard to crack.

Now, let’s assume that by now you have conducted some formal or informal benchmarking research to identify just what your brand represents. You’ve established a clear and concise message strategy and standards to follow in your tactical effort. Great! Now what?

At this point, it’s important to understand that your brand is a living, breathing thing that resides in the mind of your customers, prospects, and staff. If you feed it and care for it on a daily basis, it will serve you well. If you ignore it, it will become weak and die.

Here’s why: People forget. If your target audience isn’t fed a consistent and on-going positive message about your company, products, and services, time and competitive efforts will eventually take their toll.

Consider great brands like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. Do you think they advertise because they want us to know about the great properties of colored water and sugar or burgers and fries? No! They are constantly feeding the brand in order to hold onto their position in the mind of the consumer. Coke is the “Real Thing” and you’re “Lovin’” McDonald’s.

It’s crucial to develop an annual marketing communications plan that identifies key audiences and consistently and repeatedly conveys a believable brand message that your employees can deliver. A powerful tactical plan communicates a consistent and convincing message through several channels that support one another. Media advertising, e-newsletters, direct marketing, brochures, blogs, web sites, and trade shows, to name just a few, are all valuable pieces of an integrated tactical plan. Even with a limited budget, it’s very important to set a priority and do something. Otherwise you have a beautiful business card and a web site that is nothing more than cyber driftwood. You’ve gotta do something.

Remember, brands are like pets. If you feed them, groom them, and love them, they’ll love you right back!”

If you want to get in touch with Jim, drop him a line at jim@brandaccel.com or check out his web site at www.brandaccel.com

“Listen to the wind blow/watch the sun rise. Listen to the wind blow/down comes the night.” –Fleetwood Mac

So it’s official now, with the numbers before us in firm, inescapable, black-and-white reality. The truck sales falloff in 2007 proved to be as bad as everyone thought it would be — a nearly 47% drop in Class 8 sales, echoed by a 22.7% decline in Class 6 & 7 sales, as tracked by our sister company, Ward’s AutoInfoBank.

In raw numbers, Class 8 sales overall dropped by an astounding 133,043 units in the space of one year, with Class 6 & 7 sales contracting by 36,608 units. True, much of the record 284,008 sales in Class 8 units back in ‘06 are still sitting along the fences of many a trucking company, as they pre-bought rolling stock to stay ahead of mandated changes to emission control technology on highway tractors — changes that boosted sticker prices by upwards of $10,000 per unit. But that is still one heck of a knock to take in terms of lower annual production volume. And it’s not exepcted to improve anytime soon.

“Class 8 industry retail sales in the U.S. and Canada in 2007 … reflected the impact of the 2006 ‘pre-buy’ as well as the slowdown in the housing and automotive sectors,” said Dan Sobic, senior vice president at Paccar, which builds Peterbilt and Kenworth trucks in the U.S. plus DAF trucks in Europe. “Industry retail sales in 2008 are expected to be in the range of 175,000 to 215,000 vehicles, reflecting continued economic softness through the first half of the year.”

By all acounts, now, OEMs are expecting a similar spike-and-fall when we get to the 2009 and 2010 sales years, when the final stage of emission control regulations go into effect. As with the 2007 mandates, increases in base sticker prices are most likely in the cards — though just how much those increases will be is open to debate.

Some truck and engine makers — notably International and Cummins — have openly stated they are NOT going to use selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technology to make their heavy-duty engine platforms comply with the regulations, instead using credits they will ‘bank’ from the addition of SCR to their smaller displacement engines. That could substiantly reduce the premium for International’s 2010-compliant heavy-duty trucks as well as those equipped with Cummins’ engines … or it may not. It’s too early to tell what the fiscal impact of their technology path will be.

Either way you look at it, though, we’ve got another yo-yo cycle ahead for truck sales. And if it’s anything like this last one, it’ll be one heck of roller coaster ride for everyone.

“The great corrupter of public man is the ego … looking at the mirror distracts one’s attention from the problem.” –Dean Acheson, secretary of state under President Harry Truman.

OK, we all know that details matter in trucking, largely because a few pennies here and there can make the difference between profits and losses for a carrier. But there is such a thing as going overboard on the details – micromanaging things to a point where employee (especially driver) morale goes south. Micromanagement is no stranger to trucking, too, due to the ‘family-owned’ nature of many carriers out there. I mean, if it’s a company your family built up over decades, you are dang certain to be engrossed in the details – it’s your baby, after all. In many cases, too, it’s your name on the side of the trucks and trailers as well.

But micromanagement has a lot of pitfalls – especially in terms of its impact on human relations. That’s why I’m going to let Professor Jerry Osteryoung from the College of Business at Florida State University address the subject. He’s seen the negative impact micromanagement can create first hand, as well as the benefits micromanagement’s opposite – delegation and trust – can bring to the table as well. Professor Osteryoung, the floor is yours:

“When I first started to work as an engineer (this was a long time ago), I had a boss that had to make changes to our work no matter what we brought him. Eventually, the staff got tired of his comments. They stopped showing him work-related projects when they could avoid it, and the projects they did show him had little of their creativity, as they knew he was just going to make several suggestions (more like orders) for improvements.

In this case, his micromanaging caused the morale of the engineering department to drop so low that they had to replace the manager. The sad thing about this episode is that he, like most micromanagers, did not even realize he was micromanaging. Employees, on the other hand, always seem to know when they are being micromanaged.

The classic definition of a micromanager (sometimes referred to as a meddler) is someone who closely watches and controls the work of staff. Rather than delegating work to be done, the manager watches all the projects very closely. This is just not a good management style at all. Micromanaging destroys the morale of an entire organization and discourages people from trying to be creative and effective. More often than not, staff needs to be told that they did a good job without any corrections or modifications.

While you clearly need to know what is going on in your organization, staying in the know is significantly different than watching and commenting on every decision. Try to understand when you are being given information as compared when you are being asked for advice. So many emails are there just to inform you, and staff does not want or appreciate your comments on them. Another type of micromanager is someone who has been with the company for years and has worked up to a management position. This individual thinks that their role is still to produce rather than to manage people. This type of manager alienates staff and becomes ineffective.

In order to fix the problem, you first need to find out if you are a micromanager. The best way to do this is to ask someone you trust to find out what the staff feels about your management style, since they are the ones who are really impacted by this type of management. I have seen many micromanagers change their ways to become great managers once they were made aware of their tendencies.

One thing that seems to help micromanagers is to simply understand the difference between helping and meddling. One of the best ways to see if you are meddling is to ask staff to tell you, with no repercussions, when you are meddling. As staff does not like to be micromanaged, I promise they will tell you if you ask them.

I think the real secret to helping a micromanager is remembering that staff is valuable and that they are being paid to do a good job. Many micromanagers just do not trust their staff, and this is a difficult problem to fix. One micromanaging entrepreneur that I was working with had some issues from his childhood that prevented him from trusting employees and being promoted. He went in for counseling and was able to fix the trust issue, and as a result, the staff noticed a significant change. The staff felt so free because their manager was able to let go of his micromanaging tendencies and trust them with their tasks.”

Of course, changing your management style is no easy task – especially if it’s produced good results to date for your carrier. But the whole point isn’t to focus just on what’s happening today: it’s about preparing for the future as well, being in the best position possible to handle new and different challenges down the road.

To contact Professor Jerry Osteryoung, you can e-mail him at jostery@comcast.net or call 850-644-3372.