“This is not a must-win situation: This is a football game. Now, World War II, THAT was a must-win situation.” –Marv Levy, former head coach of the Buffalo Bills

There’s a growing discussion of late over the viability of biofuels – ethanol, biodiesel, etc. – and their potential long-range impact on the globe. Some rightfully wonder if we’re trading our problematic dependence on petroleum for a new complex set of issues, with the agricultural needs of our food supply being in direct competition with our fuel supply if we start switching to biofuels en masse.

Ethanol currently relies heavily on corn and water for producing this fuel for example, so until efficient processes come on line to make ethanol from agricultural waste, landfill glob, and other unsavory byproducts, the debate over the future of biofuels will get only more intense.

Which of course misses the whole point. We need SOME sort of fuel to power trucks, cars, planes and the other motorized creations that support life on this planet of six billion souls. And we’ve got to find a way to do that with a fuel that pollutes less than petroleum and divorces at long last from reliance from the Middle East. What to do?

Here’s an example of creative thinking in this direction: the California Secure Transportation Energy Partnership (CalSTEP), launched a year ago this month, outlined a comprehensive set of actions geared toward increasing California’s transportation energy efficiency and alternative fuel use by 2020. Developed over 18 months, the CalSTEP Action Plan aims to grow that state’s economy while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on petroleum at the same time – a tall order, to be sure.

Based on a partnership of industry, government, academic and non-profit leaders from automakers to conservation groups, the plan targets three key areas where the state can take action to secure its energy future: increasing vehicular efficiency; diversifying the state’s fuel supply; and reducing the overall need to drive. One of its overall goals is to reduce petroleum use by 15% percent, while increasing alternative fuel use to 20% over the next 12 years.

Most interesting are the two key facets upon which CalSTEP is based: 1) That no single action is sufficient to address the state’s challenges in transportation energy. 2) That the state can take meaningful action independent of the federal government to buffer itself from the ill effects of excess petroleum consumption.

CalSTEP encourages California state leaders to consider and take actions in three primary and seven supporting area, with those three primary actions accounting for the bulk of the benefits in terms of reducing petroleum use and cutting global warming emissions. They include:

Alternative Fuel Portfolio Standard (AFPS) – a market-based approach for increasing alternative fuel use through fuel blending, dedicated use, and/or credit trading. Goals would be 10% alternative fuels by 2012 and 20% by 2020.

Smart Communities – a program to spark more transportation energy efficient community design and development that sets goals for reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by 10% by 2020 in California’s urban regions and rewards communities who achieve who this goal.

Energy Security Tax Relief and Realignment (ESTRR) – a program to help protect Californians and investors against foreign oil price volatility and gaming that would use a revenue-neutral foreign oil security fee coupled with a rebate to all taxpayers to encourage the long-term production of and investment in efficient vehicle technologies.

Supporting efforts include expanding alternative fueling stations and vehicles, fund and commit the state’s fleets to setting the standard for the use of efficient vehicles and alternative fuels, spur the development and deployment of more efficient vehicles, technologies, and fuels, help communities plan for transportation energy efficiency, and offer rewards to motorists who choose to drive less.

What’s most intriguing to me about this plan is how comprehensive it is: look at the way it suggests managing overall energy and transportation use, to the point of offering monetary rewards for less consumption. That “carrot” approach could spur a lot of change with the public, especially when compared to the rise on gasoline and diesel prices of late. And when you look at projected petroleum consumption figures for the Golden State – 23 billion gasoline gallon equivalents (BGGE) for all on-road vehicles by 2020 – it’s easy to see how large fuel costs could become if a new direction isn’t taken.

Will this plan succeed? That’s a tough question. But at least it’s start – at least transportation and energy needs are now out on the table in clear view with potential, if not ultimately practical, solutions. That’s the first critical step in getting a handle on our future energy and transportation needs, before they start controlling us.

You trundle down Route 5 long enough in James County, VA, and you’ll hit the James River – a broad expanse of water where some of the very first colonists made their home in the once and future United States 400 years ago at the appropriately-named Jamestown nearby.

However, the highway doesn’t end here – it can’t, frankly, for it picks up on the other side of the river outside Surry, VA, about five miles downstream. To connect those two disparate highway halves is where the ferries come in – the only 24/7 ferry system operating in the Commonwealth of Virginia today.

I take my family on the Jamestown-Scotland ferry several times a year (so-called because the ferry departs from the Jamestown and Scotland Wharf pier on the Surry side of the river, hence the use of the name ‘Scotland’ in its title) but the four craft plying their trade down here aren’t built for joyrides. Operated by a staff of 90 from the Virginia Department of Transportation (which has run the ferry system since 1945), these low, flat, bulky water craft form a critical commuter and freight link over the James River, shuttling tractor-trailers, contractors, and everyday folks going from home to job and back again every day.

Four ferries navigate the 15-minute run over the James River: the Pocahontas, built in 1995, which carries 70 cars; the Surry, built in 1979, which carries 50 cars; the Williamsburg, built in 1983, which carries 50 cars; and the Virginia, built in 1936 and still running strong, handles just 28 cars.

While it’s surely a scenic trip – the seagulls effortlessly tracking the wakes of the big ships, as the river slowly undulates away from the bows – security is tight. In 2004, new, security measures went into effect, resulting in armed guards patrolling both docks, carefully screening cars and trucks to prevent dangerous substances and devices from boarding the ferry – all in accordance with the Maritime Transportation Security Act, These measures include checking picture IDs of the driver and passengers, plus comprehensive inspections of vehicles, including under the hood, trunk and undercarriage, along with cargo trailers.

Ah, but it’s done with professionalism and class, with the guards patiently explaining the procedures to those who ask, making sure delays are kept to a minimum. They wave at the kids and are very polite to one and all, staying civil and courteous in spite of the serious nature of their work.

Like big trucks, the ferries wade back and forth on their route, with the skilled helmsmen docking them so expertly that they bump the dock with barely a tremor or ripplein the water. The ramps raise up to link with the dock, and then we file off slowly, winding our ways – freight carriers and tourists alike – to our various destinations. Until another day and another trip across the river.

OK. So the Dow Jones index has plunged nearly 500 points as I sit down to write this. The U.S. economy is clearly in a recession now as stock values have dropped close to 20% since last fall – the big red flag in every economist’s handbook that indicates a recession’s presence. In fact, stock markets all over the world are getting slammed this week – London’s fell nearly 5.5%, Germany’s dropped 7.16%, Japan’s is off 3.86%, and even China watched stock values slide over 5%. It’s clearly bad all over.

But I am going to push all that off to the side for a moment, because, frankly, the worth of humanity isn’t tied up in stocks, bonds, indexes and other numbers. Sure, they make life easier or harder – depending on which way the balances swing – but they don’t determine who and what we are, especially in moments of crisis. Will we panic? Will we stand on the sidelines and watch? Or will we cinch the belts a little tighter and get ready to dig ourselves out of this mess?

Me, I vote for option three for I see it in operation much of the time. Here’s a small example from this morning. A woman gets a flat tire out near my youngest daughter’s preschool. I stop to help out. Before a few minutes have passed, so does a Fairfax County police officer. He puts on his emergency lights to warn traffic, then without pause begins to change her tire. He could have told me to do it, could have let her husband do it (he arrived in short order after his wife called him via cellphone). But he just jumped in and got it done – see problem, apply solution, wipe hands, have a nice day. Fairfax’s finest at work.

Stuff like that, even though it’s small scale, helps keep my faith in humankind at a high level. In fact, it goes on pretty frequently all over the world – neighbor helping neighbor, stranger helping stranger – but of course that isn’t dramatic enough for TV or print journalism these days.

There are exceptions, of course: The Washington Post wrote a nice front-page story a while back (above the fold no less!) about two twin doctors who – on their own – flew to Afghanistan in a plane they rented, choked full of supplies bought on their nickel, to provide medical services in the dusty remote villages of that mountainous war-torn country. They got robbed, they got threatened, they even had to beg for protection from local drug lords so they could help people they didn’t even know.

So, yes, we’ve got some very tough days ahead as the global economy is poised for backward slide that a lot of well-paid experts didn’t think would happen. But there’s enough resilience and willing hands out there to help us get through them.

“It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.” –Samuel Johnson

I loved every minute I spent reading the controversial book “The DaVinci Code” by Dan Brown – but certainly not for its wild and almost ridiculous plot line about secret societies protecting the supposed later-day brood of Jesus. No, my love of that book comes from his use of Opus Dei – a secretive, archconservative Catholic organization – as the bad guys.

You see I attended an Opus Dei run all-boys elementary school for a few years (grades five through seven) and it was simply the worst experience of my childhood – hell, my entire life. It was a violent, mean-spirited place, and for many years I contemplated leaving the Catholic faith because of my time there. Needless to say, anytime I see Opus Dei getting whacked in the press or even in a fictional bestseller, I enjoy it immensely.

That’s the power of negative impressions. And we’ve all been there, too. Get treated shabbily by a dealership when buying a new vehicle or getting it serviced, for example, and not only won’t you ever go back there again, you may never buy the brand of vehicle they sell ever again. You might share your negative experience with others, too, and warn them off of both dealer and brand.

Trying to reverse that negative impression is a huge undertaking that might never succeed. Just look at how GM and Ford have lost market share to the Japanese year after long year despite massive improvements to the design and quality of their vehicles and dealer networks (though I think they will both start to rebound over the next five years).

Trucking has its own share of negative impressions to overcome and we all know why. I’ll share my neighbor’s recent experience: driving home from upstate New York from a long holiday vacation with family, they were tailgated mercilessly on the Pennsylvania turnpike by a trucker doing 80 mph in heavy rain. A frightening experience, to say the least (and they called the state police to report him, a move I firmly endorse). Even though his brother is a top-notch truck driver, having that kind of day on the highway made him steam about truckers as a group – and rightly so.

I talked to Julie Cirillo once about this. The first chief administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration when it was formed back in late 1999, she told me one negative experience like tailgating – something that happened to her own sister – colors people’s overall perception of trucking for a long time. She said those kinds of negative highway experiences gave the whole industry a bad name, undoing all sorts of positive work by professional truckers.

That’s why I think from here on out trucking as a whole needs to really refocus itself on addressing the kinds of driving habits and incidents that lead not only to such bad experiences, but cause accidents, too. The freight may be hot, but that’s no excuse for throwing caution and good safety practices to the winds. For negative impressions last a long, long time, and they’ll complicate industry efforts on a lot of fronts.

There’s a well-used example in scientific circles about the perils of adapting to short-term change while missing the big picture. That’s what “frogs in a pot” is all about. The story goes that if you put a frog in a pot of water and then slowly increase the heat of the water, the frog will stay put – adapting to each increase in temperature – until it gets boiled to death.

When it comes to oil and fuel prices – both gasoline and diesel – we’ve been that frog in the pot, adjusting ourselves to ever higher and higher prices. The question now is whether we’ll get out of the pot before we, as a nation, get boiled to death. The recent explosion in biofuel production efforts – both ethanol and biodiesel – coupled to existing alternative efforts in the natural gas area gives some hope at least that we may indeed escape the frog’s fate. Yet that remains to be seem for we have a long way to go.

Look at the global picture: according to the Energy Information Agency (EIA), global energy demand is going to keep growing despite the relatively high world oil and natural gas prices. However, the agency projects that rising oil prices should dampen growth in demand for petroleum and other liquids fuels after 2015 and, as a result, reducing their share of overall energy use from 38% in 2004 to a projected 34% in 2030. In contrast, the energy shares of natural gas, coal, and renewable energy sources are expected to grow over this period.

Still, liquid fuel consumption is still expected to grow strongly, reaching 118 million barrels per day in 2030, with the U.S., China, and India together account for nearly half of the projected growth in world liquid fuel use.

And the EIA’s analysis is coming on the heels of some disturbing near-term supply trends. Our web editor, Justin Carretta, recently wrote a story about oil prices breaking the $100 per barrel mark and got some scary comments from Denton Cinquegrana, markets editor for the Oil Price Information Service (OPIS).

Cinquegrana said predictions for the price of oil in 2008 remain high. “Even with the most conservative estimates, all forecasts for 2008 are for well over $80 a barrel,” he said, adding that it is hard to tell how long it will stay in the $90s—it could be a few weeks, a few months, or even longer.

And this historic oil price comes on the heels of a recent report that suggests oil-producing countries may not be able to meet demand sooner than anticipated. According to the Associated Press, the December issue of the OPEC Review, published by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said that its countries might not be able to meet demand at some point between 2024 and 2048, with several countries unable to produce their share even sooner.

OK, this is troublesome, sure. But we’re also seeing a big movement towards alternative fuels that could ease vehicle fuel crunch — if it all pans out. Blue Sky Bio-fuels and the city of San Francisco, for example, are partnering to use waste grease from restaurants to make biodiesel for the city’s school buses – which has the added benefit of stopping such waste grease from being dumped into the city’s sewer system.

“Our goal is to help California reduce its carbon footprint and become less dependent on foreign oil,” said Patrick MacIntyre, president of Blue Sky Bio-fuels. “Our solution is a triple win proposition where cities have their waste grease turned into a renewable … cleaner burning fuel at a price that is competitive with diesel.”

Blue Sky Bio-fuels, located in Oakland, CA, has designed and engineered a 20 million gallon per year facility and MacIntyre said as long as they can keep their biodiesel priced competitively for the school districts, it’ll prove itself to be a better alternative to petroleum diesel.

Richard Kolodziej, president of NGVAmerica, noted that natural gas is gaining more traction as a vehicle fuel as he noted that natural gas costs only $40 per equivalent barrel when compared to $100 per barreloil. “In the past, there were substantial societal benefits of using more natural gas as a vehicle fuel – such as reducing dependence on foreign oil, reducing greenhouse gases and reducing urban pollution,” he said. “Now, as the price gap between petroleum and natural gas widens, we’re seeing a major economic advantage, too. As a result, 2008 will be a milestone year for natural gas vehicles (NGVs) in the U.S.”

Kolodziej added that in 2007, the U.S. used about 250 million gasoline-gallons-equivalent of natural gas for vehicles, with high fuel-use fleet vehicles, such as transit buses, school buses, trash trucks, and delivery vehicles remaining major targets for conversion. He added that, to encourage the shift to NGVs, the federal government is offering income tax credits that range from $2,500 to $32,000 for the purchase or conversion of NGVs.

So maybe we are at a turning point – maybe this time the frog will jump out of the pot before it’s too late. Let’s hope we do.

“Brand names should mean something.” –Jim Walton

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately (a dangerous occupation for me, I know) about the General Motors-International Truck & Engine deal announced late last year, with GM selling its medium-duty commercial truck business to International for an estimated sticker price of $500 million or so.

What’s interesting to me is this deal is yet another sign of the opposite strategic paths auto and truck makers in the U.S. are on these days. For decades, U.S. automakers like GM and Ford seemed to be on a brand-name breeding program – even buying other brands of cars and trucks to add to their stable.

GM’s Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac brands were later joined by Hummer (bought from AM General), Saab (bought from Sweden), and Opal (bought from France). The company also went into partnership with Isuzu to gain diesel engines for its medium- and light-duty trucks (the Duramax) and get a lighter cabover medium-duty vehicle as well. It even built Class 8 trucks via a partnership with Volvo and White Mfg. For many years

Ford always had the Lincoln and Mercury brands, then went out and bought Volvo’s car business, Land Rover, and Jaguar. It even used to build heavy Class 8 trucks under the Aeromax brand.

Truck makers, by contrast, kept focused on core products – medium- and heavy-duty trucks only. Each had a distinct brand (Freightliner, Peterbilt, etc.) The only exception proved to be International Harvester at the time, which built farm equipment, heavy trucks, and even the famous Scout light vehicle (now a collectors item), an early version of Jeep’s Cherokee SUV. But by and large, each truck maker really supported only one brand name in the market – not the plethora GM and Ford supported.

How times have changed! Now the automakers are the ones rapidly divesting themselves of brands and product lines, whereas the truck makers are adding more – and on a global scale to boot.

Ford sold off its Class business in the late 1990s and is trying to find buyers for Land Rover and Jaguar now, while paring down the product offerings across its Lincoln, Mercury, and Ford brands. It’s nearly seven year relationship with International to build a joint cabover medium-duty truck and get diesel engines may very well end soon, with Ford building its own diesels in house. GM has been just as aggressive – shutting down Oldsmobile, selling off its “bread van” business, Allison Transmissions, its medium-duty business, all while shrinking product offerings across the board.

The truck makers, now, they are going down the path GM and Ford used to follow. Jim Hebe, Freightliner’s former chief, got the ball rolling. After being acquired by Daimler AG of Germany, Hebe went out and bought Ford’s Class 8 business, which it turned into Sterling Trucks, followed by Thomas Built buses, Canada’s Western Star, and others. Freightliner later bought Workhorse Custom Chassis. Daimler acquired big diesel engine maker Detroit Diesel and added that to the Freightliner mix.

Volvo AB of Sweden bought out GM’s heavy-duty truck stake and then bought Mack Trucks in Allentown, PA. Paccar, which owns Kenworth and Peterbilt, bought DAF trucks in England and plans to add that company’s diesel engines to the U.S. market via a big $400 million plant it’s building in Missouri.

International has also undergone a lot of change. After selling off the farm equipment business, the company changed its name to Navistar in the late 1980s. Finding that brand didn’t do well, it gradually brought the International nameplate back to the fore. Technically, though, the company is still Navistar and gets referred to as such by most stock analysts because it didn’t change its stock listing name – and that causes more than a little brand name confusion out in the market from time to time.

So what does all this shuffling mean, in the great scheme of things, when we look at the GM/International deal? Well, for starters, GM gets to take all the engineering resources it used to spend on medium-duty trucks and refocus that on its light-duty pickups – a real bread-and-butter line for the company. I talked to Mike Matheny, owner of GM dealer Matheny Motors, about that very subject and that is what makes him happy about this deal.

“We have a whole separate commercial department for light trucks and I consider it pretty steady business compared to our retail sales,” he told me. “The one thing I wish we had was something to match Ford’s 450/550 truck – what we need to get there is time and money, and now we’re getting some money to do it.”

On International’s side of ledger, though, the challenge will be integrating the Chevy and GMC brands into its lineup without diluting them or its core International brand – a tall order, in the eyes of Jim Walton, president of PR firm Brand Acceleration.

“Here’s the problem that Navistar will face if they continue to use all three names. In the eyes of the consumer, Chevy is a car sold by General Motors and GMC is a pseudo-Chevy, [also] sold be General Motors,” he told me.

“One reason that companies like to keep three brands is because they are afraid of losing any of the collective market share … [but] brand names should mean something,” he added. “The ‘big three’ forgot that more than thirty years ago: Oldsmobile is now gone and the Cadillac brand nearly ceased to exist.”

So where the Chevy and GMC brands go in the medium-duty market now is up in the air. Though they’ll be around for a while, International controls their destiny, so anything is possible. One thing is for certain: It’ll be an interesting brand transition to watch.

“Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you are talking about – they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.” –George Bailey from the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”

I know, I know – do I have to go and quote from what’s considered one of the cheesiest Christmas movies of all time? Isn’t it going to be on television enough here over the next few days?

Well, I can’t help it. Something of a flop when it came out in 1946, Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” went on to become a major holiday classic — and also became one of Jimmy Stewart’s most heralded roles. I won’t bore you with the details (turn on any TV channel, cable or otherwise – you’ll see it somewhere) but suffice to say it’s a film that’s become part of the culture in our country. Heck, my political science textbook back in college used this film as the basis for several chapters spent delving into the quintessential system of values formed during baby boom era.

Yet I think this little black and white film still speaks to a lot of beliefs deep-rooted in the American psyche: that every person’s life, no matter how insignificant it seems to them, has an impact far greater than they know. Like ripples in a pond, a person’s actions shift events in all sorts of unexpected ways. George Bailey saves the life of his brother, Harry, and allows him to go on to college in his place. Eventually, Harry becomes an ace fighter pilot and saves the lives of thousands of soldiers stuck on a troopship after shooting down a kamikaze attacker. Without George in those two critical moments in Harry’s life, Harry could not go on to save other lives – something George is shown by his guardian angel Clarence later on.

It’s pretty significant, too, I think that Jimmy Stewart took on this role. Already hugely famous before World War II, Stewart fought in the skies over Europe as a bomber pilot and squadron commander and proved to be popular and well liked by his fellow airmen. A bonafide war hero, he could’ve taken on any number of dashing roles – indeed, Hollywood practically hounded him to do some stirring war movie – but George Bailey is the character he chose to portray in his first post-war film.

For me, though, this sappy cinematic Capra masterpiece serves as an important reminder: that a person’s value isn’t wrapped up in fame and fortune, how many cars they have in the driveway, or the designer labels on their blue jeans. It’s about what they do in life to make even their small corner of the world a better place. That’s where the true value in humanity lies, I think.

To round out the sappiness, I’d like to leave you with some words from Robert F. Kennedy: and regardless of your views of the Kennedy family in history as well as politics, I think Robert’s words speak pretty effectively to what we truly need to hold dear in this country of ours. Merry Christmas.

“Let us be clear at the outset that we will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in a mere continuation of economic progress and an endless amassing of worldly goods. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones Average, nor national achievement by the gross national product.

And if the gross national product includes all of this, there is much it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, of the joy in their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry, the strength of their marriages, the intelligence of our public debate, or the integrity of our public officials. The gross national product measures neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile; and it can tell us everything about America – except whether we are proud to be Americans.”

I love the truck calendars I start getting around this time of year. Regular as clockwork, they start appearing in my mailbox – chock full of spit-shined trucks of various makes and models, rolling iron worthy of any showroom in the world.

One of my favorites is Shell’s Rotella SuperRigs calendar, now in its 25th year believe it or not. It highlights one-of-a-kind creations crafted from chrome, aluminum, and steel – and 120 owner-operators from across the U.S. and Canada competed for the chance to be pictured in Shell’s 2008 calendar (along with $25,000 in cash prizes – not too shabby, if I say so myself).

Curtis Christians of Rockford, MO captured “Best of Show” honors, taking home a cash prize of $10,000 for his 2005 Peterbilt 379 tractor and 2005 Great Dane trailer, which you’ll see on the cover. But on the back is a special “before and after” montage detailing the transformation of Bob and Geri Martin’s 1995 Peterbilt 379. They won a special $50,000 truck makeover from Shell, with the work done by S&J Truck Sales. I’ve seen this truck myself up close and let me tell you it’s a beauty.

Yet these calendars are becoming more than just mere homage’s to sheet metal. With each succeeding year, the stories behind the trucks and their owners are on display – perfectly captured vignettes that offer interesting and sometimes poignant insight into the human lives in trucking, not only in the U.S. but also from across the world.

Here’s a perfect example: Volvo Trucks North America’s 2008 calendar. There are 12 great stories in here, each told with a handful of photos and well-crafted prose. There’s the Tracy family, owner of Dot Foods, plying the refrigerated trade across the U.S. In Scotland we meet David McPherson, CEO of another family-owned business, McPherson Transport, which transports whiskey and other related products (and oh don’t I want to go visit THESE guys!) There’s Nicolas Ancazi, deftly picking his way along narrow mountain roads in Bolivia, and tattoo-covered Neil Roddham, who’s spent 14 years driving massive oilrig trucks across the burning sands of Yemen and Oman.

The one that really caught my attention, though, is Jay Haripersad’s story. When he decided to make trucking his livelihood in 1978, driving was the one thing he couldn’t do in South Africa at the time, then suffering under the brutal heel of apartheid. A person of color, like Jay, would’ve faced fines, fail time or worse if they drove a truck – a privilege reserved for only whites. But he persevered and today is CEO of Westmead Carriers – and his trucks sport some eye-popping designs, too; a testament to the African landscape that surrounds him.

There’s a lot more stories in there (you’ll find the one about South Korea’s “Maniac” truck clubs a hoot, I am sure) that go into making this particular calendar more than just a mere collection of dates and beauty shots. And I truly hope this trend sticks around, for I love to read stories like these. They open up a window into the life and times of truckers everywhere, which helps me at least appreciate that much more what this industry does for our country – and indeed the world – every day.

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” – Shakespeare’s Henry V

As luck would have it, I got to look inside the working life of today’s diesel truck technician this week, courtesy of three top-notch pros – Matt Wheeler, Pat Driscoll, and Michael Willoughby, along with added insight from Ken Carter, their service manager or “head coach” as he prefers to call his position.

Wheeler, Driscoll, and Willoughby all work for Rush Enterprises, at the Rush Truck Center in Oklahoma City. They’d each spent 10 long months taking training classes to prepare for the “entrance exam” to Rush’s second annual technician skills rodeo held this week in Nashville TN. All three passed, joining 57 of their colleagues from other Rush Truck Centers around the country at the competition.

What struck me the most about this particular group of techs – whom I quickly dubbed “The Oklahoma Crew” – was their calm approach to the contest, leavened with considerable humor. Talking with them during breaks during the day and over drinks in the evening, I learned their shop – like most truck service centers, I suspect – is a close-knit fraternity, where the techs kid each other mercilessly as a way to break up the tension they work under, trying to unravel and fix an ever-widening range of complex vehicle problems on tight deadlines for customers.

“Keeping up with the changes in technology is what I think is our biggest challenge,” said Wheeler, a seven-year Air Force veteran whose been at Rush’s Oklahoma City site for 11 years now. “For a guy to come in here fresh from school and start working on these engines today, it can be really overwhelming.”

Wheeler has the highest energy of the bunch: quick to laugh and tell a joke, even one at his own expense. (“I don’t like heights,” he told me. “Which left my father wondering why the hell I joined the Air Force!”) A heavy equipment repair specialist stationed in Alaska for years, fond of heavy-metal T-shirts and a prized leather Harley Davidson jacket, Wheeler jumped at the chance to repair trucks somewhere – anywhere – in warmer climes after he left the service.

Driscoll is the relative newcomer to the group, an expatriate from Canada that’s been in Oklahoma City for two years but whose experience in diesel engine repair spans nearly three decades. “I wanted to work on motorcycles, but there wasn’t any money in it,” Driscoll explained to me. “So I went into diesel engine repair.”

He still raced motorcycles in his spare time, up until 1994, largely in multi-day, 100-mile or more off-road endurance contests, suffering a broken foot and ribs along the way. But when his wife finished nursing school at the same Canadian hospitals were going through layoffs, they decided to try their luck south of the border. His classic Canadian accent (“Repairing trucks is fun, eh?”) coupled to a nearly constant smile (“He’s ALWAYS smiling!” said Wheeler) made him an easy fit for the Oklahoma crew.

Willoughby followed the most unlikely path of them all into the business. Built like a boxer, sporting a shaved head and a series of complex tattoos, he started out in a lawn mower repair shop, then spent a five-year hitch in the Army repairing Soviet armor and Vietnam-era Sheridan tanks for the “Red Teams” in war games training in California.

He literally joined the diesel truck technician ranks with no truck experience at all, yet more than made up for it with unstinting hard work – and would be the only one from the Oklahoma crew to join 11 technicians in the final round of the competition, winning $3,000 and a $1 an hour raise in the process.

“I may not have talent, I may not be fast, but you will NEVER outwork me,” he said. After 12 years in Oklahoma City, Willoughby believes he knows why people like him become – and stay – technicians, despite the grease, the scraped knuckles, sweltering heat and cold, and the fast-paced technology upgrades that keep them hunched over computers more than they turn wrenches much of the time.

“Repairing trucks is like a puzzle – you want to figure it out and you HATE to give up,” he explained. “You also feel perpetually like the new kid, telling yourself ‘I can’t WAIT to get experience, because then this job won’t be so HARD.’ But what you really are is a full-time student – you are always learning something new. This job will make you mad many times, but it’s never boring. If you get bored, then there’s something wrong.”

“It’s such a fast-paced business now that you can’t afford to be set in your ways,” noted Ken Carter, the service manager at Rush’s Oklahoma City site. “It takes a special personality to do this: you must have a passion for it.” Originally from Massachusetts, Carter has worked on trucks and engines his whole life, starting around age seven helping out in his dad’s trucking business, followed by vocational school, work for Caterpillar, running his own shop, then joining Rush about eight years ago.

“We have about 25 technicians, five managers – one assistant manager, three shop foreman, and a warranty manager – and me,” he said. “I’m like the head coach – focused on strategy, finding and hiring the best players. My managers are like offensive and defensive coaches, focused on developing and executing the individual plays.”

It’s a wry comparison; one Carter delivers with laughter and an easy smile – traits that carry over into how he deals with his crew on a daily basis. For to Ken’s mind, the most important asset in any shop is chemistry and teamwork: that’s what really makes a shop function at a high level.

“That’s why I am a coach, in that my job is to figure out how to pull a team together,” Carter said. “They didn’t hire me as just a manager either – they hired me to think, to find ways to do things better. And I can’t do this alone – all my guys help me do it. That’s what great about our place: no one has an ego and they don’t watch the clock. They all help each other out.”

It’s tougher now on the whole crew, as their two best and beloved senior technicians died back to back this year – Melvin Young and Charlie Sossaman. “They were like uncles, looking out for me,” recalled Willoughby, who still gets emotional talking about them. “They would watch out for you and yell at you sometimes, but that’s because they wanted to make sure you didn’t get hurt – and that you remembered what they told you 10 minutes ago. In many ways I felt like I grew up in this shop; it felt just like a family at times.”

“They were absolutely great guys,” added Wheeler. “Melvin actually wore out a hammer working there – a hammer! Who wears them out? But he also taught me you don’t have to be fast – just persistent. Charlie taught me how to think – sometimes telling me the wrong thing to see if I’d figure it out.”

Now, Wheeler and Willoughby both find themselves taking on the role Melvin and Charlie played for so long. “One of the most poignant moments for me – upsetting yet also neat – was when one of the younger techs asked me for help and I told him, ‘Go find one of the older guys.’ Then he came back to me and said, ‘You’re it.’ That stopped me in my tracks,” said Willoughby.

But it’s also a responsibility they are both accepting, too. “It’s like the old saying: ‘Give a man a fish, he has a meal. Teach him to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime.’ But then most of the younger guys would rather us just give them the fish,” said Wheeler.

But Willoughby added thoughtfully that this is the way it works in the diesel technician world – knowledge isn’t just acquired from books and the classroom; it’s handed down from one generation of techs to the next. “It’s really not me in this shirt – it’s Melvin, Charlie, and all the technicians I’ve learned from in here. They taught me all that I know. I am their hands now.”

Everyone in trucking knows that fuel prices are skyrocketing and burning a gigantic hole in a lot of wallets out there (more so for ones without fuel surcharges in place – ones that actually stick, I might add). Yet when you start looking at the numbers, that’s when the scariness of the situation really comes into focus, I think.

According to the International Energy Agency, oil prices jumped 45.3% since January. And U.S. diesel prices are up 18% just since September – nearly double the 10% rise in gasoline prices. The situation isn’t going to get better anytime soon, either, because a lot of new unexpected pressures are now coming to bear on diesel supplies.

For example, the Wall Street Journal noted that a spate of refinery outages in Europe is creating a wellspring of demand for diesel in that part of the world. That’s because half of the 15 million cars and light vehicles sold in Europe every year run on diesel, compared to just 50,000 diesel cars sold in the U.S. annually.

Then there’s diesel’s arch enemy, home heating oil. Both are made from the same base petroleum distillate and when demand for heating oil goes up, it takes precedence over diesel fuel production. And that’s what’s happening now – and not only is demand for home heating oil up, so are prices, jumping 10% in the last month.

Then there’s the problem posed by rising automotive sales in China and India, two gigantic nations that didn’t use to have major auto demand. Annual car sales in China alone have doubled since 2004 and are estimated to hit 4.1 million units a year by 2008. By 2010, annual car sales may reach 10 million units per year in China, jumping to 20 million units by 2020 if the trend holds – making that country the single largest car market in the world.

It’s a grim forecast, but then we knew it wouldn’t be pretty.