Driver Recruiting Happy Hour Podcast

Darin:
Cheers everybody. And welcome to the Driver Recruiting Happy Hour podcast. My name is Darin Williams. I'm the president of CDLjobs.com. With me as always is my co-host the president of Ten4 Recruiting and a man who spends a lot of time online raging about the fact that children are not named Virgil anymore, Matt Beach. Beach, why does that upset you so much?

Beach:
It doesn't upset me that much, but do people like when, when a baby's, a boy is born, do parents really go let's name this kid, Craig. I mean, how many

Darin:
Why not Virgil? I mean, you're the one that rants about it. Why not Virgil?

Beach:
Well true, but I mean still, I mean, I I'm, again, sorry, not to if anybody whose name is Craig, but did you, I mean, as, at what point did your parents go? Let's name this kid. Craig, I'm just feeling this kid right here is a Craiger.

Darin:
You think Craig is a more unique name than Virgil?

Beach:
No, it's just, again, it's just one of those names that you just, I, I don't know. I mean, I, I don't know. I don't know.

Darin:
Who's who, do you know any Virgils?

Beach:
No.

Darin:
Your age?

Beach:
No. No, I don't. I don't know. No, I don't know. I don't have a Virgil in my Rolodex. I don't,

Darin:
I don't think there's anybody under the age of 45 named Virgil. They don't exist.

Beach:
Beauford?

Darin:
Beauford? Bueller?

Beach:
When did you get this?

Darin:
Beauford T. Justice

Beach:
When did you get this? So I've got, I've got, when did you, when did you get it? And where did I got it?

Darin:
I got it like last week. I ordered it two months ago.

Beach:
So I'm a trendsetter.

Darin:
You are a trendsetter. I you've always known that,

Beach:
But that it's like, you got that. That's the that's the part of the movie where he is looking at him. And then I've got the one where he is. It's like a, I like it. It's completely different. It's like the same different types of scenes. I love it.

Darin:
Kinda ties into the little trucking thing a little bit. It's a, it's a conversation piece.

Beach:
It does. It does.

Darin:
What about names that can be for a boy or a girl? What do you think of that? Before I tell you who our guest is.

Beach:
Like, Tracy, is Tracy more, Tracy's more of a girl's name and that's, that's my sister's

Darin:
Tracy Morgan.

Beach:
Yep. And that's my sister's name and, and

Darin:
Sister or you could have had a sister named Tracy and a brother named Tracy

Beach:
Brother named Tracy.

Darin:
You are from Soddy Daisy, Tennessee.

Beach:
I am, I am. And a lot of people,

Darin:
Your brother Daryl, and your other brother Daryl

Beach:
And I was I was in Orlando recently and this old couple, I was talking to them. Cause you know, I'm just, I gotta talk to, I can't just sit next to you and not talk to you. And so to the point where like this guy's awkward, right? And so I'm talking to this old couple and they saying, oh honey, we usta live down in Jackson and all this, you know? So they're talking and they're like, where are you from honey? I'm like, well, I'm from Soddy Daisy.

Darin:
Now, Wait a minute. That's that's Ruby.

Beach:
Well, I, that

Darin:
With the smoker's cough

Beach:
You go back. Yeah, exactly. Still Ruby's. I mean, every, every old person I think of has the Ruby voice. Right? Get on the front porch, let's shuck some corn honey. And so we're sittin there and I say, I hear this guy. Ya ain't from Soddy. Ain't nobody. I'm like, what the heck? And sure enough, there's this guy that he teaches there and lives somewhere else. But we, it was just, it's a, you know, Disney was a small world, you know? So

Darin:
They should use that in their marketing. Speaking of marketing and names that could be for a boy or a girl and shucking corn. You've kind of hit the whole jackpot here. We got an Iowa person, which, you know, go Hawks, go Hawks. I haven't figured out how to point to things behind me. We have the Chief People Officer, have you ever been a Chief People Officer, Beach?

Beach:
No. We call that CPO.

Darin:
The CPO at Hirschbach Motor Lines, Jessie Burnette. Jessie.

Jessie Burnette:
Hi guys.

Darin:
Welcome.

Jessie Burnette:
Thanks for having me.

Darin:
Well, don't say that yet.

Jessie Burnette:
I know. I know. So let's go Hawks. Yes. For sure.

Beach:
So

Darin:
Go Hawks, you have a daughter going to the University of Iowa this fall.

Jessie Burnette:
I do. I do. I'm so excited. I love going to the football games. We love tailgating and yeah, she's, she's super excited to go. We're pumped.

Darin:
We will have to connect. I tailgate right outside the Northwest corner of Kinnick.

Jessie Burnette:
Oh, it'll be good time. So I'll be there. You let me know what your spot is.

Darin:
We'll have to we'll hook up on that. What's what's been going on. Haven't seen you since Nashville, right?

Jessie Burnette:
I, you know, just, you know, same old, same old trucking keeps going. Never stops. So I do have a question for Beach though. So speaking of the boy / girl name. Yep. So Jessie being a boy, girl name.

Beach:
Yep.

Jessie Burnette:
Do you think my name is Jessie? Or do you think my real name is Jessica?

Beach:
It's Jessie?

Darin:
I would say Jessica

Jessie Burnette:
Beach, you're right.

Beach:
Yeah.

Jessie Burnette:
One of the few times you're actually right. So

Darin:
He bats a thousand on, on trivia questions on the podcast.

Beach:
I'm not bad on trivia. I'm pretty good.

Jessie Burnette:
Oh, good.

Darin:
And Jessie, if I'm not mistaken, you were the second guest in a row who is planning a wedding.

Jessie Burnette:
Oh yes, yes. Yep. My, my wedding is in nine days from today, so we're, we're pretty excited

Darin:
So then you already have an officiant.

Beach:
Nice young man. Yeah. And he's such a handsome young man.

Darin:
Yeah. He was a handsome man. I met him in Nashville.

Jessie Burnette:
You did? Yeah. Yeah.

Beach:
Mighty fine boy.

Jessie Burnette:
<Laugh> I agree.

Darin:
<Laugh> well, I was going to offer, so our last guest Kennedy Ruley from Melton, you know, Kennedy. She was she's getting married in November and Beach is an ordained minister of Sun, Young Moon, church of nature or something.

Beach:
Nailed it.

Darin:
And so we were gonna try to have him be the officiant. So if anything happens in the next nine days let us know we'll be there. I'm his manager.

Jessie Burnette:
All right, perfect. I'll I'll queue it up and make sure just in case my my man falls through actually the president of Hirschbach is actually ordained as well and he is going to marry us so

Beach:
Nice.

Darin:
Brad?

Jessie Burnette:
Our wedding is out in Colorado so we'll be flying out there, going out there next week. And

Beach:
What part of Colorado?

Jessie Burnette:
In Winter Park.

Beach:
Oh, nice.

Darin:
Fantastic. So Brad is a Renaissance man. Holy cow. Brad flies planes, right? He's a, he's his own. He's a pilot.

Jessie Burnette:
He does have his, I think he, he doesn't quite fly anymore. We have, I think he's got people who fly him, but yeah, he can fly.

Darin:
He used to be a pilot.

Jessie Burnette:
Yep

Beach:
Has people that fly him

Darin:
A minister and he owns Hirschbach Motor Lines. That's

Jessie Burnette:
Yeah. Well actually, Brad, is not marrying us. It's Dan Wallace. Who's gonna marry us. So,

Darin:
Oh, well that was a big story about Brad for no reason at all.

Jessie Burnette:
<Laugh> but they're both. They're both pretty cool.

Beach:
If he's listening, Brad, congratulations. That's overwhelming.

Darin:
Brad's not listening.

Jessie Burnette:
You never know.

Beach:
I give anything, if Brad's head just slowly popped up over there behind Jessie and he was like, I'm here.

Jessie Burnette:
His office is like right there.

Darin:
Oh. So I shouldn't have said it that loud. <Laugh> I know Brad from a long time ago.

Jessie Burnette:
Yeah.

Darin:
Long time ago, Mike Gross. Boy, a lot of, lot of, lot of names have changed there since I was there last. A matter of fact, the whole office has changed as we were talking to a little bit ago. It was in South Sioux City, Nebraska.

Jessie Burnette:
That's been a couple years ago. I think back when I started, it was like 2011, maybe 2010. When I first started Hirschbach, they were still in South Sioux City. And as I was going in kind of for my interview slash first day, first week, the entire office was like moving, they're packing up and moving to Dubuque, Iowa. So I'm like, what in the hell am I doing? I'm start a new job and everyone's leaving. And so they kind of left the recruiting team in South Sioux and everything else kind of moved over to Dubuque area. And so our corporate office is in Dubuque and recruiting, it was pretty small at the time, as you can imagine only, you know, 300 to 400 trucks at the time, we didn't need a huge recruiting team or a lot of staff. And I think there was only three of us kind of holding the fort down and we've grown since then and grown the company and the recruiting team.

Darin:
And they have since moved that office to downtown Sioux City as well, right?

Jessie Burnette:
Right. Yes.

Darin:
Great building like painted like your trailers.

Jessie Burnette:
Have you seen it? Yeah. The entire thing, graffiti the entire outdoor of the whole building.

Darin:
Yeah. It's it's actually really cool.

Beach:
I gotta check it out.

Jessie Burnette:
You gotta get out.

Darin:
It's really cool. Yeah. If you ever find yourself in Sioux City,

Darin:
If you're ever on your way to nowhere, <laugh>.

Jessie Burnette:
With Ruby and Virgil.

Darin:
Stop by Sioux City.

Beach:
I gotta look it up.

Darin:
So Jessie, tell us what a Chief People Officer does.

Beach:
CPO

Jessie Burnette:
CPO. Yeah. You know, C3 PO CPO. Really, we just focus on working with all of the people in the organization. We've got a lot of amazing people. And again, going from, you know, a couple hundred people to a couple thousand people we have, you know, eight different locations across the country from, we've got a yard in Nashville. We've got one in Idaho. There's one in Texas, Oklahoma, you know, so we're all over the place now. And so just making sure that everyone has that same message, that same culture, that same feel really a lot of training, a lot of working with people and making sure we've got the right people in the right places, including drivers, a lot of drivers in the world.

Darin:
It's it? It's, it's pretty fascinating. How much Hirschbach has grown in a very tough market over the last 10 years. I mean, it really is.

Jessie Burnette:
Yeah. The last year last probably two years have been a little bit more tough. You know, when you're going from 300 trucks to 500 trucks to 800 it doesn't seem like it's that big of a climb, but recently, you know, going to 2000 trucks and then now with JCT about 3000 trucks that that's quite the jump and keeping all of those trucks filled and all of those people happy and working and, you know, freight and miles. I mean, it it's been quite quite fun. I'll say that

Darin:
Quite a challenge.

Jessie Burnette:
That too.

Darin:
<Laugh>

Beach:
All right. So I have a, I have a weird question.

Jessie Burnette:
Uh

Beach:
Yeah. I know. Get ready, right and it's, it's not that bad. Actually, a pretty good question. Do y'all use Lyft or Uber?

Jessie Burnette:
It depends on where we're at. So to be honest here in Dubuque, and if you're going to East Dubuque, one of the, the services, won't take you over the bridge. So you're limited on which way you can use. They have to stay in Iowa. So both in Sioux City and in Dubuque, we're in tri-state areas. And so here we've got Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa. Well, one of them will not go over the bridge. So if you're staying in Iowa, you're okay. Use option A, you wanna go across the bridge to either direction, you have to use the other one.

Darin:
Have you ever Ubered to East Dubuque earlier than 1:00 AM?

Jessie Burnette:
Usually it's, you know, reverse cause East Dubuque stays open later.

Darin:
There's no good reason to go to East Dubuque unless its two o'clock in the morning. You need a foot long chili dog from Mulgrews.

Jessie Burnette:
You've been here. You know this.

Darin:
Im an hour south of you.

Jessie Burnette:
I know

Darin:
Foot long chili dogs at Mulgrews.

Jessie Burnette:
Right?

Darin:
Beach, I'm telling you, they're life changing.

Beach:
So here's, here's another part of that though. Question, how many of your drivers do you think also drive an Uber or Lyft?

Darin:
You mean do for both?

Beach:
Yeah. Or either one, either one. They, they, when they get done driving, they also like, Hey I'm

Darin:
Oh, you're talking about how many Hirschbach truck drivers drive Uber?

Beach:
Possibly. Yeah. How many?

Jessie Burnette:
Hopefully they're not using their truck to drive. So that would be the first thing.

Darin:
Yeah. We're taking 250 people to East Dubuque <laugh>

Jessie Burnette:
Uh you know, I, I really don't think there's many of them because most of our drivers are over the road. So they're either, you know, out for three weeks at a time, we've got a group of drivers who probably out for five to six days at a time. And I don't think they wanna continue driving on their days off. So for our core fleet, probably not a whole lot. We've got some local guys though, too.

Beach:
So again , I'm that, I'm that awkward guy that's always going. I'm gonna talk to you, whether you're Uber, you're some old lady sitting next to me. I'm gonna find out more about who is this person that I'm in close connection, somewhere in this vicinity with, I wanna talk to you. Every, I would say 99.9% of the time when I talked to an Uber or Lyft driver, they have a Class A license,

Jessie Burnette:
Are they actively driving? And if not Beach you need my card.

Beach:
Yes I was like, it was in Orlando and asking them just, you know, Hey man you know, what do you do besides just Uber? Oh yeah. You know, I, I drive truck on the, on, you know, through the week I'm home on the weekends. Just wanna make a little, few extra bucks here and there. And so I come out and turn on the Uber button, whatever, and go pick people up around the airports, good money. And I was like, and I guarantee you guarantee I I'd put money on just about every driver, every Uber driver that you encounter. I guarantee they have a class. A, I just find that

Beach:
Hopefully

Darin:
I would've guessed the opposite.

Beach:
No, no. And I, well, yeah, I would too, but at the same time,

Darin:
I'm not very smart man, but

Beach:
It's interesting that alot of them hold a Class A license, I was in three different Ubers and all three of them were a Class A driver.

Jessie Burnette:
This could be a new recruiting experiment. I send my recruiters just in Ubers to ride around and see how many drivers they can hire. <Laugh> Could be a new thing.

Darin:
Back and forth to East Dubuque.

Beach:
Exactly. How many of those are in that area? One or two, three or four? I don't know how big Dubuque is. I have no idea

Jessie Burnette:
How many hot dog places?

Beach:
Sure. That and Uber drivers.

Jessie Burnette:
There's probably quite a few Uber drivers, taxi drivers. I mean, there's, we still have taxi services here too. But yeah, there's, there's quite a few

Beach:
Next time you're in a next time you're in an Uber Lyft, just ask that question. If you feel safe enough to ask it going.

Jessie Burnette:
All right.

Beach:
What do you do besides Uber Lyft? You would be shocked to find out. I guarantee the majority of them I'm I hold a Class A license.

Jessie Burnette:
All right,

Darin:
Jessie, where did you grow up? Where's home? Home.

Jessie Burnette:
Home is, is Iowa. I grew up in Iowa. Actually, well, I grew up part of my childhood young adulthood in Oklahoma out by Tulsa. And then I moved to Iowa when I was about 14, 15. Right, right in that range. And all my schooling, high school, everything was right here in Iowa. I'm an Iowa girl.

Darin:
On the east side or the west side?

Jessie Burnette:
Shuckin corn and detasseling

Darin:
Dubuque or Sioux City?

Jessie Burnette:
Sioux City.

Darin:
Sioux City. My my wife grew up in Bernard, Iowa, which is 12 miles south of Dubuque.

Jessie Burnette:
Ah

Darin:
A very, very small town.

Jessie Burnette:
Yeah. I've never heard of that one. Bernard.

Darin:
They have a guy that has a recipe box to keep their population. You die, you go the back and you move in, you get a new box.

Beach:
<Laugh> like how many cities are actually in Iowa?

Jessie Burnette:
How many, what cities?

Beach:
Is there, or no?

Darin:
99 counties.

Beach:
There can't be that many.

Darin:
There's 99 counties. And assuming there's at least 10 cities in every county. I bet we have a thousand.

Jessie Burnette:
Yeah. I agree. Beach, have you ever been to Iowa?

Beach:
I have

Jessie Burnette:
Walcott?

Beach:
I went pheasant hunting on the outskirts of Walcott and I can't remember the actual city. It was, it was a long time ago. And this lady that this place, we were staying at this guy's grandmother, great grandmother was fixing us breakfast and he was like, man, you're gonna love this breakfast. It's awesome. And he goes, this is a Iowa, it's a traditional you'll love it. And so I get in there and she's like, Hey, we're gonna have dumplings for breakfast. And I'm like, you know, I'm thinking, okay, chicken and dumplings, you know, this is great. Awesome. No, it was a wad of dough this big around, and she sits it in the bowl and then continues to pour grease on top of it. And my buddy is just sitting there in his, in his, you know, in his, you know, coveralls. And I was just looking at him like, you're gonna eat it. And I'm just like, I'm not, I, I can't, I'm fixing to go hunting with all these clothes. I'm not about to do this. I took a bite and it was all I could do to hold back the gagging. And I was just like,

Darin:
I have never heard of that. Never heard of, I certainly never had it for breakfast.

Jessie Burnette:
Who is your friend? What was he feeding you?

Beach:
I don't know what it was. It was disgusting. <Laugh> he was like, oh, you didn't like them? No, man, I didn't like that. It was awful. What did you think he was? Oh man, she loves that. I go, well, why didn't you? I goes, that tastes like shit. I'm not going anymore. <Laugh>

Jessie Burnette:
Were you like on candid camera or something? I mean that's

Beach:
I Dunno. Dunno. I mean, she had like a bowl

Darin:
I've never heard of this hole,

Beach:
Like a pan full of just this, this dough balls.

Jessie Burnette:
Are you sure he was your friend?

Beach:
Oh yeah.

Darin:
Sorry.

Beach:
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Darin:
I have never heard of that.

Jessie Burnette:
No.

Darin:
Certainly never had it for breakfast and I have been alive for a long time in Iowa.

Beach:
Do either

Darin:
As a matter of fact

Beach:
You're in Iowa. I just, I just assume that everyone in Iowa pheasant hunts.

Darin:
I don't know anybody who eats dumplings for breakfast.

Beach:
Do you pheasant hunt?

Darin:
I have, I, I did. I haven't pheasant hunted in years. Don't have time.

Beach:
Jessie. What about you?

Jessie Burnette:
That's a no negative.

Darin:
We'd rather go to football games.

Beach:
Well, it sounds, you know, you eat hot dogs, you go to football games and you hang around Dubuque and you party all the time. I mean, that's what I've got from this, from this podcast.

Darin:
But not just hot dogs. These are foot long chili dogs. And technically they're in Illinois.

Jessie Burnette:
They are in Illinois, but there's Paul's which is in Dubuque. Have you been to Paul's?

Darin:
I love Paul's Tap. Best cheeseburger in America.

Jessie Burnette:
It's like three blocks.

Beach:
What does it make ho, ho, ho, ho. What does it make it so good? Is it a smash burger?

Darin:
Because they have, they have this machine.

Beach:
Well,

Darin:
They cook I think one hamburger at a time.

Beach:
No.

Darin:
And it's been there since 1930 something.

Beach:
Okay. I'm back in.

Darin:
I'm telling you what, this burger is fantastic.

Beach:
So there's a place in Hopkinsville, Kentucky that makes smash burgers. And if I'm, I hope it's Hopkinsville. So people are gonna get mad at me if it's not. And this grease, this grease that they use to marinate the burgers on is not, is like highly sought after, by chefs throughout the world. Cuz they want a jug of it. Cause he's just been using in regurgitating the same grease for like 1930s. It's just got all this flavor in it.

Darin:
I, I think that might be the secret to Paul's burgers.

Beach:
It could be.

Darin:
The delicious old, but you would love this place Beach cuz there are dead animal heads taking up every square inch of space on the walls. Watching you eat this delicious

Jessie Burnette:
Above the bar, on the sides, everywhere you go.

Darin:
Below you.

Jessie Burnette:
Yes.

Darin:
In the bar.

Jessie Burnette:
Oh yeah.

Darin:
It's wacky. Probably seats, what? Jessie? 50 people maybe.

Jessie Burnette:
Yeah. I, but I think it's like a local hangout. It's also, I know like the, you know, younger crew. My son goes to college over here in Dubuque too. And I know the, the kids from college go there all the time for the burgers again, they're cheap. They're like three bucks. They need $3.25 I think for cheeseburger. And they're so good.

Darin:
They really are.

Beach:
So besides trucking, Jessie, what do you do, for fun?

Jessie Burnette:
Oh, you know really just trucking is kind of the main thing that

Beach:
Oh no now come on.

Jessie Burnette:
When I'm not doing trucking

Beach:
I know what you're talking about. You get you on the weekend. It's like.

Jessie Burnette:
Yes.

Beach:
What's my numbers look like, what is the one

Jessie Burnette:
We go boating. We go hanging out with kids and the family. Really, it's just all about the family.

Beach:
Good deal. Boating. You have your own boat. You have the ski behind or the surf behind boat. What kind of boat or pontoon?

Jessie Burnette:
I do. Yeah. We have a ski surf behind, surf boat.

Beach:
Man

Darin:
Which for whatever reason I've seen it. Did you show me a picture? You were showing somebody a picture and I saw it and it also looks like a Hirschbach trailer.

Jessie Burnette:
It is. Yeah. <laugh> it's orange, white and black. It's a Hirschbach boat. Yeah. <laugh> again trucking it my weekends too. It's

Beach:
I'm a pontooner. And if I tried to come across that wake, it's over with,

Jessie Burnette:
On a pontoon.

Beach:
Oh yeah.

Jessie Burnette:
Why don't you use a ski boat? The surf boat, much easier.

Beach:
No I can't. I can't.

Darin:
That's what I have.

Beach:
I don't even want.. You, you have one, a pontoon?

Darin:
I have a Cobalt. It's a ski boat.

Beach:
I'd love to see you do this

Darin:
To do what?

Beach:
Do you get out there? And you get on the whiteboard and you surf.

Darin:
I haven't done it in years, but I, I can.

Jessie Burnette:
This could be a fun episode.

Beach:
This would, now that would be something I would watch over and over again. Now here's the thing though. Back in the day I was a, I was a slalom. I can't say it. Someone helped me with that

Beach:
Single.

Darin:
Slalom?

Beach:
Perfect. There you go. Thank you. Skier champion. Did you know this?

Jessie Burnette:
Wow.

Darin:
How did you know this?

Beach:
That's not true. That's not true.

Darin:
Soddy Daisy daily.

Beach:
Yeah, but you had to wear, I don't know what it was, but anytime I was going out and going skiing, whether it be, you know, regular two skis, one ski, I had to wear jorts. I don't know what it is about jorts, cutoff jean shorts.

Darin:
Well, I thought you said Jordans like you're wearing Air Jordan tennis shoes.

Jessie Burnette:
That's what I thought he said too.

Beach:
Jorts.

Jessie Burnette:
OK.

Beach:
You gotta have the cutoff jorts with the, with the fray. And you had to have that part and I don't know what it was, but when I had those jorts on

Darin:
You're unstoppable,

Beach:
Unstoppable.

Jessie Burnette:
I mean, I could see this being a thing now. I think we go on Darin's Cobalt. You wear your, whatever you call 'em

Beach:
Jorts

Jessie Burnette:
You can ski.

Beach:
What did you just call 'em cut off jean shorts in Iowa? They're jorts.

Jessie Burnette:
I've never heard that term before ever in my life.

Beach:
Really?

Darin:
I have.

Beach:
Seriously? Oh my gosh.

Darin:
But here's he deal, I boat. I boat on the same lake. I've been on the same lake for 20 years and I don't necessarily want everybody to see me pulling Beach around in jorts behind my boat. We'd have to do it on an off day or like a Tuesday or something.

Beach:
Can you imagine the amount of can you imagine the amount of gas power that you'd have to push that boat on just to get me up.

Darin:
<Laugh>

Beach:
It would like a wall of water over my head, me holding my breath for at least two minutes when I come up

Darin:
We could, we'll

Jessie Burnette:
I don't think you could hold on for two minutes.

Darin:
We'll take you to Dubuque. You can do it on the Mississippi.

Jessie Burnette:
There you go.

Darin:
You can go with the, with the channel and you'll be fine. We'll get you a foot long, hot dog.

Beach:
<Laugh>

Jessie Burnette:
Paul's burger for later on

Beach:
Some Advil, lots of Advil.

Darin:
What's that? There's a really great brewery down on the corner from Paul's now, too. What's that?

Jessie Burnette:
Gosh, there's so many of 'em now. I mean there's <>brewing there's Seven Hills Brewing, there's Back Pocket Brewing. There's quite a few of 'em in town now.

Darin:
Dubuque's got it going on. They've done a lot of really cool stuff in the last couple of years

Jessie Burnette:
They have. Lot of food, a lot of good drinks, a lot of good food places. So.

Darin:
And I just, I just did the math. You're getting married on my 55th birthday.

Jessie Burnette:
Really?

Darin:
So there's no excuses for ever missing my birthday again.

Jessie Burnette:
Well, happy birthday.

Beach:
I thought you were older than that.

Jessie Burnette:
I mean, I might be a little bit occupied, you know, this coming birthday, but I'll tell you happy birthday after that

Darin:
Nine shopping days, right.

Jessie Burnette:
There you go. Yeah.

Beach:
But what would you

Jessie Burnette:
Nothing else to do

Beach:
Turning 55. What would you want for your party? What is something you need?

Darin:
I don't need anything. You know what I'm doing?

Beach:
What?

Darin:
I opened up my mouth last year to my kids and who were making fun of me for being old and outta shape. And

Beach:
Mm-Hmm <affirmative>

Darin:
Which is fair. I am old and outta shape. And I told them that I would do a 5k once a month at 55. So I've been training for the last couple months and I have a 5k in two days.

Jessie Burnette:
That's amazing.

Darin:
I will do one every month for the next 12 months.

Beach:
Now, is this in your neighborhood, your 5k or are you, did you just create your own 5k?

Darin:
No, these are competitive. I mean, I'm not competitive, but they are 5k races. I'm not just running around the block 70 times.

Beach:
<Laugh>

Darin:
<Laugh>

Jessie Burnette:
So they have 5ks throughout all of Iowa winter where you're from?

Darin:
No, that's gonna be a little bit of a challenge, but we spend January, February and part of March or excuse me, February, March and part of April in Arizona. Oh. So I'll be able to do those and I I've been amazed at how they have these virtual 5Ks.

Jessie Burnette:
Huh?

Darin:
So you get on a treadmill, online, and run a 5k with people from all over the world. So.

Jessie Burnette:
Have you

Darin:
I'm assuming that,

Jessie Burnette:
Have you done that yet?

Beach:
Look at this. This is it.

Darin:
My first is

Beach:
My virtual. I'm doing a virtual 5k right now.

Darin:
<Laugh> you might be onto something there Beach.

Jessie Burnette:
Oh shit.

Darin:
It's my first one is Saturday. So no I've never done one and

Jessie Burnette:
Well, congrat that's huge. That's awesome.

Darin:
I'm scared.

Beach:
So,

Darin:
Well, if I live through it, we'll get this thing published. And

Beach:
What are you, what, what are you wearing for this 5k? So no,

Darin:
Pleat jorts?

Darin:
Jorts would be wonderful, but please tell me explain to me

Darin:
And an Iowa football helmet.

Beach:
Is it like, is it like the, the running tight? What do you call those biker? Short, tight

Darin:
Unitard?

Beach:
Are you wearing that?

Darin:
Singlet? No, I am not.

Beach:
Please?

Darin:
I am wearing a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt.

Beach:
I will buy you a.. Now... Hey.. Hey, write this down for Darin. Get him one of them. Little tight. A schmedium. Yeah,

Jessie Burnette:
Medium.

Darin:
Medium.

Darin:
I'm not sure they make double, extra medium running singlets.

Jessie Burnette:
Leotards.

Darin:
Those are typically for skinnier people.

Jessie Burnette:
Oh, that's too funny.

Darin:
I'm not really going for speed. I'm more of a, just getting it done. Type of deal.

Jessie Burnette:
You know, accomplishing a 5k is going to be, that's awesome. I'm, I would love that. So congratulations to you.

Darin:
Well, thank you. It's I'm scared to death. We'll see how it goes.

Jessie Burnette:
You'll be great.

Beach:
You gotta do a live video of it though.

Darin:
I'm I'm just gonna try to breathe.

Beach:
I mean, I would stay literally, if you did a live it, I would stay with you the full two or three hours it's gonna take you to, I'd stay with it and watch it.

Darin:
Two or three hours? It's a 5k, not a marathon. <Laugh> if it takes me two hours, it'll involve a trip to the hospital.

Beach:
It wouldn't mean at one point I, I would, I, I used to, played soccer. That was my sport. Played it for,

Darin:
Which is incredibly high, intense

Beach:
26 years ran and goofed. And then now if I go out and run, mm, my knees are like, what you doing? No, go back inside

Darin:
Took a two month process to get back in. I haven't ran in since high school, man. I mean, and back then, I just did it to cut weight. I mean, all the wrong reasons.

Beach:
Jessie, do you run?

Jessie Burnette:
No.

Beach:
No.

Jessie Burnette:
Not unless.

Beach:
I don't either.

Jessie Burnette:
Not unless I'm being chased by something, but no, maybe a big spider or like, you know a dog. I don't know.

Beach:
So did you ever go down, did y'all ever have a basement? And when you went down in the basement an the lights

Darin:
We live in Iowa. Everybody has basements.

Beach:
So you went down the basement, the lights are turned off, you turned the lights off. Do you run up the stairs? Like I ain't standing in the dark basement. Did you just completely start taking off as fast as you can? Was that? No.

Jessie Burnette:
No. Do you do that?

Beach:
Yeah.

Darin:
Hell I still do it.

Beach:
<Laugh> yes. There's no way. I'm not exactly. I'm gonna go down, grab whatever it is in the basement. And the light comes up. I'm jetting up that thing. There's no way.

Darin:
Mine's a, I could be the only guy down there for three hours watching a game. I know there's nothing down there, but me and I still, I gotta get outta there when that light goes off. No, I don't like it.

Jessie Burnette:
I mean, I have a little dog, right? He's four pounds. He's like this big, his name's Cujo. And so he protects me from anything. So we're ok

Darin:
A Yorkie?

Jessie Burnette:
A Morky.

Darin:
Morky? What's a Morky?

Jessie Burnette:
He's a, Maltese and a Yorky. Squish.

Darin:
He's only four pounds? Wow.

Jessie Burnette:
He's four pounds.

Beach:
I would

Darin:
I've got two Yorkies.

Beach:
I have, I wanna see this dog. Number two, we had a dog like that and it was a Yorky and he was 14 pounds of pure muscle. He was only supposed to be four pounds.

Darin:
Obviously, Jessie's never listened to the show.

Beach:
Yeah, she has. Oh yeah. You need, you need to go back. I'm not gonna tell the story of Sampson. That was his name.

Jessie Burnette:
Did something bad happen to Sampson? Cause if it did, I cannot listen to it. I can't.

Beach:
No, no, no. He was just a beast.

Darin:
I wouldn't, I wouldn't let him tell that on the podcast.

Beach:
Yeah, he was a beast.

Darin:
What, what was that? When we did we had Rob on the show. Yeah. Rob Hatchett. Yep. Listen to the Rob Hatchett. It's.

Jessie Burnette:
Okay.

Beach:
Yeah. He was just pure muscle.

Darin:
Fascinating.

Beach:
Just mean and pure muscle.

Jessie Burnette:
See mine. Mine's not mean though. His name is mean, but he's. He is like, he'll just lick you to death.

Beach:
Have you ever watched Cujo?

Jessie Burnette:
Well, I've never watched it, but I know of the movie and he's named after that, you know? It's like,

Beach:
You gotta watch it.

Jessie Burnette:
Big, scary dog, little four pounds. It's fine.

Beach:
Go watch.

Darin:
We have Yorkies. And for years, and years and years, I tried to find them. Those studed collars, you know, like the big pit bulls. They don't make them in a extra small.

Jessie Burnette:
Never seen them.

Beach:
I'd love. You could wear one for your 5K.

Darin:
Jorts and a studded collar

Jessie Burnette:
And a leotard

Darin:
And the unitard. That's we, I can hear people turning this off right now. <Laugh>

Beach:
Imagine how many people would need to seek counseling. Honey, come to the window and look what I'm seeing out here.

Jessie Burnette:
You could have a fan crowd coming out to watch you run.

Darin:
I don't think so.

Beach:
<Laugh> I'd get my lawn chair out. And if you were running a circle, I'd sit out there and wait on

Darin:
<Laugh>. It's not a circle. It's a, well, I mean, it's a circle, but it's a five or three mile jaunt through this town.

Beach:
What town is it?

Darin:
Mount Vernon. Iowa.

Jessie Burnette:
What day is it?

Darin:
Saturday? Don't show up. Jessie. You've got wedding plans. Probably a big bachelorette party this Saturday.

Jessie Burnette:
No, no, no. We had that a few weeks ago. Like that, that, that gets intense. So we need to like separate the events, so we can,

Darin:
Did you go to Nashville? Like every other bachelorette in America?

Beach:
<Laugh>

Jessie Burnette:
No, We thought about it. It was on the list.

Darin:
<Laugh>

Beach:
Where'd you go to?

Jessie Burnette:
We went to Okoboji.

Darin:
Oh yeah.

Jessie Burnette:
Darin, uou know,

Darin:
Fun stuff.

Beach:
What is Okoboji?

Darin:
The Disneyland of Iowa. It's an old, it's a, it's a big lake, but it's kind of old. They haven't really updated the town in what? I don't know, 40 years. So it's kind of, I mean, it's charming, right, but in a fun kind way.

Jessie Burnette:
Yeah. Big, huge party, barge boats and lots of bars to choose from. Good restaurants. Good food, good people.

Beach:
And what's your, what's your go-to drink, Jessie?

Jessie Burnette:
Titos vodka

Darin:
Straight?

Jessie Burnette:
I mean, I can mix it with cranberry or Sprite or, you know, 7-up, straight,

Beach:
But it has to be Titos?

Jessie Burnette:
Yes.

Darin:
We haven't drank on the show in a while for a happy hour podcast.

Jessie Burnette:
I'm in the office so I can't drink right now, but maybe next time.

Darin:
No, but we can.

Beach:
We need to.

Darin:
And we don't ever tell anybody what time we're doing this, for all they know it's.

Jessie Burnette:
Oh yeah.

Darin:
Six o'clock at night.

Jessie Burnette:
That's true.

Darin:
<Laugh> now the people on the office you're in might notice.

Jessie Burnette:
Yeah. The one day when you sent me the message, I thought we're doing the podcast on Saturday. I think that was actually the weekend for the bachelorette party. And I was like, I don't think that's gonna work for me guys.

Darin:
Yeah. Yeah. You give us way too much credit if you think we do this on Saturdays.

Beach:
I felt that was the one time I felt like I am actually on point neither Darin nor Jessie knowing the heck they're talking about. I had no idea what their calendar's going on. I'm the professional one in this little group here and I felt good for that one for that one email chain. And after that, just one's second.

Darin:
Well then I think I sent another date. That was also a Saturday where

Beach:
You did

Darin:
I messed it up worse. Yeah. Yeah. I took it. I went from bad to worse. Beach, you said you had a trucking question for Jessie, was it about the Uber drivers?

Beach:
Yes. It was about the Uber drivers. I mean, I just find that

Darin:
That was a trucking question.

Beach:
Yeah.

Darin:
I guess it played in.

Jessie Burnette:
It's a very new recruiting strategy. I'm sending recruiters to see Uber drivers. And

Beach:
Now I did ask you this question a while back, Jessie, how's your, how's the truck driving training program going for y'all?

Jessie Burnette:
Yeah, our truck driving training program. So we've launched it a couple different times in my lovely tenure here at Hirschbach this time. We've had it going now for about a year. It's actually really good. And so we work with some incredible people who are helping us with the design, the content, the training, making sure that we're doing all the right things. You know, when COVID first hit and truck drivers kind of held onto their jobs, it was a little bit challenging for us to hire drivers and trying to convince them to come in and travel on a bus or a plane or however, we can get them here to start a new job. We said, well, and all the, the schools kind of shut down. So that's kind of why we started our own CDL school program. And so since then, it's it's been going pretty well. So we have targeted areas that we're hiring from some really great people out there. And we feel like we're trying to help people get into the industry that may not have known about truck driving and the options that it offers. So

Beach:
How's your,

Darin:
So you started this during COVID? So when the schools shut down, you said we're gonna do our own,

Jessie Burnette:
We did. Yep.

Darin:
What was it a struggle, getting people to commit to that?

Jessie Burnette:
We started pretty slow. I mean, it, there was a lot of people who were unemployed and losing their jobs and just trying to figure out what am I gonna do now? How am I gonna support my family now? And there's some people who didn't wanna work and they were okay, not working, but there's still a group of people who, you know, wanted to get into this field. And so we were, we were the outlet for them. So it wasn't a huge amount. We kept everything pretty, you know, constrained and low numbers of people in their classrooms. Just to make sure we didn't have any, you know, no COVID outbreaks or anything, but we wanted to make sure we provided that. And we knew down the road, these drivers would eventually become our part of our core fleet.

Beach:
I always find it would, I would love to know the actual data of the retention for an entry level driver across, across the nation. Just be able to have that data be amazing. And to me, I think it would show that most of those that are entry level driver, you got even better retention rate for that. And just, and that's just from my perspective back when I was in recruiting for a large carrier

Darin:
Just, I don't understand what you're saying, you're saying. So you would say that at Hirschbach specifically, or at ABC trucking specifically,

Beach:
Mm-hmm, <affirmative>.

Darin:
An entry level driver that you train is gonna stay longer than the guy you got from DEF trucking.

Beach:
I totally think so.

Darin:
Is that what you're saying?

Beach:
I would, I would think so.

Darin:
That makes sense.

Beach:
I would think because, because it's that when you stop and you look at again experience drivers as well, they, they get those bumps, right? And, and CPMs, but for an entry level driver, you're getting that student pay. Right?And there's a weekly pay for however long. And for, let's say four weeks, then you get another bump in pay, right?Usually the last four, you know, four weeks. And then for the next 60 to 90 days, you're at this level CPM. And then at after that, then you hit another. So you're getting a lot of, you know, a little bump, another bump, another bump, another bump. So there's seeing that pay increase as they go along. And so it's like that moving up the ladder in a sense as a professional driver. And I think at that, that 90 day sweet mark, right? Is that to me, is that, where are they stand? Who's staying the longest at that 90 day mark. And I think a entry level driver is, I think I just would have to guess it's a better retention. It's just my opinion.

Jessie Burnette:
Yeah. And I, I think you're under something, Matt, we haven't done a whole lot of research just to make sure. We did research beforehand right before we started the program saying, okay, we don't wanna just train people up and be their starter company, have them move on. We want them for a long time. We wanna be their career path. We wanna help them get into the industry and stay with us and be their, their choice, right? Not just here's who I can get on, get on with. And so the initial research that we did and all the analysis we did, did say that it said the drivers that we bring up on our own, we train them. There are people we continue to help develop them and make them better. They're gonna stay with us longer. So we're still, again, it's still fairly new for us, you know, start off very small and very slow. And now we're ramping up the program. So I wouldn't be able to give you enough numbers or I don't have enough research right now.

Beach:
Oh, no. Yeah.

Jessie Burnette:
To validate that. But I think you're right though. I think you're onto something.

Beach:
Yeah. I've and again, you, you, you, you made a point of the we don't, we don't want them just to come on board just for us to help them get their Class A right and get on the trainer truck and leave. And that's what a lot of you, you call 'em trainer carriers in a sense of student goes to this large carrier. They run for, you know, a certain amount of time. Once they get off the training truck. Now I've got my Class A, I feel comfortable. I'm not really. And then I'm gonna leave you guys for a local company over here, but a lot of that is, well, what's your pay structure? How's that flow look like? Are you doing tuition reimbursement, right? Are you doing a bonus when they graduate from their finishing school or whatever the program is? And so there's all those tons of little bumps and pay increases that those type of entry level drivers see. And again, I just, I just think it'd be interesting across the board for everyone that's doing a entry level driver training program. What's that retention look like? But then it goes to, well, if it's fantastic, I don't really wanna say anything <laugh> cause I don't, I don't wanna tell anybody it's good.

Jessie Burnette:
I dunno, there's enough people out there in the industry. I think that we can bring 'em all into trucking and help them all, you know, get their CDLs. Yeah. It's only gonna help us all together. So I, I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

Darin:
Probably something to be said with like career progression too. Right? I mean, you can kinda see your progression down the road if you stay with the same carrier. It makes a lot of sense. Something Beach doesn't always do on here.

Jessie Burnette:
<Laugh>

Beach:
A lot,

Darin:
Jessie we've kept you away from, from your job long enough here. But thank you very much for spending a little time with us today. Best of luck in your upcoming weeks here, it's a big big time. So, so safe travels and I hope everything goes all right for that. Don't forget, Beach is an ordained minister. If things go south on you.

Jessie Burnette:
I've got you on speed dial, Beach, just in case. And thanks for having me guys. I appreciate your time and we'll see you soon for some Paul's burgers and some foot longs

Darin:
Mulgrew's foot, long chili dogs.

Jessie Burnette:
There you go.

Darin:
Thank you very much. Be safe and keep on trucking.

Jessie Burnette:
All right. Have a good day.

Beach:
Have a good one.