Off to the MATS!

We are excited about attending our first MATS: The Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, KY. The MATS is the largest heavy-duty truck show in the world. This year they are expecting between 75,000 and 80,000 people to show up!

This will be our first MATS and are really looking forward to getting to see the exhibits, vendors and of course, the new trucks! Although expediting only represents a very small portion of trucking industry as a whole, there will be several expedited freight carriers at the show (including our future carrier of choice, FedEx Custom Critical.) It will be a great change for us to get an "up close and personal" look at whats new in trucking.

Expediting Requirements

As I mentioned in my last post, we are looking at becoming expediters. I thought I would share a little about what is required to do so.

Neither Judy nor I have any recent driving experience. This will be a limiting factor for us. We will be driving for a carrier. As far as I have been able to tell, only two major expedite carriers will sign on drivers with no experience, FedEx Custom Critical (FECC) and Panther Expedited Services, Inc. (Panther is the largest expedited freight carrier, while FECC is right behind.) We have decided on FECC as our carrier of choice. Nothing against Panther, we just had to choose, and we both feel that FECC is the best choice for us at this time.

So what do we need to be able to become expediters?

1. Class B Commercial Drivers License - A class "B" CDL allows us to drive any straight truck, including those this air brakes. Any truck with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of over 26,000 lbs. requires at least a Class B CDL. We would need a class "A" to drive a semi. There is also a class "C" CDL that allows anyone to transport hazardous materials in cargo vans. We have to pass the written portions and driving portions in order to get our licenses.
2. Hazardous Materials Endorsement - This is an endorsement to the CDL that would allow us to transport hazardous materials (HazMat). These could include explosives, dangerous chemicals or even toxic gases. Scary. Not all expediters carry HazMat, but FECC requires us to have the HazMat endorsement. Have to be fingerprinted and pass a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) background check. 
3. US Passport (unrestricted access into and out of Canada) - Not all expediting companies run into Canada, but FECC does. We are required to have either a US passport or other credential that allows us to cross the US/Canadian border. We are opting for the passport.
4. Clean Driving Record - For what we are looking at doing, a clean driving record is a must. For us, this is not a problem, as we both have clean records.
5. No Criminal History - Again, makes sense. And you have to have a FBI background check to get the HazMat endorsement. Again, not problems for us. Educators have to have a background check every year, so we are familiar with the basic process.
6. A Truck - I know, this is pretty self-explanatory. Since we don't have a truck (and they cost a lot of money), we will be starting out driving someone else's (Owner) truck. There are people or companies that have trucks available to drive. You pay them so much (usually a percentage of each load) and they provide you with a truck. Nice. 

Ok, so that's about it. Sounds simple, right? We have a lot of work to do between now and the beginning of July. A little over three months!

Looking at Expediting as a Career Change

Welcome to our blog!

We're Judy and Jim. We live in Ohio and are looking at changing careers. We both currently work in education at a small public charter school. We have reached a point in our lives where we are ready for new challenges and adventures. Our three wonderful children are young adults now, and off living their own lives. We are also Christians, and have felt for sometime that we need to get out and get in touch with and help others. We think this new direction will allow us to do so.

In short, it's simply time for a change!

So what are we looking at doing? And why?

We are looking at becoming Team Straight Truck Expediters for FedEx Custom Critical. What's that you ask?

Well, expediting is a segment of the trucking industry that specializes in delivering "emergency" or "dedicated use" freight. If someone forgot to order enough widgets and a production line was in danger of shutting down, the company would call on an expediter to save the day. The driver(s) would pick up the freight from the supplier and deliver it directly to wherever it was needed. A lot of the freight expediters haul is the result of someone, somewhere making a mistake in not ordering enough of something or ordering the wrong item. Expediters save the day!

Another type of freight is dedicated use. In this case, a customer buys the "use" of an expediter's truck to transport something from point "A" to point "B". They buy the use of the entire truck, and their freight is the only thing on the expediters truck. It could be a valuable work of are, in important piece of machinery or even a part for the space shuttle! The entire run is dedicated to the one customer.

We are going to be driving a straight truck, not a semi. A straight truck has the cargo box directly attached to the frame of the truck. There is no trailer, although the front, straights trucks look just like (and actually are) the same as semis.

Some very good additional information on Expediting can be found here: Successful Expediters. This is a daily blog written by Phil Madsen. Phil and his wife, Diane have been expediters for several years now. We first became interested in expediting by reading and following his blog. Another great source of information is Expediters Online, or EO for short. EO has many articles on the expediting industry as well as an open forum where there is a wealth of information for those wanting to look into expediting as a possible career.

We hope to be driving for FedEx Custom Critical. They are a division of FedEx that specializes in expedited freight. We would be driving someone else's (called an owner) truck to start out, and hopefully maybe buying our own truck in two or three years.

We'll be documenting some of the steps we are taking along the way. Hopefully some of you will find this interesting!

Thanks again for stopping by!