Looking For An Owner

Things are starting to rapidly come together for us. It time for us to start looking around for a potential owner to drive for. We have been in contact with one owner so far, and have heard good things from several former drivers who have since went on to purchase their own trucks. This particular own is a "Fleet Owner", meaning they have a "fleet" of vehicles leased on to various carriers. There probably are some advantages to signing on with a larger fleet owner, but we will just have to wait and see.

We are wanting to get into the "White Glove" (WG) division of FedEx Custom Critical. This is a specialized part of FECC that hauls specialized, high value or other "odd" freight. There are a limited number of WG trucks available, and we hope to find an owner that will allow us into one. We know several WG teams, and after talking to them over time, this is where we would really like to end up. Time will tell.

One of the scariest things we have ran into over the last few years of researching expediting is the "Bad Owner." Horror stories of never getting paid, trucks breaking down due to lack of prior preventative maintenance, trucks actually being prepossessed right out from under teams in the middle of runs. These are situations we would clearly like to avoid!

One of the easiest ways of determining how any potential owner is to work with is how they treated their former drivers. Chances are, if the owner was "bad", former drivers probably are not going to have much good to say about them. Just have to talk to the drivers.

We also hope to get some help and advice from our carrier of choice. FedEx has a department that assists drivers in finding owners to drive for. They will put us in touch with several potential fleet owners as the time to start draws near.

We are also thinking of placing an ad on the Expediters Online Free Classified section of the EO website. Owners and drivers post available trucks and teams in hopes for finding work or finding drivers. We probably won't do that until May or June. There are several "Team Wanted" posting there now.