Todd Dills: Hey, everybody. Todd dills with this week’s edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast. Dropping to the podcast feed on this post-holiday weekend, Saturday, July 6, 2024, and featuring our June Trucker of the month, Greg Labosky, the man who is the master of the machine. In some respects, that is the Amazon loads platform relay. Labosky is operating with authority, just a single truck in that system, which rewards those who maintain the highest percentile rankings for various service levels tracked therein, Labosky is consistently above 98 there. That means he’s got early access to loads booked on time based contracts to, in essence, guarantee revenue for extended periods in advance, with time built in for planning his schedule on runs, mostly within a geographical orbit of his GDL Enterprise business’s home base in New Haven, Connecticut.

Greg Labosky: The way my schedule runs is I usually do two days with one layover and then I head home for about ten to 11 hours, then go back out. Sometimes I manage to have my reset at home. Just this week, the schedule turns out to be a little bit busier than usual. So as far as having my reset right away, it’s going to be a little bit.

Todd Dills: We were talking on a Monday a couple weeks back, and Labosky, schooled in the hours of service back to his first over the road work in the mid 1990s, is certainly no stranger to recapping hours.

Greg Labosky: Monitor the p’s and qs to watch the hours.

Todd Dills: It’s all made a little easier today, though, as he noted, with ELD systems, which yield more in the way of benefits to single truck business management, too, in his view.

Greg Labosky: I run with the motive eld that kind of keeps track of everything. What’s nice is, I started driving with paper logs, but with the eld, at least it keeps track of the mileage for now. Keeping track of the mileage for IFTA is a lot easier than it used to be.

Todd Dills: In his home state of Connecticut, too, legislators have imposed their own special miles traveled tax for commercial haulers.

Greg Labosky: Yep, that’s correct. As of right now, they’re looking to get away with it with it. But I don’t think it’s going to go away anytime soon. So far, believe it or not, with IFTA, the way it works out is I end up getting my money back from IFTA, but I end up paying it back across the board to stay connected with the HUT tax.

Todd Dills: Owner-operator Greg Labosky is just a few years into the journey of operating with authority, but as he noted, his trucking experience started in the mid-1990s, before the rise of the machine-assisted freight procurement world so many owners wrestle with today. As you’ll hear, though, this comes with Labosky’s old school knowledge and ability to adeptly tinker around the edges to take full control of the center of his business. It’s those old school qualities that have enabled his veritable mastery of that machine. As noted, he’s our trucker of the month for June, and I personally encourage you, too, to put your own business in the running or that of another deserving owner you’ve learned from, for Overdrive’s 2024 Trucker of the Year award, you can do that via overdriveonline.com/toptrucker. After the break, we’ll dive into Labosky’s history in trucking for a full picture of the man behind the wheel of GDL Enterprise. So keep tuned.

Speaker 3: Every season is diesel season, so power up yours with Howes. Poor quality fuel can wreak havoc on your engine even in the warmer months. Protect your diesel with Howes diesel additives and lubricants. 100% alcohol free and made with the highest quality ingredients, Howes products will keep your diesel vehicles and equipment running strong all year long. Visit Howesproducts.com to find out which product you need today to keep your engine running like new tomorrow. Howes. Tested, trusted, guaranteed.

Todd Dills: This time of year, it’s most often the Howes Diesel Defender product that owners are reaching for, and you can find plenty more information about Defender, Howes Diesel Treat anti gel winter formulation and many more varieties at HOWES, Howesproducts.com.

Okay, here’s owner operator Greg Labosky taking us back to his early years working the yards and more at a gypsum plant, and the conversations with owner ops and drivers that drew him into trucking with the CDL.

Greg Labosky: I was doing security work working at a gypsum plant where I was actually monitoring the traffic as far as the, truckloads going in, as far as raw materials, whether it be rolls of paper, and also the up on finished product. So I started talking to the owner operators and some of the company drivers that were coming in and hearing the type of money they were actually making. So I started to inquire, about getting my CDL around 1994 and made the decision to actually get the license and started off from there working for a large company and then was being paid per mile and then did that for roughly about three, four years. What turned me off then for a little bit was the fact that it was every week out, you would earn a day as far as home time. So that, did a big drain. So I went and off the road for a while, started working in retail, managing retail stores, but still kept my foot in the trucking industry.

Since my brother was in construction, every once in a while he would need someone to operate one of the dump trucks that his boss owned. And I would occasionally get the ability to pull several loads of gravel and make some quick money. And then I just kept in debt for a little bit. So I went back to security for a couple years, and still my, my actual heart was more into trucking.

Todd Dills: The passion for hauling, nonetheless, would remain an off and on connection in reality, through much of the first two decades of this century. 2018, though, Labusky made his move back to full time trucking. His early time as a contractor renting a power unit and leasing to a small business whose specialty was hauling within Amazon’s Relay system for freight in the shipper’s network.

Greg Labosky: Started at that point working more towards possibly an owner operating status, and then got my actual dot number using that company, Glock bear transport, as my dispatcher. He actually ended up having an issue in the pandemic where he shut down his company abruptly. And at that point, I submitted all my information to Amazon directly and became my own broker, if you would. As far as Amazon freight directly from there, that’s where I’m at today. I’m doing it all on my own at this point.

Todd Dills: The early couple of years leased on with the rental rig prepped him well for the truck purchase he would soon make to fully take those reins.

Greg Labosky: So I had a good feel on doing a lot of back office work as far as keeping track of the poles as well as the fuel expenses, just from there, and just rolled smoothly into it. The rental was okay to start. Means I was having trouble coming up with money for buying my own equipment. After a little bit, the nickel and diming in the rental industry just started to get very old and was starting to cost more than it should have. But at that point, I decided to come up with money and purchase my own equipment, which at that point was a little bit strenuous because the market for used trucks was a little bit on the tight side and the prices were inflated. When I made the actual decision to buy, I had a set idea of what type of specs I was looking for as far as I wanted. A, tractor which had a good 450 hp with a manual transmission, with a sleeper.

And at that point, a manual transmission was starting to get hard to find, but I managed to come across three that I was looking at and then made this decision to purchase the freightliner. It’s a Cascadia 125. The hood. The hoods are the back of the cab. As far as the length of the cab.

Todd Dills: Yeah, it’s got like a kind of a standard sleeper on it, looks like.

Greg Labosky: Mid roof, 60 inch sleeper, which is adequate for right now for what work I’m doing. When I was running over the road, when I first got my license, I had one of the coffin sleepers, which I was not keen on.

Todd Dills: So that’s back in the nineties?

Greg Labosky: yep. It had a small, about 48 inch sleeper. Right. And it was a cab over, so it was not much room to begin with.

Todd Dills: Tell me a little bit about making the comparisons on the models that you were looking at.

Greg Labosky: The Cascadia is a 2017 with the Detroit diesel 15. I managed to come across a ten speed, which had, a decent rear end. It has a 3.64 rear, so it’s able to hold decent weight and has a little bit more top end than I would would care for. But it does the job that I need, depending on how conservative I’m pulling and how heavy. I’m anywhere from six and a half miles to a gallon, as high as seven and a half.

Lot of the automatics that everyone raves about being able to get better fuel mileage. But I like the ability where if I’m pulling a hill, to be able to leave it in one gear and not have to worry about constant upshift and downshift and losing all the momentum on a hill. The original concern is I had a set budget I was looking to spend was the original guideline where it automatically restricted it from, eight trucks down to the three. And then when I started comparing the last three, I was looking at, I was looking at overall quality of the engine, the mileage, and the way it overall performed as far as running in the parking lot and going, taking it on the road. And also the shift pattern and just the overall tightness of the vehicle means the one vehicle I was looking at was an, international lt. The transmission itself just felt a little bit on the loose pride as far as the shift pattern. And, the overall, shifting seemed very sloppy. It wasn’t, didn’t seem that it was very well maintained when you were throwing it into the different gears. It just seemed extremely sloppy and wasn’t a solid engagement. And then the other model just seemed that I was going into the regen mode when I started up to examine it and went into the regen mode, too often. So I knew that that unit may have a potential issue with the, one box at that point. I saw down from there. As far as overall maintenance and quality and overall upkeep, from what I saw on the looking, at the engine itself and the way it handled on the road and the tightness and the amount of new parts I saw under the hood and the suspension, which narrowed it down extremely quickly.

Todd Dills: How many miles are on the, on the Cascadia today?

Greg Labosky: Currently I have 814,000 on it. I purchased it when it had 556,000. So it’s been seeing its activity, documentation I did manage to find on the unit. It was a one owner, but as far as it was running as a team or not, that I’m not sure. Didn’t seem like it sat for that long, just by the amount of mileage.

Todd Dills: On it in several years’ worth of ownership. Labosky’s evaluation efforts have borne out in good performance with few big repairs other than replacing the worn out driver’s seat, and a couple bad luck incidents with vandals and road debris.

Greg Labosky: Some of it was vandalism that occurred. Some of it was just overall bad luck. There’s time when I was driving on the cross Bronx in a construction zone, where my luck, I managed to kick up some debris in the construction area, which cracked the crankcase breather and oil pump, wherever. I didn’t realize I did that. So I was roughly about 500 miles down the road and started noticing that the oil pressure was starting to have an issue. And then I pulled over and saw the damage. So I ended up having to do extensive work on it, which was replacing the oil pan, gasket, oil pan, the crankcase breather housing, the oil pump, which put me down for a little bit. Some of it was wear and tear. As far as the cooling lines going to the diesel emission fluid heater, other than that, I’ve had a small, accident as far as rewiring the starter, but believe it or not, knock on wood, nothing truly that major on it.

Todd Dills: Probably looking at an overhaul in the next few four years, I would guess. I assume you’re probably planning on keeping it for a good while.

Greg Labosky: From what I saw. Looks like it had a partial rebuild before I actually bought the unit. Look like it had a partial upper rebuild on it. So it means a lot of components that I saw on the upper portion of the engine looked really new as far as you can tell, the gaskets were fairly new, so looks like part of it was done. Just a matter of worrying about the true lower engine rebuild. Probably at a million miles, give or take. It’s a rough guideline, which I’m probably looking at, probably having to take it down for a little bit, but I’ll see how it runs needed as far as, if I see a lot of metal being put into the actual oil sample, then I’ll start really being concerned about it. So far, oil sample itself, diving running shows that the engine is holding up fairly good. As far as any internal wear and tear.

Todd Dills: What kind of mileage interval and the oil changes are you doing? Are you sampling at a certain interval and letting that help you determine if you need to change the oil or not?

Greg Labosky: Actually, I’m in a pattern of every three months or 25,000 miles, whatever comes first, and I run a sample every time I pull the oil. There’s been times where the dealer I go to once a while may forget to do the sample, but, well, I make sure that the very next oil change, it gets done. only thing I’ve seen is once a while, there’s a few notes I get from the oil sample company that I may be idling the truck a little bit too much, where they see a little bit too much soot in the oil, and I just look through my notes and concur, or I do a little bit more often oil change for the next cycle just to flush it out to make sure I’m not running a, issue on a valve.

Todd Dills: Owner operator Labosky comes by his maintenance diligence, naturally, so to speak, with experienced mechanicking stretching back to his time in high school, a few decades and more back in the past, tinkering around with.

Greg Labosky: Believe it or not, real, old school cars. my first car itself was a 74 Ford Torino. So I had my hand in auto mechanics for quite a bit. So I had an idea of what to be looking at as far as general wear and tear on, general engines. And I just transposed some of that information into the trucking industry as far as with the diesel as well, to try to compare the apples to oranges, if you would, to get an idea of overall maintenance and what to be worrying about. Pings or knocks that you hear from the engine itself to see if there’s something coming loose or if there’s an internal issue or if it’s a. And you tell the actual injector is science to get clogged by just the way it is running as far as smooth or idling rough.

Todd Dills: I’ve talked to some folks that, run for Amazon, whether for a long period of time or just for a short period of time, just trying out their system. I know you had an entry into that. The smaller company that had some experience with that already. Did you choose it, just happenstance, just because that’s what you knew, or do you see real opportunity there long term?

Greg Labosky: Right now? I’ve been with them for myself about three years and before that, another two so far. They, they really want someone that has a little bit larger fleet, obviously, to move their product. But it’s a matter of keeping on top of your actual maintenance schedule and keeping track of your equipment to be sure you don’t get into a spot where you’re having to actually cancel loads. Lot of those due to mechanical breakdowns. I’ve had that happen a few times where they frown upon it. As far as if you broke down for too long, it hurts your overall performance.

As far as your rating with the company, it’s a matter of recouping your performance status and going from there. Far as, Overall, I’ve been holding my own as far as pulling their equipment and monitoring their pay scales, as far as what the contracts pay out and also their load boards to try to maximize my actual investment. They do want me occasionally to go into their system as more of a freight partner where I’ll be utilizing more of their equipment that they rent out to people. Right now, I’m not at the point financially where I could actually consider doing that and hiring additional people at this point. Overall, it didn’t treat me really good as far as when I bid out the contracts that I see on their system and keep me busy. Just a matter of with any large company, as a matter of keeping an eye on their actual equipment and being sure you don’t get the short end of the stick as far as with their trailers, not making sure that their trailers are off to spec and if they’re nothing, being man enough and being willing to stand your ground. As far as if the trailer you feel is not safe to operate, hold your ground and let them know that these items need to be repaired for it to be taken on the road safely.

Todd Dills: Has that been an issue in the past where you, have a trailer repair issue that sort of has caused you to have to cancel a load?

Greg Labosky: I’ve had that happen several times where it’s just a matter of tell them that the brake, the brakes issues or tire issues where I’ve had to tell them to take care of it. And there’s been times where they pulled me off the load and gave me another one to relocate the freight just to be able to keep me moving.

Todd Dills: Is it, are you, everything in their system that you’re doing is it sounds like you’re going to a drop yard and picking up a trailer that’s already loaded, things like that. Right?

Greg Labosky: 90% of the time, it actually is, for the most part, drop and hook. But there are times where it’s a true live load where they’ve actually been a little bit short on the actual movement of the customer purchases from a distribution center to a van, flex plane, which would be the final mile location. There’s been times where I’ve gone to individual service locations where I’m actually picking up a bulk purchase, which they’ve made, whether it be towels, drop metal, paper goods, or boxes for their actual packaging centers. Those are more of a live load where it’s a matter of buffing the dock and then waiting the time that’s needed to get moving.

And also, it’s been times where I’ve gone to dog food distributors where I’m actually waiting for them to actually put the palletized bags of dog food into the trailer. It’s a little bit of a mixed bag, but most of it is all dropping off for the most part.

Todd Dills: ThebBidding system that you’re in. I mean, I’m familiar with Amazon Relay, and it’s kind of the load board sort of situation.

Greg Labosky: Part of it is actually on the Relay app itself I use. But there are times when they do have some auctions where I dabble in once in a while. And the spot load board, it’s a matter of with their system, as long as you keep your performance in the higher rankings, where if you’re a, at a, 98 percentile performance, you’re actually able to get what’s known as the early bird status, where to actually see all the loads on the board ahead of time before they are actually open up to the general public to actually grab and put onto your equipment. My work is about 98% off the relay load board system itself, where it’s just better. I maintain a, high performance range. So I get an early bird peak this way to see what their rates are before everyone starts grabbing it to try to maximize my actual dollar amount, where I see the higher paying loads and right when it opens up that I’m able to actually take the loads I jump on the ones that I’m looking at first.

Todd Dills: It sound like you do get your kind of a weekly schedule put together for yourself in advance.

Greg Labosky: The way I run my company, I did. I take the contracts that are usually good three to five weeks in advance. So I’m bidding on a large sample of the contract this way. I roughly have an idea as far as what my start date originally is and what my end of that actual contract period is going to be. So this way, I have a general idea from there as far as how many of those are going to be per given week.

And then from there, just a matter of waiting till Friday for the actual true assignment to be shown. So you’re overall kind of taking the contracts sort of blind as a general, rule of thumb, unless you’re bidding off the daily load where you actually have that idea. Here’s your starting point. Here’s your delivery locations. Here’s the date start and date end versus taking it blind. And then a week ahead of time, roughly about three to four days in advance, you have a specific time window you’re actually looking at for each individual stop.

Todd Dills: When you’re bidding. These are you, in terms of the compensation, are you giving a particular rate per mile, or is it, some time based quotes that you’re giving folks, but given you don’t really know the volume of loads that you’re going to have, or the mileage of them anyway, how do you have you. How do you operate in that system that way?

Greg Labosky: What their block system is, they have a general rate as far as what they’re looking to pay for a given block. And you have three blocks you’re taking per actual week. From there, we get the additional compensation for the fuel surcharge and the toll reimbursement we’re able to get. Block rate varies a little bit as far as a couple hundred dollars up and down. And then this bill surcharge, that’s the national standard that they run. And their total reimbursement they use. Their system is based on their mapping system. So if you know how to use the old school where you’re looking at a map, you know, you may be able to save yourself some actual out of pocket expense and then pocket the total money they’re giving you.

But there’s other times where just for time that you’re running and the, overall appointment window, sometimes it is not to your advantage. And there are times quite often that if I’m running in the New York area, their way of driving as far as what route they want you to run versus the way I run, sometimes it helps, sometimes it hurts as far as going over the bridges and that sometimes they want to go over less bridges. But from where I’m at in the time, windows, I run the way I know, which sometimes costs a little bit more. But we take the good with the bad. The old school mapping system that we grew up with does come into play quite a bit as far as being able to find ways around, and sometimes the, gps may not find the location. So you got to divert back to old school. Looking at a map, looking at a grid, finding it out from there.

Todd Dills: It sounds like you’ve definitely figured out how to kind of stay at a, high rating value in that system and sort of make that, that delivers all the better opportunities to you.

Greg Labosky: You need to be on top of your game as far as your appointment windows, being able to get there on time and also not refusing work and making sure that your start time, end time, and your actual overall use of their system is on the up and up. And then you make sure that all your e bills are filed properly to make sure that your actual documentation is correct.

Todd Dills: Are you bringing in more income as an owner operator, than you were before?

Greg Labosky: It does have its good points and its bad points as far as I do seem to be making more overall, just a matter of keeping the budget straightforward. This way you don’t have any unexpected occurrences where you get caught as far as being unable to pay for a repair that’s needed. But overall, it’s been roughly the 15 to 20,000 I’ve been seeing right now that I’m easily able to say that I’m making more as far as in my pocket then versus a company, driver, but obviously still being a little bit new in the system. It’s a matter of still learning how to optimize everything to get the most overall net profit into my pocket.

Todd Dills: What do you do for health insurance, retirement savings, things of that nature?

Greg Labosky: The retirement so far I do have a 401k, which I’ve been slowly putting money into. As far as health insurance, I’ve been doing with what connect it has is the access health plan. We’re able to get contracted health insurance from either Blue Cross Blue Shield or a, various array of other healthcare providers purchasing it. That way, whatever’s left over, I put aside into savings to try to build a nest egg for future expenditures or future long term goals.

Todd Dills: Do you have a formula for those set asides, or is it just simply a matter of, what you’ve got at the end of the day?

Greg Labosky: Right now, it’s been back and forth. The goal that I originally wanted was to try to put us roughly ten cents of a dollar aside, but that didn’t seem to work out. Means just by the way the nature of these been running. So I try to set aside at least 300 to six, hundred dollars to put aside just the raw savings right off the top. Just better going from there and decides where I was seeing, able to put more aside. It’s just a matter of how things work out. As far as at the end of the month, when the. When everything’s paid off, what the balance is left over, and then go from there. As far as putting money aside for savings, aside from taking money out for retirement.

Todd Dills: That’s an important thing, right? A lot of people just starting out don’t bother with it. But the earlier you do it and start, what are you going to come out with in the end? how old are you now, Greg?

Greg Labosky: Unfortunately, I’m getting up there. I’m 52 right now.

Todd Dills: Got a good bit of time, though, to continue to build this business. You’ve got the operation in pretty sharp shape, in a lot of ways. what are the plans, for the. I don’t know, the longer term future.

Greg Labosky: Longer term, I eventually would like to buy a brand new one. As a matter of seeing what the admissions centers go to about how quickly that may actually occur. I ideally want to be running this unit for a couple years without a payment, seeing what goes on from there. Long term, I would like to get the company set up where I may actually be able to hire one or two people to work for me. So I’d be able to go and keep the business growing, if you would. It’s just a matter of getting to the point where I’m comfortable enough to actually be able to sustain it, is what the key is at this point.

Todd Dills: How much time do you have left on your truck note?

Greg Labosky: A year and a half left before it’s completely paid for.

Todd Dills: Might one wager a potential small fleet champ contender in the future of GDL Enterprise and owner Greg Labosky? Time will tell on that score for now, with lessons learned in his first several years of operations with authority fresh in his mind, I asked him, as we do for most all of our trucker of the year contenders, for his best piece of advice for anyone thinking about venturing into trucking with authority or as an owner operator.

Greg Labosky: Generally keep a good record of every single thing you’ve done in the past as far as running your company, maintaining a good credit as far as personal credit establishment, and be able to have a good idea of bookkeeping, to be able to do the math yourself instead of paying a bookkeeper, or an accountant to do all the work, and also to be a little bit mechanically inclined. So this way, if something does break down where when I actually got my CDL, I was being paid per mile. So if the wheels weren’t moving, you were not making money. So being able to have an idea on how to do band aids, if you will. If you break down, to be able to get to somewhere where you could actually truly repair the unit instead of having to pay someone to come out to you all the time. As far as a roadside actual repair means, those can add up quite quickly.

Todd Dills: Another piece of advice, one echoed by almost every truck of the year contender we’ve profiled through the years. Build that nest egg for the unforeseen, which you heard owner operator Labosky detail his own practices around earlier. He later told me he strives to keep upwards of 4000 readily available cash on hand in that regard, and other owner operators have recommended a level well above that, particularly as the truck ages and the prospects of a big engine rebuild or necessary upgrade get closer and closer.

In any case, that’s a wrap on this week’s edition of Overdrive Radio. Here’s hoping your fourth was excellent. Wherever you happen to be out there on the road or back home for the festivities. Congrats to June Trucker of the Month Greg Labosky again for his nomination and for advancing as one of ten semifinalists for the 2024 Trucker of the Year award. You can put your own business in the running, or that of another deserving owner you admire via overdriveonline.com/toptrucker. That’s overdriveonline.com toptrucker. Here’s a big thanks for listening. Overdrive radio is on Spotify and Soundcloud, Apple Podcast and YouTube. Tune in podcast Addict most any listening platform subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. You can find me in all of our episodes via the world famous overdriveonline.com OverdriveOnline.com/Overdrive-Radio.