Stan Koch and Sons

I started with them 02/04/2011 and my first four years there were great. I had people that were my age or older and knew how to keep me busy. I was recently fired by John, Director of Safety on 07/23/2018 for overspeed and alleged hard braking. After seven and a half years there, I have never had anyone from safety inform me of any of these incidents until these last couple of months. So after seven and a half years with them of on time pick ups and deliveries and clean DoT random stops, the above mentioned incidents are all of a sudden a big deal. The overspeed incidents occured going downhill hill with heavy loads in TN and PA mostly. The hard braking incidents are ghost incidents due to potholes, railroad tracks, popping out of gear, or getting stuck in snow, ice, mud or on a steep incline at a DC or store going into and out of their docks. I've never had to slam on my brakes in 39 years driving trucks whether it was stopped traffic, bad weather or a light changing from green to red. I've told him and them numerous times about the hard braking incidents when he or they asked about them. Eighty percent of the time I was blindsided by that because no alerts ever showed up on my end on the Qualcomm.
They've had four complete Safety Department turnarounds, three or four changes in Planning, Dispatch, Customer Service, Risk Departments, and three changes from the V.P. of Operations, Director of Operations and the Director of OTR Operations since I've been there.
I've had nine Fleet Managers in the seven and a half years that I've been there because they either quit, moved to a different department, or got demoted because of the numerous changes in management over that period of time.
John was a restaurant manager with a job or two in between before becoming the Director of Safety for Koch two or three years ago. So he has a lot of experience on how trucks operate, drivers drive and what the Qualcomm records as unsafe incidents and why and how they happen. NOT! At least from where I was sitting anyway. He sits at his desk staring at a computer allday long.
The company only has three OTR dispatchers, three planners, and however many dispatchers for their dedicated accounts for around 800 trucks.
I don't think that they have anyone over 35 in OTR Disptch or Planning which wasn't working for me dealing with kids on a daily basis.
You will be sitting at times, mostly weekends and holidays which will screwup your next check because of Friday's cutoff at 1700/5pmCST, and might not get home when you want to. If you don't, just take another day off. I had to be home on a certain day only twice in my seven and a half years there, and they blew that. All of the other times I was flexible on getting home including doctor's appointments. I stayed out from three to six weeks the whole time that I was there depending on what bill was due when and how fast I could make as much money as possible in those three to six weeks.
No paid holidays. Layover is a joke at $50.00 a day. I've never worked for a company that didn't pay holiday pay or had a cutoff for getting BoLs turned on a Friday. This was a first for me working for them. I made up my holiday pay in other ways because I worked most of them anyway.
If you want layover, detention or hourly pay for sweeping out a trailer, driving around looking for trailers you have to request it. Don't do it by phone, send it through the Qualcomm/Innotracs system or by email so that you have it in black and white. If you don't get it, then go over whoever's head and tell them about it. I had everyone's email from my Fleet Mngr's all the way up to the Dir of Ops and I usually got an answer or paid for work that I did that my Fleet Mngr wouldn't pay me for.
If you don't keep track of everything you do, payroll will miss stuff sometimes and your pay will be off. Let them know about it, and they'll add to your next check. I've never had a problem with their payroll department when it came to my pay.
Their Road Service Department and shop is the best that I have ever dealt with anywhere. They fix things right the first time and are very thorough. They find things they you didn't and fix it right away. Jim and James run the shop and are very nice and approachable and have answers without looking in some manual. The mechanics are the best that I have ever encountered also. If you need a PM, get your Fleet Mngr to route you to Minneapolis if you can or the Ardmore shop. Don't screw around with TA, Petro, or Loves unless,it's just tires.
Last but not least, get the legal plan that they offer in orientation. It's worth the $7.96 per week to keep your MVR straight. I've only had one moving violation assessed when I was there, and that was in 03/2011. Everything else was knocked down to illegally parked or something like that. Chris in Safety who handles those issues likes to think you're guilty before you even go to court or pay it. She bugs you once a week on the status of whatever violation you received. Make sure you send whatever you have by Qualcomm or email to her as well so that it's in black and white.