{"id":1716,"date":"2021-01-11T19:58:58","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T19:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/?p=1716"},"modified":"2021-01-12T16:32:26","modified_gmt":"2021-01-12T16:32:26","slug":"wilson-logistics-breaks-through-in-best-fleets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/other-news\/2021\/01\/11\/wilson-logistics-breaks-through-in-best-fleets\/1716\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilson Logistics Breaks Through in Best Fleets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Al Muskewitz<\/strong>

It was just about lunch time on the West Coast. The news had been out for just about six hours and Scott Manthey admitted it still hadn\u2019t sunk in yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Manthey, the vice president of safety and training for Wilson Logistics, had been waiting anxiously, like trucking industry leaders across the country, for the announcement of the annual Best Fleets to Drive For finalists.

Finally, after months of filling out surveys and conducting interviews, the results came across social media. After several years trying to break through \u2013 and coming oh-so-close last year \u2013 Wilson Logistics had broken into the Top 20.

\u201cWe learned of it this morning with everybody else and since it\u2019s the first time in the history of the organization, you kind of sit back and take pause almost because you think not too many years where were we as a company and how far this organization has come,\u201d Manthey told Wright Media from his office in Seattle. \u201cIn a very short period of time everybody working together we\u2019re now in a pretty elite group of carriers that are recognized as Top 20 in North America.

\u201cI\u2019m not necessarily sure it\u2019s sunk in yet. It\u2019s a good feeling. I know our folks here are pretty excited. With COVID taking the front stage in 2020 the team here is appreciating everything every person at Wilson does for them to make things better and it was proven today when the announcement came out. It was kind of like you got that cool Christmas present and never thought you\u2019d get it.\u201d

Wilson, based in Springfield, Mo., had been participating in the Best Fleets program for several years and had been doing things right for its more than 1,000 drivers and contractors, but only recently started a concerted effort to move to the next level. It got on the Best Fleets radar last year as a Fleets to Watch, one of five carriers just outside the Top 20, before breaking through this year.

It is one of four newcomers on a list that includes many multi-year finalists. Two overall winners \u2013 in small and large classes \u2013 will be announced in April during the Truckload Carriers Association\u2019s annual convention in Las Vegas.

\u201cWe are honored to receive this award and proud of the recognition,\u201d Wilson President\/CFO Ryan Farrell told Wright Media. \u201cTo us, this reflects our mentality and belief that our drivers are not just part of the organization, but they are the backbone to everything we do. They are not just associates, but family.\u201d

To be considered for the award companies operating 10 or more trucks have to be nominated by one of their drivers or owner-operators. Then they are evaluated on a scoring system that rates elements such as compensation, health benefits, performance management, professional development and advancement opportunities. Savvy operators apply the lessons from the winners and the conclusions of their own survey results to make their own operations stronger.

\u201cWhen the drivers are the ones speaking for you what that tells us is whatever we\u2019re doing \u2013 and we know we\u2019re not perfect \u2013 we\u2019re on the right path,\u201d Manthey said. \u201cTruth be told, we didn\u2019t think we could get Top 20, there are a lot of great owners out there, but we certainly believed it would at least be good to be considered. There was a little bit of anticipation, but if we didn\u2019t get named we knew we were going to be able to have the report so we knew one way or another it was a win.\u201d

Wilson is the fourth-largest carrier among this year’s finalists with 1,051 drivers\/contractors, one of four with 1,000 or more, but you don\u2019t have to be a giant carrier to be recognized for doing the right thing. The smallest carrier among the finalists has 25 drivers\/contractors.

There wasn’t one specific area that carried Wilson over the top this year. The management team simply looked at the overall operation and tried to identify areas it could change to create a better work environment for its drivers.

The carrier made changes to routes and lanes to promote more home time. It offered an option to not work weekends. It brought drivers into the decision-making process. It even opened safety meetings to personnel throughout the company for a broader perspective; that transparency Manthey said, \u201chas made us a better company.\u201d

On the safety front, Wilson recently finished second in Division V (50-99.99 million miles) in the TCA\u2019s Fleet Safety Awards, effectively the safest carrier in the Lower 48 in that division. It was No. 3 in the division the year before.

\u201cIn my opinion, and Darrel (Wilson, owner\/CEO) would echo these sentiments, we work hard on making sure we hire the right people to do the right thing,\u201d Manthey said. \u201cWe do have the right people. We do have the dedicated people. But we have people who care about each other. There could be even more adversity and Wilson, based on the people on staff and our drivers, they\u2019re pretty tough bunch. They’re resilient, and, frankly, they care about one another. COVID or no COVID, this group I think is just proud to be part of the Wilson team.\u201d

Now that it has broken through, what\u2019s Wilson do for an encore?

\u201cWe\u2019re just going to keep doing what we do,\u201d Manthey said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to keep caring about our people. We\u2019re going to keep listening and if we hear and see things that we need to make adjustments on, we’ll do it.

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to build an organization that you\u2019d be proud to have your children work for. In doing that, you have to adjust, you have to listen, you have to empower. We\u2019re going to continue doing what we\u2019re doing and taking care of folks and we\u2019ll see what the future holds.\u201d

Al Muskewitz is the Editor of Wright Media. He can be reached at <\/em>musky@wrightmediacorp.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To see available truck driving jobs at Wilson Logistics, click this link <\/em>https:\/\/rb.gy\/nupbgs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Al MuskewitzIt was just about lunch time on the West Coast. The news had been out for just about six hours and Scott Manthey admitted it still hadn\u2019t sunk in yet. Manthey, the vice…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[211],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1716"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1748,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions\/1748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}