Trucker of the Month leans into owner-op pleasure, biz brass tacks

„There is no feeling like being an owner- operator, your individual boss, you realize, when issues are good.“ —Kenny Wingate, proprietor of Southpoint Alternate        

The voice you will hear on the high of this Overdrive Radio version is that of Overdrive’s February Trucker of the Month Kenny Wingate. Clearly, he is aware of of what he speaks when he invokes the sensation — nothing prefer it — that he associates with better of trucking: as an owner-operator, working your individual recreation when occasions are good. It is a part of what drove him to take the leap again from firm work he was doing to launch his Southpoint Alternate businss with one truck and his personal authority in 2019.

He’s as much as two vans at present, headquartered in Auburndale, Florida.

[Related: How trucking’s ’supposed to be done‘: Trucker of the Month Kenny Wingate, Southpoint Exchange]

The proud proprietor of two sharp Peterbilt 579s and stainless reefers has centered all through the corporate’s comparatively quick six-year historical past on enterprise brass tacks, constructing a crew round him for freight with common brokers, lots of whom he’s identified going again a long time. Likewise on the accounting, bookkeeping and basic enterprise administration aspect of Southpoint Alternate, and he is arrange for additional development after a lifetime spent trucking, as you’ll hear within the podcast.

He is 55 years younger at present and takes pleasure in and cousel from that lengthy historical past within the enterprise, although most of the males he realized from, and a few of these he got here up with in trucking, have handed on. Magnanimous in method, clearly on high of his recreation as a enterprise proprietor, Wingate can be nothing if not grateful for all the assistance of those that got here earlier than him.

„Our technology is beginning to be few and much between,“ he mentioned, telling the story then of an opportunity encounter of an previous buddy and colleague on the dock. „The opposite day I run throughout a gentleman I most likely hadn’t seen in 25 years, and we trucked collectively,“ Wingate mentioned. „We sat down on an previous picket bench behind our trailers whereas we have been getting loaded,“ remembering all those that got here earlier than. But additionally „we simply laughed, man, and simply lower the idiot, and it felt good. It felt good to see any individual that you simply trucked with years in the past, you realize, when when issues have been a bit of completely different.“

Overdrive Radio’s sponsor is Howes, longtime supplier of gasoline therapies like its Howes Diesel Defender all-weather mileage booster and winter anti-gel treatements to get you thru the coldest temps. The Howes Multipurpose penetrating oil amongst different merchandise.Without delay, a lot of the people the 2 males requested one another about have been gone, he mentioned, or on the very least off the highway for good with well being or different points.

Wingate, 55, stays grateful for his personal longevity, and appears forward to the long run and alternatives to construct higher enterprise with Southpoint Alternate.

Within the podcast, hear that perspective but additionally simply how two-truck Southpoint Alternate is getting the work achieved with devoted freight on lanes between Florida and Northern Ohio.

After being nominated by one in every of his clearly impressed clients, Kenny Wingate’s within the working for our 2025 Trucker of the 12 months award, which you may enter your self or nominate one other proprietor through this hyperlink. Contenders get an opportunity to win a Bostrom seat and different perks and prizes from this system’s sponsor, likewise a customized scale duplicate of their tractor as trophy and many bragging rights for a 12 months’s reign.

[Related: ‚Road less traveled‘: Trucker of the Month takes control with authority]