Bulkloads Podcast

A trucking podcast that covers all aspects of bulk freight trucking. Hosted by Jared Flinn, owner of multiple trucking-related businesses. Jared brings on a new guest weekly to discuss technology, innovation, safety & compliance, insurance, trucking success stories, and much more related to the bulk freight trucking industry.This podcast hits on all aspects of the industry, our audience includes bulk haulers, shippers, brokers, merchandisers, farmers, and more.Check out our related businesses for bulk freight:BulkLoads - www.bulkloads.comBulk Insurance Group - www.bulkinsurancegroup.comSmart Freight Funding - www.smartfreightfunding.comTransportation Management (TMS) - https://www.bulktms.com/Permitting- https://www.bulkloads.com/tools/permitting/

Bulkloads Podcast is a business podcast hosted by Jared Flinn, with 376 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Jared Flinn hosts Bulkloads Podcast, a business show with 376 episodes published.

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  Episode #376

  BLP:376 Nobody Knows How Much Is in the Pile. These Two Fixed That.

  Sep 30, 202635 minS4

  Watch on YouTube Nobody really knows how much grain is in the pile. Rebulk is a Kansas City startup using LiDAR and a mobile app to scan bulk commodity piles and return exact volume and tonnage, and co-founders Warren and Cole joined us to explain how it works. Grain, feed, fertilizer, sand, salt, landscape rock, even raw tree logs with no defined pile shape. Walk around it with your phone, and the app tells you what is on the ground. Warren came out of Milk Movement building supply chain systems for the dairy industry, where he kept noticing feed piles that nobody could account for. Cole spent his career in software engineering at Garmin and Bayer Crop Science before moving into AI startups. They met at a Kansas City entrepreneur event called Startup Crawl, became friends, and started a company doing social media transcription before pivoting to bulk inventory. Their first pilot was with Cargill at a partner dairy farm, with a 95 percent accuracy target they say they exceeded. The Andersons are now deploying their LiDAR units on fertilizer piles. They got into Y Combinator, spent three months in San Francisco, and moved back to Kansas City anyway because that is where bulk trucking, rail and agriculture actually meet. We also get into where this goes next: rail car inventory for covered hoppers you cannot scan, transload sites running flat, tank and silo storage, chain of custody from rail to truck to barge, and an accounting ledger that generates invoices off scale tickets instead of chasing faxed paperwork and Excel files. Warren and Cole talk honestly about selling technology into an industry that runs ten to fifteen years behind, why they do not charge a customer until they go live, and the advice they would give anyone sitting on an idea they have not built yet. 0:00 What Is Rebulk 0:34 Feed Piles Nobody Could Account For 2:47 The Cargill Pilot 4:10 Cole's Background and a Three Person Team 4:49 Cold Outreach and Landing The Andersons 7:26 What LiDAR Actually Is 8:22 From Fixed Sensors to a Phone App 9:29 What You Do With the Number 11:55 How Accurate Is It 13:03 Launch Date and What It Costs 13:58 Rail Cars, Transload and Barge 17:07 Could This Replace a $500,000 Scale? 18:54 Kansas City, Startup Crawl and Y Combinator 21:15 Advice for Anyone Sitting on an Idea 23:43 Selling Tech to Rural America 28:34 They Don't Charge Until You Go Live 31:07 Invoicing Straight Off Scale Tickets

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  Episode #375

  BLP:375 From Finance Guy to Trucking CEO

  Sep 25, 202636 minS4

  Watch on YouTube Frankie Wilmot didn't grow up in trucking — he married into it. A former finance guy, Frankie became CEO of Corcoran Transportation Group about four years ago, right as the industry was heading into one of its worst downturns in history. In this conversation, he takes us through the full story: two cousins who started competing trucking companies in Billings, Montana back in the 1960s, a business that split apart across a generation, and how it came back together into one operation running roughly 150 trucks across four specialized fleets — including an Alaska division that runs freight up ice roads to Prudhoe Bay. Frankie gets into what it actually took to consolidate four separate companies (four payrolls, four software systems, four everything) into one organization, why unfiltered growth kills more trucking companies than it saves, and how staying diversified across freight types has kept the business steady even when individual segments slow down. He also opens up about the challenge of leading a business he joined by marriage rather than blood, why 176 people depending on the company keeps him up at night in a good way, and why he believes truck drivers are the most underappreciated workers in the country. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro: Meet Frankie Wilmot, CEO of Corcoran Transportation Group 0:51 – The History of the Corcoran Family Business 2:29 – Inside the Fleet: Four Divisions, 150 Trucks 4:06 – Billings, Montana & Where They Run 7:54 – The Business Behind the Freight: Grain, Doubles & More 9:28 – From Finance to Trucking: What Changed 11:46 – Trucking as the Backbone of Capitalism 13:14 – Family, Employees & Consolidating Four Companies Into One 15:41 – Lessons on Scaling & Avoiding Growth for Growth's Sake 22:06 – Drivers, Shops & How the Business Runs Day to Day 27:53 – Family, Faith & the Alaska Operation 33:00 – Why Truckers Are the Backbone of America

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  Episode #374

  BLP:374 From the Battlefield to the Brokerage

  Sep 14, 20261h 20mS4

  Watch on YouTube Ted Fyock Jr. spent six years as an Army armor officer, deployed to Iraq with the 3rd Infantry Division, and then built a career in consulting before starting Carolina Expressways, a bulk freight brokerage, from nothing. Jared Flinn sat down with Ted at Fort Hunt, Virginia, on land George Washington once owned, to walk the whole road. Winston-Salem roots and a family that has served in nearly every American conflict since the Revolutionary War. ROTC at Appalachian State and a commission in 2007, at the height of the surge. Kuwait, Baghdad, and Sadr City. Marrying at 24 and meeting his wife in Paris at the six month mark of a twelve month deployment. Then twelve years at Deloitte Consulting that ended when DOGE cut roughly $20 million of the contract work he was leading and a reduction in force followed. At Oktoberfest at his church, he turned to his wife and told her he was going to start a business. The back half is the freight education. Why he chose bulk instead of a saturated broker market, what his first Bulk Freight Conference in Branson did for a guy with zero industry experience, and the tuition he has paid in year one, including a truck hauling corn that was struck by a CSX train. He gets into how a brand new brokerage gets in a shipper's door, why veteran owned is more than a line on a website, how running supply for a tank company translates to moving hoppers, moving a skid steer to a private island, and where Carolina Expressways is headed by 2030. Faith, family, and 250 years of American opportunity close it out. CHAPTERS 00:00 Fort Hunt, Virginia, on land George Washington owned 01:34 A family that has served since the Revolutionary War 04:00 ROTC at Appalachian State and commissioning in 2007 05:11 What an armor officer actually does 07:05 Married at 24, then a year apart 10:21 Kuwait, Baghdad, and Sadr City 13:20 Coming home and the assignment at Walter Reed 17:53 Leaving the Army at the six year mark 19:55 Twelve years at Deloitte Consulting 23:01 DOGE, $20 million in contracts, and a layoff 27:02 "I think I'm going to start a business" 27:49 How Carolina Expressways got its name 33:05 Why he chose bulk freight 34:38 First trip to the Bulk Freight Conference in Branson 40:01 A load of corn and a CSX train 47:48 How a brand new broker gets in the door 57:41 Why veteran owned is more than a marketing line 01:00:38 The military is a logistics organization 01:06:19 Where Carolina Expressways goes by 2030 01:13:04 Faith, family, and 250 years of opportunity

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  Episode #373

  BLP:373 They Sold the Company to Their Employees. Now they're Millionaires.

  Sep 14, 202632 minS4

  Watch on YouTube Emery Sapp & Sons is 100% employee owned, 3,000 employee owners strong, with 98 millionaires and about 600 trucks on the road every day. Jared Flinn sat down with co-CEO Robert Gillis in Columbia, Missouri to talk about what happens when a founder sells his company to the people who built it. Billy Sapp started in 1972 because the civil contractors wouldn't show up on time, so he did the work himself. In 1999 he and his partners sold the whole thing to their employees through an ESOP. Twenty six years later, 15 new millionaires were made in a single year, and most of them work in the field. Robert breaks down how the ESOP actually works, why about a quarter of every employee's salary goes into it, and why more owners don't take that path. He also gets into the $2.8 billion I-70 reconstruction between Kansas City and St. Louis, the $608 million stretch ESS won coming out of St. Louis, the broken gas tax that funds our roads, and the freight side of heavy civil, including the 600 company trucks plus the third party haulers, quarry trucks, and brokers it takes to keep aggregate moving. If you haul rock, asphalt, or aggregate, this is a look at the other end of the load. CHAPTERS 00:00 Meet Robert Gillis, co-CEO of Emery Sapp & Sons 01:55 Billy Sapp, 1972, and the problem that started the company 03:30 What an ESOP actually is, in plain terms 06:43 Why more owners don't sell to their employees 10:30 98 millionaires, and 59% of them work in the field 12:04 If it's in the dirt, on the dirt, or over the dirt 14:00 The $2.8 billion I-70 rebuild and the $608 million job 19:30 The gas tax problem nobody talks about 22:25 What trucking really means to a heavy civil contractor 23:56 600 company trucks and the third party haulers behind them 26:05 Why this company runs with two CEOs 31:08 3,000 retirements riding on your decisions

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  Episode #372

  BLP:372 He Bought One Dump Truck Out of High School, Now He Runs 40 Trucks Across Kansas

  Aug 12, 202654 minS4

  Watch on YouTube Jesse Knight bought a four-axle dump truck the fall after he graduated high school in 1992, because there wasn't enough family farm ground left for a third man. Thirty-five years later, Knight Trucking runs roughly 40 trucks out of Lebo, Kansas, split evenly between end dumps and pneumatics, hauling rock, sand, salt, and food-grade freight across the Midwest. In this episode, Jared Flinn sits down with Jesse and his son Colby for a conversation two decades in the making, Jared first knocked on this door 20 years ago working truck logistics at Bartlett Grain. Jesse walks through the whole climb: leasing to a local rock hauler and sitting four months every winter, merging equipment with his dad and brother to form Knight Trucking in 1996, running the business out of his parents' house with his mom keeping the books, and then landing the I-70 milling and aggregate contracts that forced him to scale from a few trucks to nearly 60 almost overnight, while still driving one himself. He's candid about the parts most operators won't discuss: why he walked away from construction work when the risk stopped matching the reward, why he converted his owner operator fleet into company assets, how he prices freight so the truck actually makes money, what the Peterbilt 386 rollout cost him in repainted hoods, and why chasing kosher certification for his food-grade salt trailers produced about six loads before the business dried up. Colby shares his side too, diesel tech certificate, years in the shop, and getting handed the dispatch board when his dad left for a three-month trip. It closes on the two things Jesse says actually matter after 35 years: drivers who've stayed 10 to 30 years, and a family that never let the business divide it. ⏱️ TIMECODES 0:00 - 20 Years Later: Full Circle in Lebo, Kansas 1:22 - No Room Left on the Family Farm 1:58 - Buying the First Dump Truck in 1992 3:19 - Merging the Family Equipment: Knight Trucking is Born 5:38 - The I-70 Project: A Few Trucks to 60 in Months 8:30 - What Milling Actually Is (And Why It Takes So Many Trucks) 10:11 - How a "Snot-Nosed Kid" Won Big Construction Contracts 11:05 - Becoming a Spotlight Carrier for Cargill Deicing Salt 14:14 - Moving 200,000 Tons of Rock Across Kansas 16:51 - End Dumps vs. Hoppers: The Weight Disadvantage Nobody Talks About 20:27 - Colby's Story: From the Shop to the Dispatch Desk 23:42 - The Fleet Today: 50/50 End Dumps and Pneumatics 25:03 - Why He Rolled His Owner Operators Into Company Trucks 27:04 - "If I Tell Them I'll Keep Them Busy, I Mean It" 29:36 - Competing With the Big Kansas City Carriers 32:34 - The Kosher Certification That Produced 6 Loads 37:53 - Truck and Trailer Specs (And the Peterbilt 386 Nightmare) 42:54 - Surviving Fuel Volatility and Surcharges 43:53 - The Story Behind the Rocking K Brand 45:51 - Selling Out of the Farm and Cattle Side 48:46 - "It's the Drivers That Keep Driving Me" 49:37 - Why He Hates Watching Families Divide

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