Harold Ives Trucking remembered

Howdy all,

As an ex-employee of Harold Ives Trucking, I wanted to post a public thank-you to them for giving me my start in the trucking industry.

When I started trucking, it was as a summer job. I was a college student, and I had three months between the end of the Spring semester and the beginning of the Fall semester to go trucking. I told Harold Ives about this, and they were perfectly happy with that arrangement. Suffice it to say many trucking companies would not have bothered training such a short-term employee. But they did!

I showed up at their yard in North Little Rock, Arkansas with a fresh CDL and trucking school diploma. They hired me, put me through an orientation and put me on the road with a trainer, Freddie.

Freddie taught me everything the school didn't; not only driving, but how to use the Qualcomm, how to deal with shippers and receivers, law enforcement and so on and so forth. When he turned me loose and I got my own truck, the worries I'd had about how to handle myself on the road had evaporated.

Harold Ives gave me a nice Kenworth, they took care of me when I had problems, and they gave me good miles and good runs. I had a great time driving for them, and when I left, it was only because I had to be back in Texas for the start of the Fall semester. I fully intended to go back to Harold Ives the following summer.

Unfortunately, by the time that summer rolled around, Harold Ives Trucking had been bought out by Covenant Transport. I'd left Harold Ives on good term and thus made it into Covenant's system as a driver eligible for re-hire, and Covenant did agree to the same "summer job" terms that I'd had with Harold Ives Trucking. So I hired on with them, and I got a pretty decent dispatcher there. But between my interactions with Covenant's Breakdown, Payroll and Human Resources departments, it was clear from day one that they could have used a lesson or two from Mr. Ives on how to run a company. Since then, I'm out of college; I'm now working in the IT field as a network engineer.

It's sad that Harold Ives Trucking is no longer with us today, but every so often, I still come across that cowboy hat logo on an old trailer somewhere. It makes me remember what to me will always be the good ole' days.

Thank you, Harold Ives Trucking, for giving me my start in the trucking industry!

 

As a follow-up, I also need to point out an omission in my original post:

Thank you, Freddie, for letting me in your truck and showing me the ropes!

 

I'm sure they weren't perfect, but they treated me right. Thanks for finding the photo!

 

Haha! My current job isn't in trucking at all, but I can honestly say I praised Harold Ives even while I still worked there. Drivers (and prospective drivers) I met on the road during that time can attest to that.