FCC--Fremont Contract Carriers

FCC is based out of Fremont, Nebraska. The have a dry van and a flatbed division, with three different divisions, Mid-West regional, South West regional, and the long haul fleet. Living in SC I am only eligible for the long haul division. They have approximately 360 tractors, almost 2/3 of those are either O/O's or L/P drivers, with the rest being straight company drivers. I started here 3 months ago, and wanted to wait at least 90 days before starting this thread to get a decent feel for how things are done here.

Orientation is 2.5 days, depending on where you live, they will offer to fly you in for orientation. I wanted to rent a car so I could bring most of my gear with me, and hit the ground running after orientation. They reimbursed me the full amount for the rental, and had someone pick me up at the Omaha airport. Our orientation class had 4 people including myself, the other 3 drivers went in the Southwest division.

Most of the drivers can be home weekly if they run either regional division. I have been staying out about a month at time, but this time I'm going going home after 3 weeks. In three months I have run 39, 156 miles on the odometer, with 36, 972 of those being paid miles. I have averaged 3081 paid miles per week.

On the Longhaul fleet, I usually pull a load out of the SC coming out of the house headed to Nebraska, then pick up a load out of Nebraska headed to the West coast. I have been to Oregon, Washington, and California coming out of Nebraska. Usually reload from the West coast headed right back to the Midwest. My average length of haul has been 1506 miles, and they have a great customer base, the majority of the stuff I have done thus far has been has been drop and hook. When I have had to live load/ unload it has been a painless process. In three months I have only had to put in for detention once.

They mostly run freightliner midroof cascadias, they have a few Volvos, internationals, and a few Peterbuilts in the fleet. All trucks have refrigerators, Apus, flatscreen tv mounts, and inverters. Company trucks are governed at 65 mph. The trucks and trailers are well maintained, and as long as you communicate with the shop, and tell them when you will be through the terminal, they get you in and pretty quick.

Things I like so far, small company feel, every person I have dealt with in the office has been great. Well maintained equipment, no micromanagement, they send me my load, and leave me alone. Average length of haul, and our running lanes.

I will try and update this thread weekly, any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

 

That lenght of haul on dry van is more like reefer type runs...not many van companies have good runs like that.

 

That's one of the main reasons I chose them and the long haul fleet. The guys on the regional fleets don't have those lengths of haul over here, but many of them are home every w/end and can get by the house during the week. It works definitely works for me.

 

Cowpie works there as a hired truck.....

I believe

 

Yes he does, I picked his brain before coming over here. He is actually getting a bonus because I used him as a referral.

 

FCC has been my Backup plan for the past 4/5 years.... the only reason I have not pulled-the-trigger is low CPM, a few years ago they were telling me 42CPM with a 3 cent quarterly safety bonus. I don't know if this is still current but I have been out here to long to work for less than 46cpm base. Everything else about FCC is what a driver wants from a company though.

 

Depending on experience they will start in the mid 40cpm plus it's now a .04 cent quarterly bonus, that's easily obtainable for all miles run that quarter. At Magnum I was making .49 cpm, but way too much detention, and general reefer BS.

 

What is their policy on chaining for nothwestern states?

 

They told us in orientation, that they aren't going to force you to chain up if you don't feel comfortable. Park and wait it out until you feel comfortable.

 

Well I picked up a load headed back out to California in Nebraska. Was going to run the two lane from Holdrege, NE. to Sterling, CO. for a change of scenery, made it just outside McCook, Nebraska and the truck went nuts. Pretty sure the actuator in the turbo just went. They had me drop my California load at one of our customers here in McCook, and I'm currently waiting on a hook to drag me up to Freightliner in North Platte. Good times. Comes with the job, I would rather that happen here instead of climbing Vail Pass.