Hill Brothers Transportation Good or Bad!!!

The company trucks have APU's for the most part. There are no idle policies or fuel bonus BS. Keep your truck upright, and attend a safety meeting once a quarter and they flip you another .02cpm. Stay a year and they flip you another penny a mile.

Its a good place for company drivers.

 

desertdog I thank you for the info. I am looking at going on with this company when I ETS from the Army

 

They are pretty good about keeping you moving which to me is important. A nice paycheck and no time to think about why your job sucks always helps. LOL

 

To the guy looking to hire out of Tucson... If you live in south Arizona you probably won't see home much if you were hoping to visit more frequently on pass thru's. I joined as a team with my wife from Phoenix before moving back to Denver and we saw Phoenix twice in 4 months, not including our load home to stock the truck after orientation. My wife recently came off the road (1 Feb) and I still haven't seen phoenix yet. I've mostly been between Denver, Chicago, and Dallas with a run to Atlanta, another to Tupelo, MS, and several Tyson shuttle runs back and forth across Kansas last week.

As Jim said, check with Erin as shes the recruitment guru but from the "I want to be home" standpoint you probably won't see it much, at least from my experience... yours could be much different tho. Good luck!

On a side note... wuddup Jim? Been lookin' for ya but I forgot your truck #.

 

Just wanting to see how you HB drivers been doing ?

 

How are they on taking drivers that have been off the road for a few years ?

 

You'd have to get with recruiting but I do believe you have to have experience within the last 3 years. The site says 2 years recent experience but "recent" seems to vary in this industry.

 

I just started with HB. Hiring week of May 19,2011. Thus far things seem to
be in order here. Everyone that I was in contact with seemed to be very polite
and friendly during orientation. The hotel was nice. smooking/nonsmoking rooms.
"The Firewater Grille" was good as well. They also have a Perkins next door and
an excellent Mexican Restaurant across the street. Orientation was smooth as
long as your information is detailed and correct. They DO and WILL go thru it
line by line as stated. Any discrepancies and YOU will be notified. Get accurate
info on application the first time, if not, the ladies who help you are friendly,patient
and willing to work with you. Ive never driven a 13 speed no one showed how to do
it, however, drivers were willing to explain the process of it. Was not hard to figure
out once in truck. Trucks are awesome in my opinion. Volvo 780. Much like a luxury motorhome compared to what im use too. Mine has an APU,inverter(save you from buying one), and a fridge(even has an icebox in it) dont have anything in ice box yet.

Our class went to the operations side of things. Quite the experience for a driver.
You get an idea of what the "OTHER" side does. Gives a driver an idea of exactly
what a dispatcher/load planner goes thru. I'm starting to see that COMMUNICATION
really is key. Its best to give an accurate and detailed ETA/PTA as you can keeps
dispatch/loadplanner informed. If things change let them know. Makes your day,dispatchers,and load planners day a little easier. Keeps the proverbial monkey
off your back as well Who would have thought communication is such an important key in getting buisness done???!!!!!

Ive been running 500-600 mile trips. Quite a few have been pickup/deliver sameday.
READ ALL LOAD COMMENTS ON QUALCOMM!!!!! Make sure you have the hours and capability of getting load taken care of before accepting. Ive had to switch loads with drivers/get a different load because the drive didnt have hazmat and I do.
Just nice to have in my opinion, keeps you moving and making money.

Only problems I've ran into was at Walmart distribution centers. However, if you've
been to one to deliver/pickup you know what its like.

Its been a real challenge so far getting use to E-logs. Im use to loose leaf logbooks.
However, you are shown how to do it in orientation, its explained, if you still have
problems they work with you to help you out. It does keep things simple,in order and
LEGAL. Once you get onto E-logs one thing is fooooooooooooooooooosho...........
Once you start driving......dont stop till you need to. You have to keep that left door shut in order to get where you're going and deliver ontime. Once you start, "Father Time" is breathing down your neck for the next 14 hours.

I havent been at HB long enough, to be honest, to have formed an opinion.
If you have no expectations to start with you cant be let down. All of your
expectations and information can be answered on the phone, if you're still
content with what you've heard give it a try. One thing here,for me, so far
everyone has been direct and to the point.

Hope this sheds a little light on HB. Any other questions im here as often as I
can be. JR has A LOT of good threads and an excellent spreadsheet of a
lease purchase. Very informative and detailed.

 

I have read a lot of positive reports from people who work for Hills Bros.

I was on O/O who leased on to them with my own truck (not a lease/fleece type thing). I did not have a good experience. I spent a lot of time sitting. Complaints about my dispatcher were ignored.

I was given a female dispatcher who had no previous load board experience and came from customer service. I lost an incredible amount of money working for Hill Bros and eventually fell behind in my truck payment. I did not appreciate being given an inexperienced dispatcher. They should have put her on Company trucks and kept her away from people who had to make money.

I spend days sitting waiting for loads. I did a lot of deadheading.

It was a miserable experience. I quit after 2 months. My only wish is that there was a DAC that drivers could report Trucking Companies to.

Company drivers may have a completely different experience than I did as an O/O. It appears they have a preference to Company Trucks while they let the O/O sit.

I would never recommend them... I'm sure they have choice words about me on my DAC as well. It was not a pleasant parting.

 

There are a number of things to complain about at HB, but spending a lot of time sitting isn't one of them in my experience. This isn't to say you won't occasionally get boned on a load and have to wait 18 hours for a warehouse to get its shirt in order to send your load out (or wait at a consignee for 18 hours with 20 tons of meat just before Thanksgiving because they ordered it but had no space to put it in), but that is true at any OTR company.

I've been at HB since 2008 and I don't recall any full-time female dispatcher; we do have one that covers the night dispatch. That being said, I'm on my 7th dispatcher during that time and most if not all of them started with no dispatch experience other than substituting for sick or vacationing dispatchers.

Plus, dispatchers (for Fleet Managers as they are called) do not hand out loads. HB has load planners who match up trucks with loads.

HB will deadhead you to a load, no problem... and you're paid line haul (minus 3 cents) plus FSC for those miles. Now, if it was a percentage outfit and you had to eat those miles and fuel bills I would say you had a good point.

This is ... The Trucker's Report, and there is a company DAC section so feel free to post your views there.

As far as company vs O/O or L/O for miles I would actually say there is a slight preference for the owner side, but not for a reason you might think. HB handles a good chunk of time critical loads and I suspect drivers with a track history of making on-time deliveries get assigned them more often. Newer drivers don't have that track record and tend to be company drivers so they may miss out on those loads in favor of ones with more time to deliver.

All that being said, do I recommend them? I haven't referred anyone to HB in many months and I'm not entirely comfortable with the way the business is evolving towards becoming a mini-Werner (HB is training students now). As far as miles go, I've always turned down plenty of loads and yet the paychecks still keep rolling in the door on a regular basis.

Good luck,

Jim