Good Flat Bed Companies?

Swift actually has a pretty decent flatbed division, and you'd do a lot of stepdeck freight on the East Coast. I know it's probably not what you had in mind, but you're really not going to find a whole lot of good and non-entry level flatbed carriers who'll hire on someone without at least some open deck experience.
Are you trying to stay OTR, or looking for something local? Charlotte is where Lane Construction/Rea Contracting have their regional offices at. Lane was pretty decent to work for.. I pulled RGN and Landoll sliders for them.
Mitchell operates in the NC/SC area quite a bit.... trying to remember the full form of the company name. Red and beige trucks.. usually T800s.... I applied with them some years ago, but wasn't enticed to give up my then current job and go back to OTR. IIRC, they do tarp a lot.
Tarping is something which goes with flatbedding. If you're that averse to it, maybe flatbedding isn't your gig.

 

Tired of waiting in line for your number to come up at W/S? Take a look at Tandem Transport. Not sure if they'll have enough power for ya. They also say Howard Transport out of Kenly NC is a good company. Haul their own transformers. Usually backhaul building material.

 

I've been digging for info on LoneStar and it's next to impossible to find anything. From what I've seen they have great equipment. I've been approved and I'm leaving for orientation next weekend. The recruiter says I'll start out at .40 a mile and go to .42 a mile after 90 days. $1500 sign on bonus and $750 orietation pay. Thats what the recruiter says. I'd love to get some solid info from a driver. Either there drivers have no complaints or they're too busy to get on here to complain.

 

Good luck finding a fast truck and very little tarping

 

I don't know that Cypress is as bad as you might think other than the equipment specs you're looking for. They're definately not new, there was a guy in Tallahassee that I gave a heads up to about them, this was quite a while back and he's still working there and seems to like it pretty good, he goes by "hotrod" on here but doesn't post much. I wish I could help you more, I did a quick search on some of the more reputable companies I could think of and am very suprised at how old you have to be to work for them, that sucks.........If anything comes to mind I'll throw it up here.

 

Or maybe try these guys, www.coyletrucking.com, I'm pretty sure they have a terminal there by your house. Here's the deal when I moved to PA I worked here about a week, don't let that detour you, I was not ready for flatbed and really wanted to go with the company I'm with now, should have done it in the first place, but that's water under the bridge now. They have really nice equipment, up here in PA they had local guys to load a lot of the loads for the road guys, Ex: I would load the steel in PA somewhere heading to Texas and take the load to the yard then the road guy would come and hook to it and away he went, it's maybe worth a look, just trying to throw things your way.