Any Info about Heartland Express??

What board are you on ralph.. are you a system driver

 

Yes, I am system. I've only taken 'home' time once in 3 months because it's really just a friend's address where I get my mail. Home time is not important to me so I have no complaints about that. I always maximize my available hours, yet still get a lot of crappy loads for some reason. I'm still making a little over 1k a week. But the potential is there to make at least 20% more if there wasn't so much sitting and extended load/unload times.

 

Wow...dont know what your annual pay is but i made a little over 60k for 2013. I run the u.s. fleet and as i stated i go home every 4 weeks for 5 days plus i take 10 days off during christmas.

My pay and hometime are 2 areas that are non-negotiable to me.

If it means that i must go elsewhere for that then so be it..

Will just have to wait and see...nothing more for me to do it seems..

 

I've only been here three months so don't have an annual figure yet - but it will definitely be less than 60k.

 

I just scanned your statement.Thanks for the heads up! I will not sleep in any truck with a system set up like that. I can't I will get major headaches at 45 degrees. They can take that app and shove it!

 

Ok I just spoke to recruiter he said they bumped it up to 52 degrees. That's borderline had he said 62 and I may have took the bait. I see it as this if ya gonna have a policy like that then model it after what energy experts say you should do in your own home. Don't treat us like dogs and these companies would get less blowback from drivers.

 

Here's an idea... do it right like gordon has in the past. Equip all trucks with apu's to run climate control and be done with it.

but what do I know.. I'm just a.truck driver...

 

So if the recruiter promises X degrees, think it will happen?

What about when the other drivers find out you got special treatment? They'll want to idle too.

I've seen a lot of false promises and lies.

 

this is a sad commentary on the trucking industry as a whole.

they pay recruiters a commision and many will tell you anything thinking that once you get in their truck you will stick it out for a year or so. This is why most have a revolving door mentality.

you dont see companies paying recruiters bonuses to prevent current drivers from leaving. To a recruiter you are costing them money by not leaving because they need your truck for the next recruit.

in my nearly 12 years of driving I have driven for 9 different companies and have been with gordon nearly 5 years. So in my first 6 years I drove for 8 companies. 2 of those went out of business or I would have never left them because I really liked them.
4 of those companies were for less than 6 months because I will not work for a liar. I respect truth..

some of my favorite places to work may not have been the best paying but they were honest.

 

I don't work for Heartland but here's a cool piece on their business model :

To show you a bit more about how this works and how different these companies are compared with "regular" companies, let's take a look at one of the companies that made our list last year. To make this interesting… let's take a look at one of the least likely companies to ever end up on a list of capital-efficient businesses – Heartland Express (HTLD), a trucking company.

What?!? How could a trucking company – with the huge capital investment required to maintain a fleet of trucks and trailers – end up in a list of capital-efficient stocks? How could a transportation company – supplying what's essentially a commodity – be a great business?

Incredibly, this company earns 10% a year on its asset base, produces returns on equity of 20% annually, and carries zero debt. If you read Heartland's latest letter to investors, you will see why almost immediately – exceptional management.

Heartland is the most efficient trucking company in America by a huge margin. Its operating ratio (operating expenses as a percentage of gross revenues) is the lowest in the industry. As a result, its profit margins are the biggest: Heartland has earned a 12% net margin over the last five years. The company earns more than a dime on every dollar of revenue. Swift Trucking, a larger trucking company picked at random for comparative purposes, earned about 2.5 pennies on each dollar of revenue in 2012.

The difference in profitability means everything. Swift, unlike Heartland, can't generate enough cash to afford its massive annual investments in trucks and trailers. So it has to borrow. It currently holds $1.3 billion in debt, requiring more than $100 million a year in interest payments. That makes a huge difference in a competitive business like trucking.

There's also no money left over for shareholders. Over the last three years, Swift hasn't returned a penny to shareholders. And instead of buying stock, the company has been issuing it – more than $800 million worth. It's as if, rather than working for the shareholders, the employees and management of Swift expect the shareholders to support them.

At Heartland, everything is different because of the focus on operational excellence. The company is producing more than $100 million a year in cash. It's no secret how it does it. The CEO explains: "We distinguish ourselves by operating a new fleet of well-maintained equipment, industry-leading driver pay, and outstanding federal Compliance-Safety-Accountability scores."

Heartland is constantly the highest-rated trucking firm in the country. It was 2013 FedEx carrier of the year with 99.8% on-time delivery. Again, the CEO explains exactly how they do it: "The achievement of our goals can only be attained through the hiring and retention of the best drivers in the industry."

Management seems willing to spend heavily on the things that matter and nothing on anything else. And that's the company's key competitive advantage.

There's a fascinating correlation – one that won't surprise you – between great business operators (like the guys at Heartland) and companies that are focused on creating shareholder value. Management owns 47% of the common stock. Its interests are aligned with yours, as the shareholder. Over the last five years, Heartland has paid $441 million in cash dividends. And it has purchased more than 12 million shares of stock ($180 million), reducing the shares outstanding by 12.6%.

Thus, merely by receiving the capital returned to you by the company itself, you would have earned about 40% in five years. Price appreciation (capital gains) is all "gravy." But there was plenty of that, too… Since December 2012, when Heartland first appeared on our list of capital-efficient companies, its shares have gone up around 50%.

Heartland's returns dwarf the returns available to shareholders in other trucking companies. And here's the crazy part: Until a recent spike in Heartland's share price, investors could have bought the company for $13 per share (it's now almost $20) – and at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio far lower than Swift's. In short, the market rarely recognizes the value of the differences between companies that I'm explaining here. And that's your edge. This knowledge gives investors who understand capital efficiency an almost unbeatable advantage.

Please understand… I'm not suggesting that you would want to buy Heartland now and hold it for the next three decades – especially not at its current price. Managerial excellence is difficult to depend on over long periods of time. Like Buffett explains, you should prefer to own a business that's easier to manage – that could be run "by monkeys."

I'm only using Heartland as an example to show you how these often-overlooked differences in a company's operations can make a huge difference in the returns available to shareholders over time. And over the long term, given Heartland's advantages, I'd expect it to vastly outpace the S&P 500 – which it has done lately:


If you can learn to beat the S&P 500 over time with a trucking stock by focusing on capital efficiency, then by focusing on businesses with higher gross margins and less capital requirements, you can do even better.