changed jobs after 6-1/2 years

i finally left walton milk hauling recently and went to RS maher milk hauling. better pay, better benefits, closer to home (im a local driver, i commute), and they have as much work as i would like. it's probably one of the biggest, family owned milk haulers in the area. there are larger companies but they are owned by corporate interests. the company is big enough, they have their own heavy wrecker. the fleet size is probably 25-30 trucks all freightliner cascadia 13 speed manual (my previous job used 18 manuals), a combination of day cab and sleeper. i will be in a day cab. they have a few drivers that stay in the trucks overnight and do long haul, but the vast majority are local home daily drivers. im doing primarily farm pickup, but i will very likely have to do some "longer hauls" (for a local driver)..... atleast longer then i did with walton. they are trips that are still home daily. being a local driver, it would be locations like north country (280 miles), and willaimsport pa (150 miles). everything is home daily. yestday was my 2nd day. i did well at walton for my first long-term job in trucking, but it was time to move on.

 

Rs maher has 50 farms, and there's probably a dozen or more other milk haulers in the area. Agricultural trucking is still a big business here. There's 2 large milk plants being built so I imagine the demand will remain solid. One trend that has occurred over the years, many small farms went out and the bigger farms became bigger yet, but smaller farms do still exist. This job, as also with my last job is hauling farms that are members of the upstate Niagara co-op. There's also dfa and wesco in the area. I hope it never goes away, working with milk has been my career path. I started as a plant worker and eventually got my cdl and started hauling milk. I literally got my cdl with the intention of hauling milk, otr is of little interest to me. I've made over 100k for the last 3 consecutive years, and I've been at it 6-1/2 years total. I like what I do and it's home daily

 

It's not a bad gig, I've never been laid off or out of work