Lipsey Trucking LLC

My review of Lipsey Trucking LLC in Chattanooga TN after driving for them for 2 years and a couple months.
They are not Lipsey Logistics LLC. They are owned by the same man, but as FMCSA requires, are their own company with own authority and MC number. There are times that trucking will haul logistics freight and times that trucking will have logistics broker their loads out if it can't be covered by a company truck. Trucking has it's own management, load planners, sales team and accounts.
The company has been in business 3 years as of October 2017. In that time they have grown to over 80 company trucks and are showing a true profit several years before the industry average for a new company.
The trucks are 2015 and newer Freightliner Cascadia's with Cummings ISX, Eaton 10 speed manuals, double bunks with bunk heaters & run 68 - 69 MPH. They don't say anything about idle time and don't penalize you for it nor put limits on it. All trucks are on Nation Lease through Ryder which is nice as any Ryder shop nationwide will work on them. Ryder's break down service is usually pretty quick. There are some Internationals running around that are temporary as we wait for Ryder to get more trucks in.
They do allow riders and pets. I'm not sure on the minimum age of the rider. You and the rider do have to sign a waiver and pay a weekly fee for an accident policy covering the rider. It takes about 24 hours to get approved by the insurance company.
tll the trailers are on lease from Metro, Bowman, Xtralease, Hale, and a couple others. We use Star Leasings Star Care Breakdown service for trailer repairs. Which is working out better than Fleetnet did.
The company does not use OnGuard or dash cams. You are welcome to use your own camera if you want. The logs are on Qualcomm. Fuel is Pilot/Flying J only and they don't tell you which ones to use, use the one you want. They don't send routing for your loads. You pick the route that suits you, but don't go too far out of route.
Don't ask me about pay as I have no idea what the starting pay is. Some of our dedicated accounts pay different than regional or OTR. I also will not discuss my pay as I'm working with them to build a flatbed division. Right now I'm the only flatbed. We have a few refers on a Rite Aid dedicated lane and everything else is dry van. We do have teams and can keep them busy.
The majority of our freight is in the Wentzville MO - Virginia - Orlando FL - DFW area. We do have some outside that like Rite Aid and FedEx that get into MD, PA & MI. Most of what we have is drop and hook.
Our office staff is small, but experienced and are not afraid to think outside the box. They honesty have no idea what your truck number is and you have everyone's cell phone & email. They don't micromanage you at all. They leave you alone to do your job, as long as you're doing it. If you work hard for them, are flexible, don't tear up the equipment, get broke equipment fixed, on time, communicate respectfully and don't threaten and cuss at them they will work hard for you. If you loose time due to a broke trailer you just picked up, no big deal. Ask for pay and you'll most likely get it. You get sick and shut down, no problems. They will not harass you, they will check on you to make sure you're OK. I shut down two days in Atlanta due to the flue. They didn't give me any problems over it. They asked of I was OK to run before giving me a load. If the weather is bad and you feel you need to park they prefer you do so instead of wrecking it.
Home time depends on what your doing. Dedicated usually gets at least a 34 hr restart at home. Regional and OTR varies on you and the account. They don't try and keep you out past your time off request and will get you to wherever you request. Days off are typically one for every week out. You can do more or less, just talk to your fleetmanager.
If there is anything else I think of it any questions I'll try and answer them.
Andy

 

It's been awhile since I posted the above review and there has been some changes. Yes, I'm still with Lipsey Trucking. I've been here about three and half years.

As another poster posted the man who the company is named after did get in some trouble and sold his shares to the other primary member of the LLC. Joseph Lipsey had no hand in the day to day operations of either Lipsey Trucking or Lipsey Logistics. The man he sold his stake to, Johnny Jones Sr., has been running both companies. From that stand there has been no impact on the company.

There was fallout from the arrest as Freighwaves posted an article with a tremendous amount of insider information that included customer names ( I can't prove, but due to the relationships, I highly suspect the info came from US Express. ) Due to this the company lost two major accounts within 24 hours due to optics. Those customers admitted it had nothing to do with service.

Due to this the company has restructured routes and taken on some new runs. They found it necessary for the time being to abandon home every weekend options and adopt home every other weekend or longer if the driver desires to stay out. This has actually helped our profitability as our deadhead is now lower showing our profit per mile being higher.

There was couple other changes that were coming down the pipeline prior to this that are being implemented. The first is we switched from fueling at Pilot - Flying J to every gallon at Love's. This new contract includes light repairs and trailer maintenance being done by Love's - Speedco unless the unit is just too far away from one of their locations.
The second change is the company is going to be installing forward and driver facing cameras. The word this was coming came down about a month ago, but I haven't seen it yet.

 

Here's my final update on Lipsey Trucking. After 4 1/2 years with them In I was laid off in April. They made the decision to eliminate all irregular route trucks. That means only the trucks on a dedicated run stayed on.
They laid off a few people with Lipsey Trucking and a slew with Lipsey Logistics a couple months prior to drivers being laid off.
If any driver claims Lipsey left them hanging or didn't pay them know they are lieing or failed to do what they were instructed to do. All miles were paid to Chattanooga to turn the truck in. They paid a nice bonus for bringing the truck back. They rented a car or bought a plane ticket (drivers preference) and paid all miles to the drivers home just as if they were pulling a load. We all had plenty of notice. From the date I was informed until truck turn in was 3 weeks.
Several things led to the layoffs. The immediate loss of contracts over the Freightwaves article created less than ideal conditions for the company. When the next bid season came around they were under bid on most contracts. This left them scouring the load boards for the irregular route trucks. If you've paid attention you know how bad the rates have been for the last two years. To cap it all off we started seeing states shutdown over the Coronavirus and rates dipped even further while loads got fewer.
I expect the company to phase out the Lipsey Trucking name simply over the bad PR. There is another name being used on the freight broker side that may be used to fold the trucking side into. Since I left the office has had more shakeup. With the personnel changes I now have no idea what's going on.