o/o switching to flatbed in Indiana

Hello all,
I have been an o/o for the last 20 years. The last 10 of those I have gotten lazy pulling a tank.I am looking into switching to open deck for several reasons. 1) My dedicated run switched over to loading and running at night( that's not for me) 2) The company that I am leased to has only 1 large customer. When they are busy, we make bank...when they slow down, we all get skinny. 3) Being dedicated to a 24/7 customer means that you have no schedule for a life. I never know when i'll be working or home.(almost never get a weekend off)

I have read most of the posts on here about people looking for a company to lease /hire on with who have little to no experience. I have 20 years OTR(midwest mainly), and grew up on the farm. I have hauled most everything you would imagine being on a farm/ construction company. From what I have read so far, I have come to the conclusion that I would be better off hauling steel. I like to work hard and get home often. Living just west of Indy,(Crawfordsville,IN) I have never had trouble swinging by the house through the week. With Nucor Steel just down the road from me and Steel Dynamics 25 minutes away, steel seems to be a good option.
I am looking for a good company to lease on with that will lease me a trailer and I can run as hard as I want to or as little. I have been watching around the area and looked at a few companies that have trucks here often, or parked around town on the weekends.The main companies that I have seen is: Kaplan,Besl,Steel Transport,Area Trans,PGT. I am looking for some input from active leased O/Os. If you are an active O/O from another company that I missed, that meets the criteria, please feel free to share your input.
Thank you all in advance for all your help,
Mike

 

I have looked into and met with another small company up north of me as well. Seemed like a pretty good gig. I am keeping an open mind and weighing all options before I make the move, as I don't like the downtime and cost of switching companies. I want to get it right the 1st time. My only concern with smaller companies is, if God forbid I were to have a catastrophic breakdown and not be able to pay the whole bill, the bigger, well established companies seem to be pretty good about helping their O/Os out. I'm a little concerned that a smaller company might not have the will or ability to bail a guy out.

 

Thanks,I just looked them up,Do they run a lot in the IN,IL,KY,MI,OH areas?

 

I'm getting calls from a company called Combined. Does anybody have any info about them?

 

I've been looking at Kaplan for a few days now and they do look like a good company. The one thing that has shocked me the most about these companies is how much they are charging to rent/lease a flatbed. I've seen as high as 12%.