Walbon - Rosemount, MN

The word i heard as that they maybe on their last legs, I guess they went out and bought alot of brand new trucks and trailers last year on the finance plan and are now struggling to make the payments.

 

I guess we will see if they make it.

 

New Driver At Walbon In Wildwood Florida, as a 22 year veteran driver, I will let ya'll know how things go with this company. But over all, some work is better than no work, but somethings will not be tolerated, like slip seating, and refusal to get a driver home. But time will tell.


W. Dorsey

 

Saw some of their trucks this week, nice looking stuff, be interesting to see how you do waynedorsey, I'm 45 minutes south of them and had always wondered, even considered taking a ride there myself.... Look forward to your posts!!!

 

Completed orientation, I asked about allot of the stuff i seen on here, This is the basic run down. Walbon pays based on experience, you get fuel bonuses and safety bonuses. You get 1 day home time for every week your out, they ask that you notify them 1 week prior to you date that you would like to be home. They do not deliver plants to Wal-Mart, Walbon actually has many "name brand" accounts, which I will not name, they are staying very busy, the driver does not have to load or unload the truck, you are given com-checks to pay for lumpers, you get detention pay if your at a shipper more than 2 hours, all paperwork is sent in by trip pack, drivers are only paid every 2 weeks, which is not good in my opinion, they have heath insurance, 401K Plan, paid vacations, etc.. Their maintenance dept seems to be right ontop of the maintenance and they do a good job. However to address the slip seating issue, Walbon has local drivers and long distance drivers, local drivers are subjected to slip seating if their truck is broke down and the load needs to be moved, they will use any available truck sitting in the yard at the time. I am sure it is like anything else the low man on the totem pole will have his truck sent out for a day while he is at home on break, and I do not agree with this policy, but looking at it from Walbon's side, how can they justify not moving a load sitting in the yard when there is a truck available? As for the other rumor I hear about Walbon switching trailers out on you in mid trip, that is true. Walbon will switch trailers out on a driver, usually because a driver is being lazy and Walbon know the load will be late if they dont get another driver under the load, so thats what they do. Or if a drive is going to run out of hours for the week and it is a hot load, they will send another driver to come pick the load up, but whats the problem with that? your still getting paid for the load up until the other guy takes the trailer, but he also brings you another loaded trailer, so your not loosing. So basically if your a good driver and able to follow DOT rules and make on time deliveries, Walbon is a good company to work for, if you cannot make deliveries on time, get DOT violations, Etc.. then Walbon will cut your loads and even terminate you.

But I will keep this post updated weekly as the trips go by..

 

They have been around a long time. 30-40 years

Hope it works out good for you.

 

So they do local out of the wildweed terminal??? I may definitely look into that... Been running over the road for a long time now and I think I might like to be home more with a little more regular schedule....

Good luck and be safe, hope it works out great for you!!!

 

Yes they do local runs out of Wildwood, sometimes 1 night out.

 

I see they may have ended the plant loads from Florida to Walmart across US. That would be better but not great. They were paying weekly settlements when I was there. Now paying every 2 weeks, not good.

 

Yeah the 2 week settlements are not the best, but, it is what it is. The plant loads are still there, but few and far between. They do allot of frozen foods and stuff, and still run Mail in Minnesota. They are buying all new Kenworth Trucks (I hope the drivers take care of them), Their trailers are all newer, some brand new, and as you know all this cost $$ the trailers are $60,000 each so I does not take long to go through $$ However I do not see them hustling too much to find new customers which I find a bit odd. The owner did tell me they picked up a new account hauling sugar, so we will see. All in all they are not a bad company, family owned as you know, and have been in business for 40 years, they are slow at times to get you reloaded, which is bad, I am a runner, I like to keep a steady pace.