Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/141405
Sponsored information by Shell Rotella® TRUCKING PROVIDES AN INDEPENDENT LIFESTYLE Name: Rick Tiggs Truck: 1987 Freightliner Miles: 2,734,000 RICK TIGGS DROVE THE SAME TRUCK FOR 21 YEARS R ick Tiggs bought his first truck, a 1987 Freightliner, in late 1986 when he became an owneroperator for a company that specialized in hauling export containers from Winnipeg to Vancouver, Seattle and Portland. Tiggs, part of a family of Shell customers, has been inducted into the Shell Rotella Million Mile Haul of Fame not once, but twice. "The first time was in 1994, and it was really exciting to be included in that group," Tiggs recalls. "The second time was a few years ago after I had retired from the longhaul business and the Freightliner had almost 3 million miles on it." Growing up on a farm in Carberry, Manitoba, in Canada, hard work and long hours were part of everyday life for Tiggs. Years later, those early starts and late evenings served as an excellent launch pad for his career as a long-haul truck driver. A long road trip Tiggs didn't grow up knowing he wanted to drive a truck. In 1975, he drove for about a year in what he says started off as a road trip. He took a job outside of trucking for a few years after that and realized he was extremely bored day in and day out. "I de- ShellAdvertorial_OVD0713_PG.indd 1 cided to give trucking another shot in 1979, and in 1986 became an owner-operator and drove for the same one-man operation for the next 20 years," Tiggs says. During that time, he made 832 trips on the Trans-Canada Highway in severe weather conditions including hauling through snow, ice and the occasional avalanche, all accident free. In 2007, he decided to drive for a larger company, but couldn't get used to working with multiple dispatchers instead of one, and subsequently retired in November of that year. A new chapter These days, Tiggs has two part-time driving jobs. From mid-March to mid-November, he delivers dry and liquid fertilizer to local farms and estimates he drives about 15,000 miles per year. "That's been part of what's so great about working a local route: I get to meet the farmers and catch up with people I missed during all of those years I was away from home," Tiggs says. For the past two winters he has driven an additional 15,000 to 20,000 miles per year hauling fresh pork for Toronto-based Maple Leaf Foods to Saskatoon and Saskatchewan. Though he was 35 years old when he bought his first truck, Tiggs says he was still "young and green" when it came to the industry as a whole. But he loved the independence of being by himself (as well as the option to have his wife and son on the road with him for several of the trips), and the nice paychecks that enabled him to pay off the truck in four years, and his house in just 10 years. Shell Rotella for life Tiggs says Shell was really the only brand he knew anything about when he started driving because it's the only brand his family used on the farm. " We always depended on Shell to keep our equipment running," he says. When he bought the Freightliner powered by a Caterpillar engine, he wanted to stick with what he knew and see what happened. A combination of past history with the brand and the dealer being nearby and convenient influenced Tiggs' decision. "I had the engine rebuilt when it passed 1 million miles, and it went another 980,000 miles after that before it needed any real engine maintenance," he says. "Shell Rotella was right for all of those miles and all of the miles since." 6/11/13 11:25 AM