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FIRST CLASS 13 growth of the company that has steadily become one of the industry's largest. In fact, with the order of 290 new Peterbilt Model 386s so far in 2011, the compa- ny's fleet of 500-plus tractors will have grown by 10 percent by the time deliver- ies are complete. "Here we are in a challenging econ- omy, yet we're able to grow our fleet by 10 percent," says Johnston. "I'll tell you one major reason why. It's because Peterbilt has helped make it possible for us to keep our maintenance costs under control." Rapid early growth Back in 1974, Jack Harned founded Indian River Transport and began ser- vicing the dairies of southern Florida. Growth was quick for Harned's service- oriented company, and the fleet was up to 100 trucks by 1982. Jack Harned died in 1985, and his son John runs the company today. Indian River remained on its growth track in the mid 1990s. Their methods were never complicated, according to Johnston. "This business is pretty simple," he says. "You pick it up on time, deliver it on time, communicate with your cus- tomers and do it all at a fair price. You do all of those things, and they'll beat a path to your door." While that may sound simple, meet- ing those performance objectives pres- ents some challenges for Indian River. They transport food-grade bulk liquids — primarily juice and milk — from coast to coast, to the Mexican border and into Canada. "We can go from California to Nova Scotia," Johnston says. "Or we might just go across town." They go straight from dairy farms to pro- duction facilities with their time-sensitive cargo. And they go from seaports, where Brazilian and Chinese frozen juice imports are piped into their tanks for delivery to packaging plants. New choices Staying on the technological leading edge, particularly with load-tracking soft- ware, has helped Indian River satisfy its customer base, which includes the major players in the juice industry. But when more and more reliability issues surfaced with their primary truck makes about five years ago, they began exploring other truck options. "We had always run kind of a smor- gasbord of trucks, but we began to notice the level of quality going down with some of those makes," says Johnston. In 2005, Indian River management decided to upgrade the fleet quality and the first Peterbilts — Model 379s — were introduced to the fleet. The trucks, equipped with owner-operator style specs, were an immediate hit with drivers. But where Indian River really noticed the difference was in uptime. Those numbers held steady as the company continued to add Peterbilts to the fleet, eventually transitioning to the Model 386 to take ad- vantage of its fuel-saving aerodynamic properties while retaining a driver- friendly spec, including a 70-inch Unibilt sleeper. "Our maintenance costs and our number of breakdowns per mil- lion miles have decreased dramatically with Peter- bilt equipment, which is really another piece of the puzzle that has allowed us to grow," says Johnston. "Peterbilt's overall reliability keeps us on top." While Indian River doesn't deal on an established trade cycle, Johnston says the company has worked with the dealership to negotiate beneficial trades, particu- larly in light of being handcuffed by other makes' buyback programs a decade ago. "The Peterbilt dealer organization has been excellent to work with. Not just here, but anywhere we go where we may have service needs. We're always taken care of." "Our maintenance costs and our number of breakdowns have decreased dramatically with Peterbilt equipment." — Rick Johnston, Chief Operating Officer