Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/14162
‘My No. 1 idol’ R A brother’s influence imparts to Louisiana driver a heart for the road and a successful career BY JAMES JAILLET Ron Boudreaux bought his 2007 Freightliner new in 2006. Before that he owned a ’97 Freightliner Classic, driving 2.5 million miles in nine years. on Boudreaux used to be his older brother’s shadow. Whatever job Charles held, Ron says he was “right there behind him.” Charles started out cutting down trees, then moved to making local deliveries in the Houston area. After Charles took up trucking, he included his younger brother. Driving along Interstate 10 near the Louisi- ana-Texas border one day in the late 1970s, Charles pulled over and told then 25-year-old Ron to get behind the wheel. “He asked me, ‘Do you think you can do this?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘Well I think you can,’” Boudreaux says. “I didn’t even know how to shift the gears, but he taught me how to drive. He taught me the old-fashioned way.” Boudreaux picked up more than just operating skills from his older brother. The 57-year-old owner-operator says his brother taught him mechanics and how to use maps and plan routes. “He even did his best to keep me out of trouble.” The Youngstown, La., native and resident landed his fi rst driving job hauling supplies and equipment to oil fi elds for a Houston-based company named Joe D. Hughes in 1978. Twenty years later, Boudreaux took his life savings into the Baton Rouge, La., Freightliner dealership and bought a 1997 Classic. That year, 1998, he became the fi rst owner-operator at the newly founded Raid- er Express. He’s still with Raider, hauling fresh and frozen meats nationwide. “The fi rst fi ve years of my career, I told myself, ‘Well, one day I’m going to have my own truck. One day I’m going 34 OVERDRIVE AUGUST 2010 Ashley Moyes