Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/671344
President's Profile 66 May 2016 BestDriverJOBS www.bestdriverjobs.com By Ian Palmer T alk to almost anyone in the industry and they'll tell you that the ongoing driver shortage is the biggest challenge facing trucking today. With 100 percent turnover becoming the norm rather than the excep on, driver recruitment and retain- ment is a problem that fleets have to answer daily. For John Wilbur, the answer to this problem lies in driver pay. Wilbur is the CEO of Roadmaster Group and its subsidiary company, Secured Land Transport (SLT), an Arizona based fleet that specializes in transporting arms, ammunition, and other hazardous materials for the Department of Defense. When it comes to the trucking industry, he is best de- scribed as an outsider. Before taking the helm at Roadmaster Group in 2011, he spent more than 15 years as a partner at a private equity firm. The shift from the finance world to the transportation industry may seem like an odd one, but according to Wilbur, his outsider status is the greatest asset he brings to the table. "One of the advantages I've had, not coming from the trucking industry, is that I don't accept all the ways that the industry does business. Basically I've gone in and questioned everything that they've done and how the industry op- erates. I just haven't adhered to the way things have been," says Wilbur. Naturally, the first industry trend that Wilbur noticed and then made it his goal to solve, was driver turnaround. "This industry has a systemic flaw. There is just an acceptance in the industry that 90 to 100 percent turn- over is the best you can do, and we just have to bring in enough drivers every year to plug that hole," says Wilbur. "I just don't accept that at all. There's not another department in our company that we could run with 90 percent turnover, so that has to be solved. The other thing is I just don't believe there's another trucking company in America that adequately understands the cost and damage to their organization related to driver turnover." Wilbur's solution to this problem is simulataneously simple and revolution- John Wilbur is shaking up the standards of driver pay