That’s Delivered Podcast
Welcome to “That’s Delivered” – your ultimate destination for all things trucking and beyond! Here, we take you behind the wheel and dive deep into the world of trucking, delivering stories, insights, and experiences designed to inspire, educate, and entertain.
Our podcast isn’t just about transportation; it’s about reliability, accomplishment, and fulfillment. “That’s Delivered” reflects the sense of completion that comes with meeting promises and exceeding expectations—whether on the road or in life.
Whether you’re a seasoned trucker, a logistics enthusiast, or just curious about the backbone of our economy, this is the place for you. We’ll explore life on the road, uncover how technology is reshaping the industry, and break down the latest regulations impacting drivers and businesses alike.
So buckle up, hit the road with us, and join a community that understands the journey is just as important as the destination. From personal stories to industry insights, “That’s Delivered” brings the best of trucking straight to your ears, promising every mile together will be worth the ride!
That’s Delivered Podcast
Life on the Edge — Trucking Through North Dakota's Oil Fields with Randy Anderson
Ever wondered what it really takes to keep America’s oil moving from the frozen, remote corners of North Dakota? In this raw and riveting episode, Trucking Ray sits down with veteran driver Randy Anderson, who shares an unfiltered look at life in the Williston oil fields. Over a 12-year career, Randy worked his way up from a CDL-less rookie to an oil field operations manager, all while braving subzero temperatures, grueling hours, and deadly terrain. From sleeping in his truck during 52-hour shifts to hauling equipment on icy goat paths, Randy’s stories are equal parts intense and eye-opening. He dives into the science of oil extraction, the realities of H2S gas exposure, and the powerful lure of six-figure paydays that kept him coming back—even at the cost of time with family. For anyone curious about the human side of the energy industry, this episode is a must-listen.
Key Takeaways:
✅ Randy entered trucking without a CDL, thanks to a “minor technicality” his first boss brushed off—marking the start of a wild 12-year journey.
✅ Working in the Williston oil fields meant 52-hour shifts, -51°F wind chills, and navigating unmarked, dangerous “goat paths.”
✅ The "oil field exempt" rule allowed drivers to work far beyond standard hours-of-service limits—often driven by the promise of major money.
✅ Randy described the experience as “addicting”, with some drivers pulling in $200,000 a year, but at the cost of family time and personal balance.
✅ The conversation unpacks how oil is extracted, including well casing cementing, the risks of H2S gas, and why truckers remain essential in a pipeline-free region.
✅ Randy’s rise from driver to field management offers a rare look into how operations run from both the truck and office side.
✅ His advice to newcomers: find mentors, lock in company housing, and know that the work is hard—but the brotherhood and pay are real.
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Welcome back to another episode of that's Delivered. I'm your host, trucking Ray, and today we're headed up to the oil fields of North Dakota Williston to be exact where truckers, drillers and the entire ecosystem of businesses that keep the oil industry running. My guest with us today is Randy Anderson, a truck driver who has been in the thick of it all. He's hauled for the oil industry, worked with crews drilling deep into the earth, and he knows firsthand the highs and lows of the life of the oil field, from pulling long shifts in brutal conditions to climbing the ranks into management. Randy has seen it all. We'll dive into the trucking side of the oil business and the lifestyle of working in the fields and what it's like to start from the bottom and work your way to the top.
Speaker 1:If you ever wonder what it's really like behind the scenes in America's oil boom, well, you're at the right place. Also, I have a treat where we have Jesse Herron back with us in the studio at St Paul. We got Randy Anderson and we got Jesse Herron here on the show in the studio at St Paul. How are you guys doing? I'm doing good, all right. So, yeah, we just want to get to know you a little better. Randy, glad to have you on. I know you're a great truck driver out there on the road, but how did you get started trucking? What was it like? I know there's an experience that everybody goes through.
Speaker 2:What was yours like? 1992, I was working for a landscaping outfit and one of the guys that drove there ended up quitting and after he had took the load of sod to the job. So we worked the day and at the end of the day the owner came up and said hey, can you get that truck back to the shop? You're an old farm kid. And I said I can get it back to the shop. But I said I don't have a license. He says that's, that's a minor technicality. He goes, we'll worry about that later. So I got the truck back to the shop and fueled it, parked it and and uh, I come in the next morning and asked find out what location I was going to. And he said, uh, they're loading your truck out back.
Speaker 2:So that morning I was heading into minneapolis the second time in my life ever driving a truck with a load. The first time I ever drove a truck was unloaded on the way back the day before. So I did that for a few days and we got rained out one day and I went over to the license bureau and I went in and got the manual and I sat in the parking lot and read the manual for the air brakes and door cement, the combination and all that stuff Went in and took the permit test and passed it and then just kept driving until I had my acquired or the amount of time you needed to have the permit in. And then there was a local outfit that lease trucks for people to get their CDLs. Yeah, and I did that, drove around for an hour with them before the test and then took the test and passed First time, first time.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. A lot of people have to come back.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I was really nervous because, to be perfectly honest with you, the same woman that gave me my driver's license test when I was 16 was the dot officer giving my license for the semi, so I was really nervous what was that like?
Speaker 1:was she?
Speaker 2:uh she, tough on you the first time, very tough really she was very tough on the boys getting their license. Ah, yeah, yeah there's something there.
Speaker 1:Yep, ah, man, you got past all that. Look at that. You kept going yeah, determination man. So then you got driving. What company did you pick to go work for?
Speaker 2:um, I left there and I went to fratelona excavating a, uh, local, local company, great company. I still wish I was still there. But, uh, um, never let anger get in your way of your job, because I got upset and left and and then I ended up going over to Holland.
Speaker 1:Okay, and sorry, jesse, yeah, it's where.
Speaker 2:I met Jesse and it, it was it was tough too, with the construction and a young family being laid off in the winters and the kids and sports and and uh, you know, my, my income was the main, pretty much the main income for the family and and uh, so it was. It was kind of tough. I needed something to do in the winter time and got in at USF Holland over there.
Speaker 1:Okay, what was that like?
Speaker 2:I loved it. I loved Holland.
Speaker 1:So if you're a new driver and you're looking at what to do, is that line haul?
Speaker 2:I started in the city. Okay, the company was growing like mad when I first got in there and I think by my first year I had 20, some guys under me on the dock and but yet there was still 20 above me before I could even get off the cleanup shift. Okay, so I got talking to the road drivers at night and that's where I met Jesse, and he said, well, if they put up a road bid, he says, sign the road bid even if a bunch of other people sign it, because at Holland you could do a 29-day trial. So some of the senior guys, I think, just did it to get off the dock for 29 times, because there were six of us that signed the sheet, the road bid and it finally got down to me and I stayed, I stayed out there.
Speaker 3:They gave you a 29-day trail because it's a big change in lifestyle. It is, I mean, your sleep when you're home. You know we were gone. You know if you're on the extra board you could be gone Sunday to Sunday, yeah, or Sunday. Or you're home every other day or every couple days. You just never knew. Yeah, right, wow that's actually nice.
Speaker 2:There was more than once I was down in Atlanta, georgia, on a Friday morning. Wow, yeah, more than once I was down in atlanta georgia on a friday morning.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, trying to get back, yeah, man. So you got through all of that and got to meet jesse. What was your first impression of jesse? I mean, he's a great guy, man. What's uh, what was that like?
Speaker 2:intimidating when you first meet him, yeah yeah, yeah, but he'll, you know, I think he sees certain things in certain people and he'll take you in under your wing. I mean, we've been talking on the phone at night for years, so that's really cool?
Speaker 1:yeah, and that's. That's the part of trekking that a lot of people don't really understand. Is that the camaraderie you get? And then, once you're in it, you're like, wow, that's pretty cool. You got family here, yep, so that's nice. Uh, then what happened after that? Where were you headed for Holland? It's probably changing your career.
Speaker 2:You told me Yep yep, I got laid off 2008, 2009, when the economy tanked, couldn't find a job anywhere. A friend of mine had gone up to North Dakota and interviewed at six, seven places and he said I'm going to take this one job at this company called Sandgel. And he says I really liked the way the interview went and so I called up there, basically interviewed over the phone and got a start date and finished up the application when I first got there and figured I'd be up there for about six months. Okay, and it turned into a 12-year career.
Speaker 1:12 years, 12 years, yeah, wow, man. So what was your first experience like? Did you go to williston right away, or was there another?
Speaker 2:okay, yep went to williston, north dakota. Um, you had a week orientation and after your week of orientation you got a reset and then they sent you out. They, they put you in the field with, with the crews okay, what was your first experience?
Speaker 1:like uh, I know you were touching on like holland a little bit, but what was your experience like going up there I was nervous.
Speaker 2:It was cold. It was so cold. It was like 31 below outside when I was sitting in in orientation and 51, 52 below with the wind chill, and I'm like what did I just get myself into, right? Um, but it, I met a lot of great people up there even then yeah, yeah, huh, so, um.
Speaker 1:so can you share a story about a few of your days, or or the weeks, of what it was like in the oil field, maybe eye-opening moment as a rookie, or some mistakes that you made? Let's share a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you first started there at this company, they didn't give you your color or your crew. So there was red, blue and green crew so they didn't give you the color or your crew until that crew went on days off. So your first stint up there was over a month long, depending on when you started. I had pretty much used my last $500 to get there. It took me about $300 in gas to get there. I had $200 left when I got there, so food was ridiculously expensive so you had your own truck. Uh, nope, I drove my pickup up there. Um, the company I drove for, uh, the sand gel, they did cementing where they cemented the casing into the ground. Okay, um, they had coil tubing and fracking and I got into the cementing part and you're basically on call 24 7 for your two weeks that you were there, okay, wow.
Speaker 1:So, man? So you know, was there a rookie moment, that maybe when you first started that, some mistakes? Uh, let's see if there was something that people can learn from when they go up there what not to do.
Speaker 2:Just take your time basically doing what you're doing, because in the winter they don't plow like they do around major areas. They basically will close the roads if it's snowing once it's dark, or they'll put up no unnecessary travel. So the rigs will call you out early and you'll sit there forever waiting for the rig, because they just want to make sure that they've got the crew there. So when they're ready Because a lot of them company men truly believe that the oil's going to go bad, even though it's been in the ground for millions of years if they don't get it out now, it's their bonus that they're. You know they're going after, but yeah, yeah something tease them back and forth, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as for rookie mistakes the one thing with that company they always convoyed to every location there and back. You held the corners until the next truck came, he held the corner for the next truck, and so on until the last truck made the turn, so you never really had to get worried about being lost. The supervisor was in a pickup pickup and he was always first, and then it was the pump truck and the bulk trucks behind it wow, yeah, because that could be a little intimidating for newcomers.
Speaker 1:It is because there's really no road signs.
Speaker 2:you're on lease roads that are unmarked and, yeah, it's really easy to get lost if you're out there by yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it gets dark in North Dakota.
Speaker 2:Yes, what's that?
Speaker 1:like I mean man, you're out there. Sometimes I say it's like blackouts, and then there's also whiteouts.
Speaker 2:Oh the snow, yeah, yeah, I swear. On Highway 2, I seen the wind change four different directions in one five-mile stretch. Wow, the wind changed four different directions in one five mile stretch. Just watching the snow, the way it was blowing back and forth across the road, you know, yeah, it can get dangerous out there, it can you can.
Speaker 2:Um, the cold is just because it's always so windy there. I always used to joke. You know that north dakota was so flat. You could stand on a 12 pack and watch your dog run away for a week. But man, that wind gets cooking out there and and you could freeze to death fast yeah, I mean, there's nothing blocking, there's no trees, harley, just the power lines no.
Speaker 2:And then if you fall in the snow too, sometimes those drifts you right you have a hard time getting out of there yep, yep, but we had what they call the triple rail chains, so they covered both, both tires. One set of chains that covered both tires. And then we had them ice picks. I don't know if you ever watched that ice road truckers or whatever up in canada. They used the same type of chains that we had with the ice picks on them. They're not legal to run down the road, but when you got off-road you know you'd get them from the water trucks leaking and them roads would be glare ice. Wow. Going into the rig and nerve-wracking yeah, it can be all right.
Speaker 1:So so what kind of trucking jobs exist in the oil industry? Not just trucking, but there's quite a few others that maybe you know about. I know you mentioned some already. Just list them for the listeners. Maybe something that they can apply and say, hey, I want to do that.
Speaker 2:Well, there's water hauling, of course. You basically haul fresh water to the rigs, bring them salt water. They also will go to locations and pick up the salt water from the separators and they will bring that to an injection well and then they they pump that back down into the formation because it's it's not pure oil that comes out. I can't remember what the percentage is, but there's always saltwater coming out with the oil.
Speaker 1:And so they can't really apply for those specific jobs. They can't.
Speaker 2:There are certain companies out there that absolutely that's. All they do is haul oil and saltwater and they're dangerous jobs because of the H2S gas 500 parts per million you won't be with us anymore. So we all wore the H2S monitors and stuff and the oil haulers, I think, have it the worst because they're hauling the oil that will have the h2s in it.
Speaker 3:Huh oh, then we have a friend of ours from standard nick. Doesn't he haul some type of sand?
Speaker 2:frac sand, frac sand, yep, yep, oh yeah yep, frac sand.
Speaker 1:When they take it out, they put that in yep and it's in there.
Speaker 2:And it's weird how they haul it now. They used to haul it in the same trailers that we hauled it in the air pneumatic trailers. You know like you'll see wanes pulling around them, food liner trailers and stuff. That's what we hauled our dried cement in and that's also what they were hauling the frack sand in. And now it's like cans and they just pick it up with cranes and put it on the on the the deal, and they'll it'll just dump it on a conveyor and then it'll feed the blender. Wow to uh, to mix it to the right density with the gel and stuff to go down and frack the crack earth, get the oil to flow a little better. Yeah, Wow.
Speaker 1:Don't take everything out. You've got to put something back right, yep, yep. All right, and that's just the way it works in order to get that product out of the ground I mean, they're drilling pretty far down in the ground, I mean.
Speaker 3:What's the furthest? You guys drilled, Randy.
Speaker 2:Well, we didn't drill it, but the one rig we did was five and a half miles from where they broke earth to where they stopped, and they told us that they had to stop because they were going into the next county. So we had two pump trucks out there and our large acid pumper, which we always called Daisy for some reason, but it was 1,000 horsepower, just in case we had any issues displacing it, because it was so far and so much cement, because the cement that they use to cement the casing in the ground is designed basically, when it stops moving, it starts setting up. Okay, so you have any issues where you got to slow down or anything like that is very crucial on time you don't sit too long or otherwise you're not going to get it moving again, and then it gets to be a big project to get the rest of the casing cemented in. So that has happened. It has happened wow, yeah, man.
Speaker 1:So how long does it take to get it right? Like days or weeks?
Speaker 2:ah, nope it uh to pump the cement job. If everything goes right, by the time you're rigged in and everything, you might have two and a half, three hours into pumping the cement finishing the job. It takes about an hour to rig in. It's 1502 high-pressure iron line. It's rated for 15,000 PSI but we don't see that type of pressure in cement. The most pressure we would see is 3 500 4 000 pounds of pressure.
Speaker 1:So if something were to go wrong and they had to fix it, how long does it take to fix it?
Speaker 2:you got to fix quick, you got to think on your feet. One night we had a fuel pressure regulator uh, go bad on one of the motors on the pump truck and I basically sat between the engines with a valve and as soon as the pressure would start building, I'd release pressure back into the fuel tank. So I sat between two screaming motors all night keeping an eye on a pressure gauge to uh, to make sure we got the job done thanks, you did a lot of uh babysitting like that yeah and that's uh critical to get that stuff going, man.
Speaker 1:I mean you got some great stories. I mean people hopefully go up there and they have some fun while they're doing it too. Uh, what was it like, uh, for the trucking and the oil industry compared to over the road trucking ining in terms of hours and stress and even the pay?
Speaker 2:The hours and the stress level are pretty much through the roof. Like I said, we were on call 24-7. I couldn't tell you how many times I got to my apartment and I was bending over to untie my boots and my phone would ring and off we'd go again after how many hours like uh lots.
Speaker 2:the longest I ever sat on location was 52 hours. They released us. We stopped at a cafe and had breakfast because we'd been on location for 52 hours and we were walking out and the supervisor's phone rang and he goes you're not going to believe this and I go. They got unstuck and they called us back. He goes yep, so back we went. We sat another 12 hours before we rigged in again and then after, and then we finally got to pump the job. You know, after that 12 hours of wait, but it's you do get, you're not doing nothing. So all the trucks had sleepers so you could sleep. But you know how good does anybody sleep in the truck? With the truck running, you hear the rig constantly revving and pulling on the pipe because they're stuck, so there's just all kinds of unfamiliar noises. So you don't get as good a sleep as you should, you know. But you got to like roller dogs and energy drinks to work out there Nice, or you did back then.
Speaker 1:I've been out of there for a few years now or translate that sound to money yes, yeah, so I'm making money because I can hear that motor going yeah, yeah wow, and just keep staying at it. Man, what's the longest you've seen somebody stay at that job? You said 12 years.
Speaker 2:I was out there 12 years. There was a lot of guys out there that were longer than that and I got buddies that are still out there. Um, like I, I came back. Well, it kind of died down. It did die down with covid and and, uh, you know, oil was going down and then covid hit, covid hit. So what years were?
Speaker 1:you there.
Speaker 2:I was there from 2009 to 2020. So, I guess more 11 years, wow, but April of 2020, I came home.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's probably a relief off your shoulder. I mean, the stress level on that sounds intense.
Speaker 2:I'll never forget. When I came, came home, the question my daughter asked me. She asked me, right to my face she goes would you have come home if you hadn't been laid off? And before I could even stop myself, I said no, because I was addicted to the money, I was addicted to the fun. I was with them guys up there more than I was with my own family, you know. So it's, it's uh, it's a different. It's a different way of living. For sure, wow, you know, made a lot of good friendships from up there so you got.
Speaker 2:You got a big family or small family uh, I got two, two boys and a daughter okay, so they're also helping you too, because, yeah, keeping it going well, I'll tell you my nickname. When I first went up there, they both, they all started calling me joe dirt really yeah from the movie joe dirt, you know when he was in the oil field. I'm new.
Speaker 1:I don't know what to do so yeah, one of my favorite scenes is he's you know he's posing for it and doing his little dance.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I like Joe Derrick, that's a good one. So, man, you know, so they helped you that lifestyle. What was it really like? You know your typical day as a trucker in the oil fields. I mean, I've heard stories of guys you know doing substance to keep them going. They do a line on the steering wheel there was.
Speaker 2:There was a lot of that up there, not not with our company. You know we were, we were, uh, we were drug tested pretty regularly really yeah, yep and uh, um. But you, you heard stories from the old timers. You know, back in the 80s there was guys that were just working up there for the booger sugar.
Speaker 1:You know, they didn't, they didn't care so so they would run basically as a contractor. They kind of did their own thing, they. They can do that because you know who's watching those guys.
Speaker 2:Their own, their own boss right, well, say, okay, so like marathon oil is a huge company, okay, so marathon oil owns the lease. They'll hire on a drilling company. I'm going to go with, uh, whiting, which was one of the companies we did a lot of work for up there. So whiting brings in the rig and then they bring in the crew to work on the rig. So everybody's kind of like a third party contractor, except for the company man. The company man, I believe, is a whiting employee. All right, so he's the one that makes all the decisions, um, all that on the rig. He's, he's the man right.
Speaker 1:How do you guys get food? I mean, you think about all those hours you're in the truck. You're gonna run out of food.
Speaker 2:I'm in the bathroom you make the supervisor go to town with his company card and get everybody food, but we every.
Speaker 2:We always told everybody to try and bring at least two days worth of food with you. Okay, um it, because you never know if everything goes right. We did one job, we did an intermediate job, which was about 10 000 feet. We weren't very far from the shop. But from the time we got called till the time we got back to the to the shop was five and a half hours. Wow. But I've been on that same type of job with another rig where it was three days when we came back. You know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean some of these places, they had it. Grocery stores run out of food. Oh yeah, I mean the cost of it would shoot up through the roof. Even a house and board was outrageous.
Speaker 2:I remember paying $7 for a gallon of whole milk at Walmart man and if you got there after 9, they went to one checkout register and the line went all the way back to the electronics department. Yeah those lines.
Speaker 1:People would just stay there because they got to get it right yeah you got to get it.
Speaker 2:That's your only option, because everything else is closed and you don't know if you're going to be around in the morning to go to Albertsons or one of the other grocery stores.
Speaker 1:Man, and then there was stories about the lifestyle. It came along with the town like a party town.
Speaker 2:It did. It really did, and I really felt bad for the locals the way it exploded and the cost of everything went through the roof, because if you were a retired person there and you didn't have money or mineral rights or had sold off your ranch or whatever, you couldn't afford to stay there because the rent and the cost of living just went insane. Wow, um, like I said, that apartment we got into for 510 dollars a month for the two of us. Yeah, um, later on I don't know, it's probably five years later the guy never raised our rent but he sold the apartment building to a guy in new york and our rent went from 510 to 1790. So that was the first time I went into company housing because I'm like I'm not paying that much for rent what's company housing?
Speaker 2:um, they would. They would get you a roman, a man camp, or they uh actually got into a deal where there was a place built for elderly people and something with the permits were done wrong and they wouldn't let them house the elderly there, so they leased it to to our company and a couple other companies, so we stayed there, so you basically had like an apartment you know, but so it wasn't good enough for the elderly right, but it was good enough for the oil guys.
Speaker 2:Well, it was something with the permits that they couldn't, but they had restaurants in that building and everything.
Speaker 1:So it was it was, it was decent okay, um, did you guys have to carry a piece with you?
Speaker 2:protection I did in my room when I was in that apartment, I bought, I don't know. I bought two. They called them stagecoach guns. They were short double barrel shotguns and I had one on each side of my bed and my really yeah, yeah I never needed it, but yeah made you feel secure it. It did. They weren't loaded or anything, but it was kind of funny when anybody would see them and it's like what, what the hell's with that? I said that's my protection yeah, because they said.
Speaker 1:they said the crime just went crazy, it did.
Speaker 2:Walmart started closing at night because people got. They were just walking out with cartfuls of stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh, stealing, too. Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Man, we didn't. After it really took off up there, we didn't go out at night anymore just because there was so much money and so much testosterone up in that town testosterone well it's just, you know, it's nobody's better than me.
Speaker 1:You know, you get them roughnecks, man, and you get them drunk, holy cow that is a different breed of people oh man, yeah, yeah, I mean, uh, there was even some risky behavior going on. I mean one guy told me he was sleeping a truck and he would use a seatbelt to get the door closed, because one day he woke up and the police was all around and say, yeah, somebody got raped.
Speaker 2:Three, three trucks yep, I never seen anything like that. But the stress on people up there, you know, because you're away from your families and everything like that and the stress, the hours, the eating poorly Like I said, we lived on roller dogs and energy drinks for many years. Because here's the thing in the oil field in trucking you need a 34-hour reset to get your 70 back. In the oil field we only needed 24 hours to get our 70 back and then when we hit, location there was this thing that was called oil field exempt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so our equipment was oil field specific so we could use that oil field exempt. It stopped your 14 hour clock kind of like a farmer yeah, yeah, so you would go from rig to rig to rig. It was supposed to be to get you back to camp, okay, but you know, we, uh, we used the tire vantage to make money, yeah yeah, that's why you're up there, yeah, yeah yeah, if you're away from your family, you might as well make as much as you can so what was the biggest safety concern for truckers working on oil rigs?
Speaker 1:I know there's a lot of stories and things. What would you sum it up, as is for safety concerns, if somebody were to go on the wall rig?
Speaker 2:my biggest fear out there was the h2s gas. I would say what is that? It is a gas that comes out of the ground. It's an oil actually, I was told by somebody it's actually a parasite. I don't know how true that is, but it is a gas that comes out of the ground and I can't remember. I think if you've ever been up there and you drive by a well and you get that rotten egg smell, yeah, that's h2s gas, because I heard about.
Speaker 1:You know it will get in the water and they would turn on the faucet and you can put a match to it.
Speaker 2:I don't know how true that is, because there's three different pieces of casing and cement between each water. So I don't know how they're getting the H2S into the water system unless it's being put in there by by man.
Speaker 2:Wow, cause I would go to my father-in-law's house and you turn the water on and it would have that really well, some now, like the one farm I worked on when I was a kid, they had a lot of iron and you would turn the hot water on and you would get that hot, that rotten egg smell yeah yeah, yeah that that that wasn't h2s, that was just, that was just iron.
Speaker 2:But you know, in pennsylvania they claimed you know I seen a video of a guy turn on his faucet and take his lighter and light the water on yeah, side side story.
Speaker 1:You've been there for that pennsylvania thing yeah tell, tell people about that. I mean that experience and what they're going on going through over there from that spill. I mean people probably forgot about it all the in.
Speaker 2:Uh, what was that the name of that town over there over by joel?
Speaker 3:yeah, well, he's, it wasn't cat no but it's, it's over there.
Speaker 2:But yeah, they uh, the federal government decided it was better to burn off these chemicals than to clean it up, and there's all those contaminants that are still in the ground there, he said they're still there digging trying to get the contaminants out.
Speaker 1:So Pennsylvania oil spill? When was that?
Speaker 2:It was train derailment, it wasn't oil.
Speaker 1:So we'll do. Pennsylvania train Yep Derail.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's Ohio.
Speaker 2:East Palestine there.
Speaker 1:That is East Palestine, yep, yep, yep. So, and that was 2003? Yeah. Or is East Palestine, yep, yep, so, and that was 2003? Yeah, or 23.
Speaker 3:23. It was only a couple years ago.
Speaker 1:Oh sorry, 2023?. Yep, yep, let's see here. Oh yeah, that's the pileup. Yep, yep, wow. So your experience in the oil field kind of knew what this was about here, because it sent some alarms for you. Because you spent all that time up there, you kind of knew what they were dealing with when this burns. Instead of putting it out, they sent planes in, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, that was actually worse than anything we would have had to have dealt with in the oil field. Really yeah, unless, unfortunately, you were on a rig that had a blowout.
Speaker 3:Okay, Well yeah, because each one of them cars. You got thousands of gallons in them, cars.
Speaker 1:Refined. Yeah, and that just leaks out yeah, this is not the crude oil.
Speaker 2:No, nope, that was paint thinner and all kinds of stuff in there.
Speaker 1:And so they're never going to get this right.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think they'll ever. Personally, I don't think they'll ever get that cleaned up completely. Yeah, man. Oh just like that Chernobyl. I'm fascinated with that stuff. I've watched almost every documentary I can get my hands on. And even that building that they've built over it, they're claiming, is only going to last 100 years.
Speaker 1:Really yeah, so it just breaks down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it'll eventually start breaking. You know, the radiation will start breaking that building down.
Speaker 1:Whoa, it's a miracle we wake up every day isn't it, it is yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean you think about these things that go on out there just so we can get these resources going. I mean some people start getting a little worked up about the economy or they'll get worked up about the environment. I mean there's a lot that can be said about it on both sides. I know so. When Williston, the growth exploded, you know that played with a lot of people's life there and in the community a lot of people's life there and in the community. What would you say to these individuals? When it comes to the importance of oil, your opinion that it's a necessary evil?
Speaker 2:Oil's in everything. I always used to tell the new guys that it's the 3M of the earth. There's always something in your clothes, in your cell phone, in your hat, your car tires in your car, in the motor, in the metal, the paint. There's a petroleum product in everything. So these people that want to completely get rid of oil, there's going to be nothing left. We're going to be rummaging around until the clothes are gone and then we'll be. You know, leave skirts, I guess, because there won't be nothing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's hard to imagine that it's in everything.
Speaker 2:It's in everything. It's in medication, it's in hand lotion, you know it's everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because they're getting worked up about plastic being in your blood. Yes, I was like well, there's oil probably in your blood too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have to try to stay balanced. It's a hard thing to do. It is when you're out there in those oil fields you were trying to stay balanced for your health Right and it's going to be a struggle. That's just part of life.
Speaker 1:It's going to be a struggle. That's just part of life, yeah, man. So what kind of business thrived along the oil industry as a supporting? You know, there's some stores, there's restaurants, there's places that are catering specifically for truckers or rig workers. What was that like? What kind of businesses were those?
Speaker 2:When I first got up there there was two Cenex stations, Cenex North and Cenex South. That was the only two trucking areas. One had maybe room for five, ten trucks and the other one had room for 20, 30, maybe 40 trucks 20, 30, maybe 40 trucks Later on, when the boom really took off, then Loves came in. They got a Loves I think it's Loves there on 13-mile corner. There when you're first coming into Williston, they call it 13-mile corner because it's 13 miles from there to town. Because it's 13 miles from there to town. But then there was a couple other truck stops that came in. Highway 85 that went to Watford was a two-lane road. It's now a four-lane road. It bypasses some of the smaller towns so they don't have the truck traffic. Um, and williston did the same thing. They built truck bypasses so the trucks weren't coming through town, they were going around town instead of through it but all right.
Speaker 1:Well, moving up from the bottom to management, I mean, what was that?
Speaker 2:like it was a lot of work. Okay, I started out driving a truck with a pneumatic trailer, just like everybody did. I remember asking one of my mentors I said how long before I can be a pump operator? And he said, oh, probably a year or two. And I got a little disheartened. I'm like, oh, thinking to myself. That got a little disheartened, you know. I'm like, oh, that's. You know, thinking to myself, that's a little more than I wanted to be.
Speaker 2:But okay, so that spring I was starting to get onto the pump truck, but what we would do, I had my supervisor at the time, my pump operator and our engineer. They all kind of took me under my wing, under their wing, or I probably wouldn't have made it Because, like I said, I had $200 left when I got there. I didn't get a check for two weeks and it was only for my one week of orientation, and I sent most of that home to the wife for her and the kids so they could keep eating. And, uh, then I, you know, once I got my first paycheck, probably a month later, um, my supervisor actually bought me a pair of boots, because my boots were so bad. They hurt my feet that I could barely walk, you know, by the end of the day. And and, uh, just told me he says pay me back when you, when you get a check, right. So that's what I did, but if it wasn't for them three, I probably wouldn't have made it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, teamwork.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow.
Speaker 1:That's one thing I'm really big on is, you know, even especially with the Teamsters and all I mean teamwork all this stuff gets done with the help of other people. No one can do it by themselves, Right, and you know, think about how the Teamsters has helped so many people elevate their income. You know, correct Teamwork is huge, man. I mean your management stepping in there, being there for you, taking you under their wing, that's great.
Speaker 2:So how do you transition into management roles? Well, I went from the dry bulk operator to the pump truck operator, and with each step is more and more responsibility. And then I was the was I on the pump? I think I was on the pump for two winters, okay, and we just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And then I moved up to supervisor and now your responsibility is even bigger and that's where I started having some health issues and uh my my boss at the time, or he was a big wig at the company.
Speaker 2:I I went into his office one day and said I can't do this anymore. I'm going home and shut the door and he goes. He I can tell there's something wrong. He goes because I've seen you changing over the last few months. He says I want you to go home and see your doctor and find out what's going on before you quit. He said you'll always have a job here. So I did and I went home and the doc did a bunch of tests and everything and here they found out that my body quit producing testosterone. So once a month I get a 400-milligram shot to this day.
Speaker 1:Was that from the oil fields?
Speaker 2:Nope, nope, it was just my body quit producing it. Wow, body quit producing it and, uh, um, it was usually it's usually caused from testicular cancer, right, yeah, but it was tested for all that and no cancers, it was just. But it was amazing once you find out what that does for your body. You know, I was just run down all the time. I was crabby, I was stressed, you know, it was just never right, never even. And even you know, I can tell when it gets close to doing my shot, I can feel myself start coming down right.
Speaker 1:So it's yeah, insulin, testosterone, those are all chemicals to keep you balanced. Again, we look at that balance part. Yep, your body needs teamwork too. Yep, do you want to take a moment to take a sip?
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I know you're going at it. You're doing good, man yeah.
Speaker 3:Is the actual recording right.
Speaker 1:Uh-oh.
Speaker 3:We got to start over.
Speaker 1:Oh no, yeah, the clock's ticking up there. So, okay, all right, and then I go and I check the mic. I'm like I'll make sure that thing's working. Yeah, yeah, let's see. Yeah, so the testing, testing. Look at that. Hey, thanks, um.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we're back, um so I I became supervisor, and once I got that figured out and then I moved over to the acidizing side of things. Oh, wow, what's that.
Speaker 2:Well, we would go work on the old wells. If they weren't producing like they would. We would get a sample from from the well they would. Their company man would get us a sample. Our lab would run a test and they would come up with an acid blend that would clean that, that well up to get it to produce better. And that was nice because you always knew when you were going out, because we never pumped acid in the dark, because you don't want to have a leak, you want to be able to see. So we never pumped acid in the dark, so it was more of a daytime gig and uh, okay, and why not in the dark?
Speaker 2:uh, just because of the leaks. Um, we've pumped all the way up to 32 hcl and that. I don't know if you know much about acid, but you open up the tank if you ain't got a face mask on. It'll take your breath away, wow.
Speaker 1:I didn't know if it was as bad as ammonia.
Speaker 2:It's pretty bad. You know the higher percent, you know. Usually we pumped 18%, which is really nothing more than pure orange juice. Okay, you know, but you get up to the 32, because then there's less chemicals in it to tame it down. Pure orange juice, I mean.
Speaker 1:You lost me a little bit there. Come back, you could drink it.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:No, but we always used to joke it was about as strong as well, no I would say even the 10%. We would probably joke about being orange juice or Coca-Cola.
Speaker 2:Won't hurt you much, right but on that side of it, also being that they're older wells, you're more prone to run into the h2s, okay, so it usually is coming up once the well's produced for a while. And uh, you know, like I told you earlier that one old company man told me that it was like an enzyme or parasite, that h2s, okay and it's, you know, 500 parts per million and you won't be here anymore, so it don't take very much what skills and traits helped you advance in your career um for moving up?
Speaker 2:um well, they loved. Loved me because I was a truck driver before I came up there, so I had miles behind me, I had a good driving record, so they liked that. But I had a pretty much free ticket up there because I knew how to make that. I always had time We'll just say.
Speaker 3:Because he's the fancy man oh yeah, 1.0?.
Speaker 1:Fancy man 1.0? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then there's a fancy man, I'll tell you that story. Go ahead, yeah, we can.
Speaker 1:And then there's a fancy man, I'll tell you that story. Go ahead, yeah, we can throw that in there.
Speaker 2:I was coming in from Joliet. And I was coming in, I just crossed the river and 94 was all backed up and I was talking to my buddy, joe, or was I talking to you, jesse? I was talking to Joe and traffic was all backed up and I go, I don't know who the heck these people think they are. They delaying the fancy man to get to us. So ever since I've been calling me the fancy man.
Speaker 2:So but uh I can't remember exactly how I said it, but I went on this huge rant and then I said the fancy man, you know well, don't you know who's coming down the road?
Speaker 1:yeah, you gotta own it right yeah yeah, man yeah, that's cool, I like that yeah, and then the fact that you guys keep that going, man. That's cool, man. Keep you guys having fun, keep giving a good laugh for each other. That's that brotherhood yeah, it is, it is absolutely, it is um well, so as far as uh looking up into the, you know you, you moved into management you got to help other people, be there for them, look after them and keep the production going um.
Speaker 1:If you could go back and where you would mentor your young self when you started, what would you tell yourself?
Speaker 2:You know, specifically in the oil field, are you talking or just in life in general? Well, I guess you could blend them both together. But yeah, the oil field.
Speaker 1:I mean, think about somebody going up there because they're going to be starting to drill a lot more. So they're probably going to be looking for it, ramping up.
Speaker 2:Well, see, the one thing there's always going to be starting to drill a lot more, so they're probably looking for it ramping up. You know well, see, the one thing there's always going to be trucking in north dakota, because there's no way for the oil to get out of there other than by rail how much oil you think is down there, how much? They told me there's more oil in north dakota than there is in the middle east and how did you see it?
Speaker 1:because they had some people out there measuring well, yeah, they have these.
Speaker 2:You'll see them in the winter time, I've never seen them in the summer. But they run around geologists with these, uh, sonars or whatever, and they drive around and find the big pockets of oil and and, uh, I suppose the drilling companies you know hire these guys and then they'll see if they can lease the property. But there will always be trucking up there. You're going to be driving on the worst roads imaginable all the time summer, winter In the summer and winter, as long as you can get the truck to scale out. The max load limit up there is 105.5. Wow, during frost laws and stuff like that, you got to be at the axle weight. It's just like everywhere else, nine ton per axles.
Speaker 2:A lot of your township roads are six ton per axle. We've used as many. We started getting tanks that we would go set up out on location and we've had as many as eight bulk trucks going out there because we could only load them to six ton per axle. We had a bunch that were four axle trucks, four axle trailers. We had a bunch that were four-axle trucks and four-axle trailers. We had a bunch of three-axle trailers, but most of the time when it allowed it, we're loaded to 155. All right, wow, but the best thing is to get to know somebody. If you're moving up there, find a place that has company housing, because renting up there is still ridiculous, still, still.
Speaker 1:It didn't come down.
Speaker 2:It's probably come down, but it's you get another big boom up there, it'll probably go right back up, yeah, and everything will just climb again. One summer the Dairy Queen had a two, three thousand dollar sign-on bonus if you applied and took a job at the dairy queen, because everybody was going out to the oil field man, so I need more people on staff.
Speaker 1:They needed more people. Dairy queen is a hot spot, yeah yep, yep that's amazing.
Speaker 2:But the most important thing would be is find yourself a mentor. Find somebody that's willing to take you in under their wing and show you the ropes.
Speaker 3:But are you going to go there and make serious money?
Speaker 1:You can Absolutely you can. Talk to me. What kind of money are we talking about?
Speaker 2:Well, them kids on the rig were making anywhere from 150 to 2 000 a year. Wow, they would go 200 000. Oh, okay, yep, yeah. They would go to the dealership and buy a pickup with cash and drive it across the street to the shop and have it deleted, lifted and all that other fancy stuff put on it. They didn't care about no warranties, anything like that. They had money. They didn't care if it broke bad enough.
Speaker 1:They'd just go buy another one $200,000, huh, $200,000 a year Back then, that was really good money yeah. Yep, but then they ate it up pretty good with the cost of living.
Speaker 2:Well, and everybody's the same. Well, this is going to go forever, and I did it.
Speaker 3:But you got to remember, ray, he'd come home every couple weeks, two weeks Every two weeks. He came home for a week A week, then go back up, so he didn't live. You know he rented up there, so he's paying that Plus. He had to pay flight train gas, whatever going back and forth.
Speaker 2:Once they built the new airport up there and flights came down, I started flying back and forth. Is that Minot? Yeah to Williston, Williston has its own airport. Yep, they've got an international airport there now.
Speaker 1:What.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:It's tiny.
Speaker 2:It's like four gates. We flew out of minot once, me too, to uh go to colorado for some training, okay, and I it was being the engineer. Then I go, where'd the guy go that took our tickets? He goes. He's probably out there throwing our luggage in the plane. I'm like no way. We walk over the window and there he was. He was the guy who sold the drinks. He took your baggage and he backed the plane out. What, yes, what guy.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I just remember trying to get the car in the parking spot because there was so much snow. It's like you were driving over a mountain, a big hill or a big speed bump just to get into the parking spot and I was like this is never melting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's. I tell you, it's hot as heck there in the summer and it's cold as heck in the winter and it's cold as heck in the winter. Right North Dakota's got its own bipolar weather system, other than what we have here. They don't get the snow we can get here, they have but the cold. I mean. But you're given so much gear from these companies, I carry it in my truck for survival gear, my old field gear from up there. Okay, in case I ever break down, you got a Jesse Heron bag, huh.
Speaker 2:Yes, I do, there you go. He's the one who showed me how to pack that stuff, that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to look after yourself, ain't? Nobody else going to do it for you, right? Yeah, got my candle and I got my winter boots and my bibs and jacket and some protein bars you can lay down on the ground, no problem, and break those brakes right, yeah yeah, well, ain't that fun in the winter?
Speaker 2:yeah, people say you don't have to do that whoa bull, I just had to do it the other day. Crawl under there and beat the brakes to get them to release.
Speaker 1:Every time I mention that to a truck driver they kind of roll their eyes Like what are you talking about? There's some people out there that think you could just use the trailer brake and do some stuff with it and build up the pressure. What is it?
Speaker 3:Where we work. Now they say just back up, yeah. And it's like what's that going to do if I'm on ice?
Speaker 2:Or if you're up against a dock, you can't back up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and they're disc brakes and they're sealed. You can't even get to them. No, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you got to bang on them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you got to bang on the outside.
Speaker 1:You got to beat some drums. Beat some uh, what do you call them?
Speaker 2:uh, bud spacing in there yeah, I guess I haven't had any problems with the rotor brakes um just the drum brakes on the trailer. I've had some issues with, but um so recommend a four pound hammer yes, everybody should have a four pound hammer, a screwdriver and a vice grips at least, or a crescent wrench. What if I? Got a two pound hand hammer it might not be big enough yeah, you have to swing harder, that's for sure longer handle, yeah better odds of giving yourself a black eye with?
Speaker 3:that two pound. Hammer ray, just call the shop, yeah uh, yeah, yeah and then like trucking.
Speaker 1:So the biggest, you know kind of concluded. You know there's lessons, there's challenges and we can always give other truckers and young ones coming into the field advice. Uh, what is the biggest lesson you've learned? Uh, from the time you've been in the oil fields or even starting things out, you know, with the line haul, you're still doing that. I mean, what would you say to individuals that are in trucking? Just some word of advice. What would you say?
Speaker 2:Um, friendships, um, and always treat the new guy with respect, because a lot of us have forgot where we've started. We were all green hats one day in the oil field. We were all the new trucker at the company at one time. And it don't seem to be where and I'm guilty of it too where the more experienced guys aren't helping out the newer guys. It's unfortunate, but there's always somebody out there willing to help you. You just got to find them. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of people at these companies, not everybody's.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you got certain companies where it's like, well, you got hazed when I got out of here, so why shouldn't you get hazed Right? It's like you know, that's a pretty bad philosophy. It is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. That's just not going to help yourself at all. No. What about some of the toughest moments, either on the road, working the rig, or even at home? What advice would you give to them, too, to kind of keep going? There's probably some times where you're going to feel like, hey, you know what am I doing. What would you say to these individuals to kind of keep them going, because we need them. We need them out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, out in the oil field we got called out on two blowouts where people lost their lives. Because we got called out there I think it was by Boots and Coots, no, wild Well Control, we got called out there by. They got the well shut down but the BOP was burnt so badly from the fire that they needed to replace it and we had to rig in from 600 feet away. And Wild Well Control had, like, this ridiculously large flow jet that they had set up that we rigged into and we were going to pump a water-sand mixture to this machine that would basically cut the BOP off, plug the well to where guys could get up there and weld it and cap it. It's different being on a location where you know people lost their lives Another one that was a big rig, the other one was a work over rig and the one guy up in the basket never even made it out of the basket. It blew up so fast what's the basket?
Speaker 2:it's up on the top when they're pulling pipe. You'll see, if you watch any videos of a rig, he'll be up. They call it well, some call it the crow's nest. I've always just kind of called it the basket, because it looks like a basket up there and then it's got a bunch of fingers in it. So when they're pulling drill pipe, he'll, he'll, it'll come up, he takes it out of the, out of the oh, I forget what it's even called but he'll unhook the deal and he'll take the pipe and pull it back and slide it in these fingers so they stack them on the rig. They don't set them back down on the ground. But, um, yeah, you got to watch the videos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, or you got to actually be out there doing it. You'll'll see. Yeah, but that's kind of a hot spot if something were to happen. Huh.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah, it's different when you know something went horribly wrong there.
Speaker 1:Because those flames will shoot way up in the air, yes, and they'll burn for days. Really, you can't cap them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, until they get capped In to shut, like this one. They were fortunate enough to get it to shut, but by the time we got rigged in and everything the well had lost its pressure, so we didn't have to do anything there.
Speaker 1:So the pressure is so high if you try to put a cap on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then a lot. You know it's a lot, lot too where. And I don't know for sure if the mud weight got off, because I think I was talking to you earlier about how they got it all figured out how heavy the fluid's got to be in the well to keep the gas in formation so the gas don't get into the drilling mud or stuff. When you see, if you watch videos of a drilling rig and you'll see a flare stack off to the side, that's basically separating the gas out of the drill mud, sending it over to that flare stack and then burning it off wow.
Speaker 1:So the youtube videos and stuff, watch those because oh, they're cool yeah, when I started getting into trucking, I started watching YouTube to help me out.
Speaker 2:Oh sure.
Speaker 1:No, because I was thinking about pulling doubles. I wanted to see what that was like. So if you're going to get into oil fields, you recommend watching some videos.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of videos out there that are good and informational. That'll even explain to you what I did with the cementing and the casing with the coil tubing.
Speaker 1:Yeah do your research.
Speaker 2:The fracking locations are cool. When you get out there and you've got 10 of those 3,000 horsepower pumps running wide open, man, it's pretty cool. Just hearing all that horsepower bellering, you know.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. So if a trucker considered north dakota and oil fields to work today, what should they know before making the move?
Speaker 2:uh, like I said, housing is a big thing. Make sure a lot of places out there have company housing. Um, try and find something with company housing or some type of assistance with housing and make sure you have a job before you go. What happens there Come?
Speaker 1:on Get up there.
Speaker 2:Back when the boom was really going and there was no jobs around here. I was supervising and I come out of Walmart one day and I had three guys standing by my pickup begging me for a job because they had used every penny. They had to get there because the national news said that they could go up there and start work that day. Well, that's not the case. It's just like everywhere else. You got a background check, all that.
Speaker 3:Well, and don't they say, if you're single, there's a pretty girl behind every tree yeah, yep.
Speaker 1:Wait a minute, what's that?
Speaker 2:There's no trees.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you see this guy looking around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, he's lost.
Speaker 1:He'll figure it out. Yeah, wow, so that's one of the misconceptions. Uh, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not going to show up there and just start a job that day. Make sure you have something lined up before you go. Um, especially with the oil field starting to get, it's going to be taken off again. I got friends up there that I talk to weekly and they are gearing up for the madness, for the madness yeah, is there anybody still in your job?
Speaker 1:can you think you got a job and then somebody else take it from you? Uh, no, okay, no, so you can feel secure if you got something yeah okay, yeah, all right. So what do you think the future is for oil field trucking? What's your opinion?
Speaker 2:um north Dakota, like I said, will always be there. Like I said, there's no pipeline. There was supposed to be that pipeline coming through and it got shut down. I haven't heard any rumblings of that even getting going again.
Speaker 1:Really, what's the pipeline?
Speaker 2:It's going to take the oil sands out of canada and then they want to mix the oil from north dakota with it, because oil sands is a lot thicker than the oil coming out of the grounds of north dakota. So they want to combine the two to make it flow better, and I believe that's supposed to go all the way down to texas, down to the refineries and the shipyards down there in Texas.
Speaker 1:Okay, so when they get done pulling it out, they ship it down to Texas or somewhere else.
Speaker 2:Right, because there's no. Everything coming out of there is either by truck or rail. There's no pipeline in there like there is in Texas, where they can just feed it to the pipeline.
Speaker 1:Here's a silly question. I mean, I don't know, but you never know. Technology is advancing. What do you think automation or new regulations could change things or some autonomous things could happen there.
Speaker 2:I don't think you'd ever have autonomous anything in the oil field. You are on literal goat paths, sometimes going back to these locations Goat paths.
Speaker 1:It's like there's no rail no no, because there's cliffs there.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah yep, there's a place all flat their mountains are inverted or something. It's different. It is um. We went to this one place and if you've ever been to north dakota, anybody listening to this is going to know what I'm talking about. It's's called the Bear's Den.
Speaker 1:The Bear's Den.
Speaker 2:Yep, Back when I first started, that was one truck wide all the way down these steep winding hills and we went down at like 2 in the morning so you didn't see what was on the edge or anything like that, and so basically the supervisor went down with the pickup and would stop anything that was going to be heading up and then we would come down. The road has been widened. They have taken some of the steepness out of it now, Okay, but it's still. You would never think there was cliffs like that in North Dakota.
Speaker 1:So what's good for driving there Like a manual or automatic?
Speaker 2:The company I was with, everything we had was 18 speeds. I love that transmission. Yeah, that should be in everything. That's what they say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 18 speeds is good. Yeah, because you can split them.
Speaker 2:Oh, you can split them. You can drive it like a 9-speed, you can drive it like a 13-speed, a 10, it like a 13 speed, a 10 speed. You know, whatever you want, it's it's it's all there.
Speaker 1:So you got an A restriction on your license. You can't do the oil fill.
Speaker 2:Uh, they're just like everybody else. They're getting into the automatics. Oh yeah, yep, they are Okay. Um, I you can probably still go off and see the skid marks from the first time I drove an automatic, because I went to go, step on the clutch and I slammed on the brakes and probably left a 30 foot skid mark before I realized what I had done.
Speaker 1:That's funny. Oh man, oh man. So we got work to do. There's plenty of work to go around in the trucking industry. I think teamwork is going to be huge, looking out for each other, not giving up on each other and your dreams. There's ways you can get there. You just got to find the path and lean upon each other. Hey, I think your words are going to help a lot of people, um, that may be looking to expand their career and glad you're able to come on the show and share your experience and, um, there's more that left. I'm sure you you can come back and do some more talk about the line haul business as well yeah, and.
Speaker 2:And then even to finish your management question from before before I sidetracked you, you know I mean, I got through the, the acid parting part of it, and and then one night they were short a coordinator and they just asked me to sit in there and answer phones.
Speaker 2:And so I sat in there answering the phones but I also was on the program just making dummy tickets. So I taught myself how to build a job pack for a job, sitting on the computer at night in there all by myself, you know, answering phone calls and then calling out the crews when the job's called like a dispatch. Yeah, wow, yeah. They called us coordinators because we would take the information from the rigs, get it to the engineers who would build the job, program, design the cement and all that stuff, and then the trucks would be loaded, the cement would be tested to make sure it didn't flash, set or anything on us. Okay, and then, once everything was good, when the job called, you'd dispatch the crews. But yeah, I coordinated up there for six of the last years I was up there.
Speaker 2:I was in the office. There's always room for moving up there. There always is.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of teamwork involved with that too. I mean you've got to know and trust each other when you're making these decisions that they can affect a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Right and I used to thank God every night that when the crews called nobody was hurt, everybody was coming home, and I never had to be part of that unholy phone call that nobody ever wants to make to somebody's family saying that their loved one ain't coming home wow um, I thank god every day for that yeah, yeah, that's, that's good man because it is dangerous. Yeah, no, you know, no, we had a lot of fun, a lot of stuff like that, but it is, it is very dangerous up there wow, wow.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate your contribution and I think a lot of people can learn from your determination to do the right thing. It can be in so many facets of your career. It's not just let's just try to get this done. I mean there's other things you have to do that people don't see the bits and pieces that put it all together. I mean you were part of that puzzle. Great job, yeah, thank you. Yeah, I mean, even with this podcast, I couldn't do it by myself. So I appreciate you coming on the show. And to Jesse, thank you for bringing him on. He's got a lot to contribute. I love his stories.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man you guys are teamwork out there doing it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I said, the bad part was when I left the oil field, one of his good friends talked to me about coming back to. Holland. How'd you do that? I did talk to him. That was another guy.
Speaker 2:Another friend of mine talked me into coming back up and I tried going and I just didn't have it in me anymore.
Speaker 3:It takes a lot out of you. So he talked to me about coming back to holland to work with us guys.
Speaker 1:That's a story in itself, yeah yeah, the holland story, man, yeah, that's, uh, that'd be a good one yeah, we should do that one day.
Speaker 2:We can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right well, um well, I just put this all together, edit it and and take out my ears. I've got to get me a sound engineer One day.
Speaker 3:You've got to get a fan or air conditioning in this room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a cooker, isn't it? It is a cooker, the hot box.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:All the lights.
Speaker 2:It's not just my nerves.
Speaker 1:No, it's not. I'm in here when I do a show too. I come out and I'm like, wow, I tell my wife, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1:then you know the way it keeps the story short, story shorter and and uh right right so yeah, man, I really appreciate you coming on sharing your story, and a lot of people out there are going to realize just how much trucking is tied up into the, the oil field and the industry, and you can give us a real look into that world when people listen to this. So the folks that want to keep up and want to learn more about trucking and the oil industry, where can they find some more information? Where would you go to continue the research? What would be your first place?
Speaker 2:Websites, google oil field, north Dakota oil field jobs or Texas oil field jobs. I know North Dakota makes a lot more money than Texas, but Texas you don't have the winners, right? But uh, um, yeah, anything you know, I would start with North Dakota oil field jobs just on a search and they will pop up all over nice what would you say, jesse?
Speaker 3:well, I'm just gonna say people need to remember the general public. When these guys are all driving around, you know you get angry because they're in your way or they're moving too slow, but you know they can't stop on the dime. And and if you bought it, a truck brought it. Yes, they're bringing oil, they're bringing fuel, they're bringing groceries, they're bringing hardware, they're bringing lumber. I mean, if it wasn't for the trucks, this country would shut down. Yes, yeah, absolutely so. As far as being general public, you just got to remember these guys are out there doing a thankless job every day.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 3:We don't get enough thanks for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot to be said about that. I mean, you can produce something, you have a wonderful product and a great resource for a lot of people and there's no cut to that producer. You know, like a farmer or an oil rig, but you can't get it to people and get it to where it needs to go without a truck driver. Exactly, it's just the way it's set up. Yep, I know they're going to try to change that and try to do things to get it automated, but I still think the human factor is going to be a huge thing. So teamwork is going to be critical.
Speaker 1:Maybe there's going to be population depletion, it's going to decline and we're going to need more autonomous I don't know or more automation, because there's just less people. So, hey, let's work with that too, because you moved up into the management and you got to see how you make those job tickets and everything. So let's work with that too, because you moved up into the management and you got to see how you make those job tickets and everything. So there's ways that we can move up and take a leadership role and still be still a trucker at heart, because you understand the industry, the ins and outs. So I think, I think working together is going to be the key factor. It's going to be that's going to be the game changer.
Speaker 3:Well, the nice part about what Randy did Randy was a driver, worked his way up, I mean. So when he got into the management position he understood what the drivers go through on a daily basis. He knows the sacrifices that they make. You know he was one of them. You get somebody that comes in completely with no experience on that end and just comes out of college and goes into what Dranny's doing. I mean there is no concept of time, of what these guys sacrifice on a daily basis, family-wise or anything else. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:You have a lot of aha moments and some of them they just go right over your head. Yes, because you're just not. You're just not able to understand the fastest. Why. Why is it's taking so long? That's always the one right there, yeah, right. Why is it taking so long?
Speaker 2:why you got to do 12 hours yeah, I used to tell the guys when they would leave for a job because there were signs all over out there uh, trucks pulling out ahead, whatever, or trucks may be pulling out, you know, heavy traffic, whatever. I always told the guys I said just remember, every other vehicle on that road is more important than you are. That's the way they act. I said give them the space. I don't care if it takes you three hours to get the location, stay in your convoy and get there safely right, because you're driving a truck and all they see is, oh, I can't see in front of it, or there's six of them in a row. I'm not going to stay behind them. And back, when it was two lanes, they would pass, they would just hit them try to pass 12 trucks, they would just pin it and pass.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they'd pass you on the shoulder, They'd pass you on the right. I mean it was, they just did not care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go home and make a sandwich.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:That's what they were in the rush about yeah, yeah, I got to make a sandwich. The rush about yeah, yeah, I gotta make a cent. Yeah, what something's so urgent?
Speaker 2:yeah yeah, I, I don't. And the one thing I've noticed recently, ever since covid I don't know if you've noticed it, but the hostility out on the roads nowadays with the, with the other drivers, the cars, the, the aggressive aggressiveness that they're driving at, it gets scary sometimes. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I know they get on the back of my trailer and they disappear. Yes, I can't see it. I see the lights, yep.
Speaker 2:But man, you're really up on me, yep, you got my tandems all lit up, but I can't see. Ya, it's different out there ever since covid.
Speaker 1:I will say that yeah, anxiety is a real thing. People want to ignore it, but it moves you it makes you make different decisions.
Speaker 1:It makes you, yep, do things that you wouldn't normally do, so you got to recognize it for what it is. Um, anxiety is real. Um, we try to help people with a lot of that. I mean it's, it's a team effort on that too. Yeah, so I see a lot of people come out after 2020 comedians and, oh yeah, therapists and we need it and appreciate them too, doing helping out a lot of people because they got issues that need to be dealt with and not not necessarily just dwelling on it to non-stop, but just got to work through it. You know, gotta got to give yourself time, yeah, so my dad always said that laughter is the best medicine.
Speaker 2:And I just hey, you do it. I do get wound up. I try to have as much fun as I can. I know Jesse has talked me off the ledge more than once.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's that teamwork again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that teamwork again. Yep yep, that's cool man. I appreciate you guys too. I mean, I don't have as much experience as you guys, but you're coming on the show and we use this platform to help other people. I appreciate all your years that you put in and hard work. When I was a young trucker at heart, it was truck drivers like yourself that helped me to see hey, there's a possibility, something I can do so.
Speaker 1:Hey and it's possibly something I can do. Yeah, so, man, I appreciate that. So, yeah, that's about it, you know. So, for all the listeners out there, whether you're behind the wheel or at the oil fields yourself or just tuning in for you know, a nice podcast on your ride and just hanging out with us on, that's delivered. If you enjoyed this episode, be enjoyed this episode. Be sure to like, subscribe, uh, leave a review and appreciate it. All the, all the love you guys are putting out there. So, uh, keep, keep on trucking and until next time, keep those wheels turning, stay safe out there and remember that's delivered.
