TCI Operations: Interview-Jimmy and Roy (Apr 09 2024)
VIEW RECORDING – 61 mins (No highlights)
@1:48 – EspinozaD
Guys, I’ll kind of do a quick introduction that way we can jump into it. I know you are both super, busy.
So first and foremost, guys, thank you to Jimmy and Roy and I’m so excited. So this is Jim and Mika.
They are really the people behind the marketing for TCI. really, we kind of give them like an idea of what we want and it could be a sentence and they go back, they put everything together and they make the magic happen for us.
And it started off also even with the articles. They write these articles for us and Ryan read an article one time and he saw he compared our articles to somebody else’s post who does very even more like in-person type of deal.
Like, you know, he’s like, I know who those people are and I don’t know who my team is. So we went back to meeting Jim and they came up with the editor like, okay, you know what?
How about we start interviewing your team? And we were like, that’s a great idea. Like, yes, like let’s do it.
So when we talk about what we do at TCI, we could put something on paper what we think, but we want to know what you guys think and how to get us to next level.
Because ultimately it’s you guys are the ones that doing the work for us. We’re just following your leads. So we’re so excited.
So I always tell everyone congratulations when you’ve been selected because we go down this roster and it’s like, you know, who’s the next big thing and honestly, like, when we thought of the name and what to call you guys, it was perfect because you guys really like collaborate together.
So me and Jim, I’ll introduce you guys. is Jim and Roy. There are regional operations directors. Jimmy made me laugh.
I thought it was so funny at the summit that we hosted a couple of weeks ago. Jimmy was just like, this is Roy’s part.
And it was just like California, Oregon, Washington. Jimmy’s like, this is all of mine. then like, it was like a little band train.
And then Roy’s like, that’s fine because in this little area I have, I have the same drivers that you have Jimmy in all this country.
And, you know, it was kind of back and forth, but it was, it was very entertaining. But low-key sometimes think like it’s a secret competition, you know, like what region, what direction, who’s going to do it better concepts or services.
But overall, they just make it work. And we couldn’t have asked or had a better team. When it comes to Jimmy and Roy, they just really pinged off of each other.
They put us all on the same page, but they also put us on check. And that’s what we need in trekking.
So with that being said is, we’re gonna probably roll out Mika and Jim, we’re gonna ask questions. And honestly, just answer as you would, if you were just talking to us, what they’ll do is they’ll the conversation, they’ll go back and you’re, what you guys say will be converted into our actual article.
It’ll be sent back to us, read it. And you’re like, hey, I thought I said that, but I didn’t mean it.
So can you take that piece out? So that’s what the goal is. And then at the very end of that article, we just want a little bit of bio and a picture of you guys and tell us who you are as people.
We know who you are as TCI, but also when someone sees you somewhere, they’ll be like, hey, you like Hentsine, I saw your article, I like to hunt too, or you went to the school, I also went to the school, or my kid goes there.
So we want you guys to be more relatable also to our audience. and to reach it, so that’s what we need to buy up.
So with that, that’s it, guys.
@5:04 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Welcome. Nice job.
@5:06 – EspinozaD
Thanks.
@5:07 – Jameca Lyttle
All right now, guys, and I’m looking for a part-time gig, like we can usually do here.
@5:13 – EspinozaD
I studied you guys. I studied you guys.
@5:15 – Jameca Lyttle
knew the call was coming.
@5:17 – EspinozaD
Hi, guys.
@5:20 – Jameca Lyttle
I just wanted to make a really quick intro. So my name’s Mika. I’m the account lead with Dremencia, working with TCI with them with you guys for a few years now.
And, yes, Diana did a great job of summarizing what we’re here to do. This is just a spotlight for folks who feel like are really stars there at TCI.
And when we were talking about it, Diana was very excited to get you guys on the line.
@5:44 – Roy Sheraden
You know, she mentioned a couple of words.
@5:46 – Jameca Lyttle
She threw out a dynamic duo, you know, the guys, you know, so we were, we didn’t want to kind of make this very formal.
We want to just really ask you guys just some questions as far as like what you do, how you work together, how you may work separately.
offer a common goal. And just really get a take of your personalities, why you know you do what you do.
Hopefully we’ll be able to see the love shine through. And it should be a fun one. We’re really wanted to just get you guys, you know, get your thoughts out there, make some intro to people who may not be aware of who you are and what you do.
So it’s going to be very casual. I’m going to have Jim introduce himself and then Jim, I’m going to jump into maybe like the first set of questions.
@6:28 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
And then I will let you take it from there so that we can get things to go wherever you want to go.
So yeah, I’m I’m Jim, kind of the creative director over here at Dremencia. I think 2019, I want to say is when we started with TCI maybe 2020.
So it’s been a while. I feel like that’s why I say I feel like I know you guys could have seen you enough enough around.
Jimmy, you’re in Austin and Roy, you’re in Pomona, is that right?
@6:55 – Jimmy Wren
I work out of San Antonio, yes.
@7:00 – Roy Sheraden
I at least have more correct.
@7:01 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Yep. Got it. Got it. So, and one of the things that I find fascinating just in general is how well TCI operates from various places, right?
mean, that’s the wonderful world of zoom, right? remote and all that stuff. It’s kind of changed the way we do stuff.
So anyway, so the way we kind of do these things, we’re looking for a hook, to be honest with you.
We want, we’d like to find something, and I don’t think we have yet. I think it’ll come, we’ll discover it as we kind of chat with you both as far as what the main kind of point of what we want to talk about.
The, you know, when we talk with Danica about safety, you know, it was really just about the new policies that had been put in place, spearheading kind of the importance of safety from a corporate top level down.
She kind of made it a really kind of interesting article for people to read who aren’t just clients or potential clients for you guys, but peers, right?
We want you guys to be, this is the type of conversation you might have sitting at a banquet or at an awards place reception where you’re sitting next to people from Schneider or from other companies and they’re looking at you guys think, guys, you guys are rocking it.
What are you doing? Give me some insight as far as what we should be looking at or what the next year is going to be like or whatever.
This more of some insight into you and how you guys are doing things and how you’re rocking it. Maybe differently, maybe similarly, maybe things you’ve discovered along the way and that’s kind of what we’re looking to kind of chip away at as we kind of talk and we’ll kind of see what falls out.
But I will tell you that if you hit on something that we’re into, we’re going to hone in on it like a laser stuff.
@8:44 – Roy Sheraden
Okay, so Mika, all yours.
@8:46 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
You go run.
@8:47 – Jameca Lyttle
think we just want to start with some general intro, guys. So Jimmy, we can start with you. That’s okay.
If you can give us just maybe a two minutes bill as far as a little bit of background about
professional life, how long you’ve been with TCI and exactly what you do with TCI and then where we’ll take it over to you for the same question.
@9:08 – Jimmy Wren
So I actually have like a Roy’s and laughs speech that I usually tell. So here we go. So I started off in trucking in 1994 in my senior year in college.
I was just looking for a you know just a job really and took a job as dispatcher and as at a grocery company in San Antonio, Texas.
Didn’t really intend to be in trucking. I finished school and they offered me a management trainee position after I graduated.
Went through the management trainee position there and for a job I was really intending only be there for a few months.
was there for 12 years. I got to a point, really good company to work for but it was just to a point where my next promotion was going to require somebody to retire.
fire or die. the rat poison in the coffee wasn’t working. So in 2006, I left to go work for a newspaper, which in 2006, that wasn’t a bad deal because these weren’t out yet.
So went to work for a newspaper, started off over transportation and distribution, then economic downturn and the iPhone and smartphones became more prevalent.
And so we started to go through a lot of cutbacks and things like that. Well, I guess they liked me.
they would pretty much every year they would cut back a manager from a department and they would give me the responsibility of that manager.
Plus what I was already doing. And my raise was always congratulations to me, get to keep your job. And so I’d lived through 12 years of newspapers from 2006 to 2018, the parent company for the newspaper I worked for decided.
to sell the newspaper, the company that did buy the newspaper came in, and essentially outsourced everything I did and everything that my people did.
And so, in 2018, I was laid off. And just looking for another job, I had worked for two really, really large billion other companies, and I wanted to look for something smaller to work for.
So I want to work for a smaller company, it was only about 80 employees. unfortunately, it just wasn’t a fit.
It was a family-owned company, but unfortunately the focus wasn’t really on growth. It was more on just doing what we do every day.
And then 2019, that’s whenever I came to TCI, that’s the best thing I ever did. Professionally, a great family-owned company without the dysfunction.
We were focused on growth, you know, that the that’s what really drives me is just our continued growth. I worked when I was working in the newspaper, it was every day was really the worst day in the history of the company and tomorrow it’s going to be worse just the way it was going.
so but here was this growth is going so well here. I really enjoy the people that are growing as well with the company and getting to see a lot of great things happening at TCII.
feel that I do contribute here and I do feel that this I turned 50 last year and you know this is my forever home.
This TCII is where I’m going to work and this is I’ve got about another 15 years ago and so I retire and this is where I intend to retire unless I’m asked to leave before then.
@12:51 – Roy Sheraden
All right so yeah so and the funny thing is that Jim and I do a lot of interviewing together, and Jimmy calls us the elevator speech, and I haven’t memorized them.
Jimmy wasn’t here. I got to relay this verbatim, so we often joke back and forth about that. But anyhow, so yes, myself, back in 1997, I had a whole thing.
So back in 1997, I was going back to college to finish up my degree, and I needed some part-time work to supplement my income, and I had reached out to a temporary agency who found a job in the graveyard doing what they called numbers or accounting, and that’s where I was going to school for was the accounting.
So I said, oh, perfect. This is a job from 11 to 7 p.m., and I thought I was doing some sort of really basic remedial bookkeeping, but come to find it was for a trucking company, and I was in charge.
I was going to be the admin, if you will, doing manual calculations. on driver logs, manually adding up their hours, manually adding a paywall, was the first thing from my basic bookkeeping and accounting, but it supplemented my income.
So I did that for about for about three months, and I was getting ready to, I was getting ready to pull the cord on it, right?
Because working graveyard was nothing I ever had come accustomed to. But then the company, I was the company I was with had lost the account and gave me an opportunity to go on to a day shift role as a dispatcher for, for Home Depot, for Home Depot now.
So I took the position and over the next three years, I very rapidly progressed from a dispatcher to what was called a site manager.
I took on multiple accounts, so I was managing multiple locations and come to find that I really enjoyed transportation, logistics, and trucking in general.
I really love the dispatch and plan any specifics. I just like to take a, you know, just put together a daily puzzle, if you will, and find the right loads for, you know, for my drivers or whatnot.
So I really enjoyed it, never intended to get in the truck. like Jimmy, never intended to get transportation, had no idea about trucks drivers.
Why would a driver want to listen to me? I didn’t even know how to drive a truck. I don’t even know why these things are so big.
I don’t know a darn thing about it. But I come to find that I just was able to very well, very well to relate to people.
To adapt to people, right? So it didn’t matter that I didn’t know a darn thing about a truck and transportation.
I just knew how to adapt and learn. But anyhow, so from there I was, the company I was with, Estinson Logistic, was going through some rapid growth.
And I was given the opportunity to join the projects team and travel across the United States, opening up new accounts.
So I did that for about three years. I traveled all over the country, spending four to six weeks at each city.
just open up new business. And at that point in my career, after about three years, kids were getting into junior high school.
They’re also getting interested in boys and girls and going through puberty. And it seemed like every time that I was out on the road, the kids were acting up, my daughter’s doing this, someone’s doing that.
dishwasher broke, the riders on the frets, would happen. at that point, I had to pull a plug. So I told my boss, I can no longer do this.
My family life was suffering. And then I was given a role as a regional manager, eventually became a director of operations.
And then the company that I was with, which was a family company, was sold to a very large publicly traded company.
So the company was sold, I literally changed my shirt to a green shirt from a blue shirt, got the title of vice president, and spent three years working for a publicly traded company.
And I quickly come to realize that I didn’t, like, working for a publicly traded company, where you’re picking up pennies on the ground, and you’re accountable for every penny for a four.
billion dollar company, it wasn’t for me. So I spent the next two years just going to two different trucking companies.
And one of my old colleagues named Raj, who’s our COO, approached me and said, Hey, we have the opportunity at TCI.
Now we’re going through some tremendous growth. This is the title I can bring you on board. you interested? I spent two months going back and forth with him, because I loved where I was at.
But spent two months going back and forth, here’s convinced me, Hey, where this is like it was in the past, family run business, whatnot.
This is a company that allows for growth. You are basically an entrepreneur. You are very, you have that latitude to make very quick decisions.
don’t need a buzz saw to make a decision. Long story short, I came on board at TCI. This is my 14th month here now.
Time has gone by super, super quick. And I love every aspect of it. I never thought I would find a place like I had previously got essence in logistics, but this but TCI is essence in the logistics times 10 right so my personal goals are to retire in 10 years, my wife thinks we can retire sooner than that but I’m not sure what she’s thinking because she’s a stay at home stay at home wife, but anyhow, so I didn’t tend to retire about 10 years then just like Jimmy, you’re gonna have to push me out the door and lock the door behind me for me to leave, so that’s my goal.
@18:31 – Jameca Lyttle
No that’s great so thank you for the history and I’m kind of seeing how things kind of are coming together, but tell me which you guys do at TCI.
So Roy, since you were talking, I’ll let you go ahead and just keep going and then I’ll come back around to you as far as your roles today.
@18:48 – Roy Sheraden
So specifically my role is I’m in charge of all of our dedicated operations in California, Oregon, Washington and Canada right so I see every aspect of our operation.
operations. I lead a team. I have 39 folks that report up to me one way or another and about 470, 39 non-driving staff and about 484 drivers.
I have 39 different customers. And if I can explain in a couple words what I do every day, you know, I back in college I took a couple of psychology courses and I took them because my mom was a psychologist and I figured oh maybe there was some interest there.
Anyway that took two courses in psychology. hated every bit of those courses and when I reflect back on that part of what I do is as managers, you are a psychologist, right?
And I love that aspect of just managing, managing, motivating and inspiring people. enjoy watching people grow and prosper underneath me.
I love having the folks work for me who are a heck of a lot smarter, a heck of a lot more
are included than myself, right? I feel, you know, I feel that, you know, in my role is that, you know, I get a lot from those courses in psychology.
And I just love working with people, I love working with a variety of people, right? I think I’m very quick to be able to tither conversations, to, you know, attend there for people, attend different ways, just to figure out how to get them, you know, like that fire in the belly, keep them motivated, and keep them inspired, keep them hungry.
@20:28 – Jameca Lyttle
I love that. That’s how I have to, right?
@20:30 – Roy Sheraden
Totally, totally understand how you feel there.
@20:32 – Jameca Lyttle
Yeah, lot of people in there when you can have that, that relationship with your people.
@20:36 – Jimmy Wren
What about you, Jimmy? Yeah, so I’m, I have the rest of the country. Yeah, it’s kind of the joke that, well, I mean, it seems unfair, but it’s really not, like, it’s really about half the business.
So Roy has half of the operations, and it’s mostly on the West Coast, and then, uh, I have the other half, which is about about same, about 480 plus drivers and about 40 non-driver staff.
I’ve never really looked at how many customers I actually have. have 50 locations that that are that roll up on any mean, but it’s probably only about 20 plus customers or so.
And and really, I mean, probably the thing I just seem to get along better with drivers when it comes to my type of people and drivers are kind of kind of my type of people.
They always got the coolest stories. mean, we’ve and they get to do a lot and they love the talk.
mean, most of the time, whenever they’re in the office, they’re wanting to talk. so I enjoy that interaction and being able to do that.
And you know, and and also, you know, enjoy. that, you know, the TCI really encourages us to spend that time, spend that time with drivers, even take them to lunch and spend time with them doing, you know, just talking about things other than work and, and talking to, you know, to our staff that reports directly to us.
But yeah, it’s, you know, it’s really, it’s really our focus, you know, for, for us is just, I mean, we have a lot of different, you know, things that we have to focus on, but there’s really two things that we really just have to focus on in order to be successful and that’s just safety and customer service, as long as we’re doing those two things, as long as we’re performing our job safely and, and we’re providing the best customer service that we possibly can, the rest of every other problem, they’re just not that big anymore.
We can solve those other problems pretty easily, as long as those two are, are always taken care of.
@22:56 – Jameca Lyttle
Great. Jim, I’m going to go into like collaboration and and just the roles. Any additional questions for them as far as their history and what they currently do before we go on to do that?
Maybe if you have one or two?
@23:11 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
I mean, you guys know what operations means, but in two sentences, good luck. Describe it.
@23:22 – Jimmy Wren
All right, you want to go first?
@23:23 – Roy Sheraden
Well, I mean, working just developing functional teams that leverages off each other’s strengths and weaknesses to provide, you know, unparalleled customer service to our drivers and to deliver exceptional jobs to our drivers and our entire teams, right?
That’s what I think operations is.
@23:43 – Jimmy Wren
Yeah, and it’s just like what Roy said, plus, know, it’s customer service. I mean, we’re, you know, we may not be, you know, in a storefront selling things, but we have customers that we are providing the service for.
and operations is giving them the best customer service that we possibly can and keeping everybody safe, making sure everybody comes home.
@24:14 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Scott, only last question. Let’s just use the last year or so. What has growth been like as far as you were talking about the number of clients that you’re dealing with now based off of a year ago, where were you and where are you, right, as far as the amount?
Like at what point, because my point really is at what point do you guys have too much where you’re going to need a third leg of this stool?
@24:39 – Roy Sheraden
Right now.
@24:42 – Jimmy Wren
So in my area, I increased my and then in the same with non-driver staff. probably increase them another 15.
Yeah, 15.
@25:08 – Roy Sheraden
And on my answer, Jimmy’s obviously one who’s experienced the tremendous growth, shot in the arm from from my area and my team.
It hasn’t been about growth, right? I’m not neutral from a driver or customer account than it was when I started last year.
But my focus has been just developing my team, right? There wasn’t a whole lot of mid-level management regional managers when I came on board.
so I spent my first majority of my first year just developing and building the team. so now we’re at a point that the team has been built is now just kind of refining it and continuing to move the goalposts to deliver again.
That’s a safe culture, know, parallel customer service and a great job for our drivers and our office staff.
@25:52 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Okay, good.
@25:54 – Jameca Lyttle
Okay, so I want to just get into collaboration amongst the two of you. So. And your roles, how do your responsibilities overlap?
And also, how do you collaborate if you do collaborate on a day-to-day basis?
@26:09 – Jimmy Wren
So we have a weekly meetings that are, we call them L10 meetings. And in these meetings, we share what we’re going through.
We share issues that we have. also share wins and losses. So that collaboration is there to a lot of our areas.
We do overlap. We have some of Roy’s drivers or domiciled in some of my areas and some of my drivers are domiciled in his areas.
And we encourage the regional managers to feed off of each other, to want to help each other. So that’s even this morning, we’ve had a need for drivers and one of the regional managers reached out to the other regional managers that are in Roy’s side of the business to ask for help.
And I think from what I saw, I think. we got some help. And so what I’m with me working with Roy is very easy.
He’s a great guy to work with and I respect him tremendously. And I feel that I can be vulnerable with Roy and say, I don’t feel comfortable about this one.
@27:21 – Roy Sheraden
What do you think?
@27:23 – Jimmy Wren
Or vice versa, he can do the same for me. ultimately, what my goal is, is to do whatever’s best for TCI.
I know Roy’s is the same way. we can do as best for the future of TCI is all I’m looking for.
@27:44 – Roy Sheraden
Yeah, if I can touch on that. So I’ll say part about a year and a half ago, we have 11 different regions, right?
one could say that are 11 different regions, generally speaking, operated on islands, right? So, you know, one of the
Jimmy and I, we talk about collaboration, it’s just getting everybody off the islands, work together,-meagle, because that’s when we co-meagle our regions, it provides more hours for our drivers, provide a cocktail for our customers.
So we’ve done a lot of work together, just getting everybody off of islands and working more together as one.
But as far as working with Jimmy, will say, Jimmy and I worked very well together to this point where we know we have weekly, meetings, all kinds of different meetings where, you know, it’s Jimmy presenting on his area, on me and my area of responsibilities.
And every time, it’s like, oh boy, Jimmy just leveled up on me, he just did some game-changing things. Okay, just wicked, I’m gonna do next month.
And Jimmy and I do that back and forth all the time, you know. It’s like, oh boy, oh, isn’t, oh, next month, it’s gonna be me.
And we do this all the time, and at the end of the day, what it does, it just makes our team stronger, it makes TCI healthier, and I just love that friendly competition with Jimmy, because it’s not competition where, oh boy.
Why? You know, it’s okay. We’re going to one up in this time. And it just reciprocates back and forth.
@29:06 – Jimmy Wren
Yeah, I have said, and I don’t know if you want to quote me word for it. I have said this.
Oh, . That’s where Roy went. Now I got it.
@29:13 – Roy Sheraden
I got to step it up. Yeah. Likewise.
@29:20 – EspinozaD
We can ask, drink the word out, but put it in there.
@29:22 – Jimmy Wren
Yeah, there you go.
@29:24 – Roy Sheraden
Yeah.
@29:26 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Just curious. Do you have an example? Like when you’re talking about ramping things up or game changing, like, you know, this is kind of an area that I would love to get more into as we kind of move along is the things that you’re doing that are game changing, the things that you’re challenging each other to raise the bar, which ultimately is making TCI as a whole raised bar within the industry.
So, yeah, you can elaborate a little bit or die.
@29:54 – Jimmy Wren
Absolutely. I do. I mean, we had a year and a couple of months ago. That’s our end of the month meeting.
And, you know, we start off, you know, I’ll say some things, you know, about, you know, about my areas and then Roy do the same.
then Roy comes in with a safety message, you know, it says, I want everybody to give a safety message and I’m like, well, I wish I would have thought of that.
I mean, that was a pretty good idea. so, you know, things like that, absolutely, you know, you know, see Roy doing that and I turn around and I do the same thing.
And it’s a great idea. And my main thing is, you know, I’m not here to take credit for anything, you know, if it’s Roy’s idea, it’s great.
I’m just going to take Roy’s idea and as we call it, copy his homework, I guess you can say, use it with my teams.
@30:50 – Roy Sheraden
Jimmy really conveyed the same example.
@30:52 – Jimmy Wren
was going to convey, right?
@30:54 – Roy Sheraden
So I brought this on and then next month, Jimmy just worn off. you know, we came back and keeps going.
back and forth. But Jimmy made a great point about vulnerability a few minutes ago, you know, and I off then, you know, Jimmy’s been here for a few years.
I, you know, in the first couple months that I was here, I had a lot of questions, a lot of uncertainties.
Jimmy with his expertise and, you know, time he’s been with TCI, I’ve come to, I’ve never had any fear of qualms or any vulnerability just asking Jimmy, Hey, I got this going on.
What do we do? And that’d be really remedial basic questions that there’s no question I should have known, but I have no issue, no challenges or no issue at all just coming to Jimmy with like just really trivial basic stuff.
Because I know at the end of the day, we’ll do that for each other just to bet, know, for the betterment of the company, right?
@31:40 – Jimmy Wren
So absolutely.
@31:41 – Jameca Lyttle
Well, it seems like you guys like each other.
@31:43 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
That’s a good thing.
@31:44 – Jameca Lyttle
That’s a great thing. I note because I do think it’s good for us to kind of transition into, as Jim mentioned, the growth, the innovation, how you guys are doing things differently as you’re moving forward in the industry.
As we had these interviews with folks, we’ve really been able to see where in different places TCI sets the bar.
So, we would love to know where you guys are as far as setting the bar when it comes to operations together as a group.
But then, as you mentioned, individually in your own regions and things like that. But I want to touch on just like some innovation, maybe some efficiency thoughts that you guys have done or have been able to incorporate as we move forward into the year as far as growth.
@32:26 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
If it helps, know, looking back on previous places that you’ve been or people that you know in the industry that are doing it in a way that you’re kind of like, I can’t believe you’re doing it that way guys.
Like, you know, you’re clearly you guys, I mean, the company is having, you know, is doing well. So, and in this, in this economy, and in you look around, there are a lot of companies that are not doing well.
And so, something is happening here. You guys are clearly have found some secret sauce or something that’s working. And I think that’s kind of what Mika’s talked about.
What’s going on that you guys can point your finger to, even blurry, it might not be a pinpoint thing, but just kind of in general, what do you kind of, I don’t know, point to that has helped you guys raise this bar?
@33:20 – Roy Sheraden
Well, I want to say that we have my perspective, we have the latitude to make decisions, right? And if we, we’re going to live and die by those decisions.
If we make the wrong decisions, we will be held accountable for that. And if we make the right decisions, we’re going to make sure we perpetuate that and make sure it goes nationwide or whatnot.
In my past, when I worked for the publicly traded company, I was told what shoe to put on first.
don’t miss it, you don’t miss the beat. And then my partner company at Estinson, we can make decisions, but it would take weeks to make them.
But here, I think what’s really been really great for the growth. of our employees is that ability to allow our regional managers or driver managers, allow our teams to make decisions.
It’s something we’re still working on, right? We have, you know, we’re still working on, you know, allowing folks to make decisions with guardrails, right?
So, you know, Jimmy and I have a lot of latitude, but as it kind of goes down, you know, the bumpers are a little bit more tired.
So something we’re working right now is just that empowerment, right? Allowing our regional managers to make decisions, feel comfortable with them.
Because once they have that ability to make more simpler decisions, and they are successful, then they feel ready about themselves, right?
And if they make the wrong decision, but again, but it’s within some bumpers and guardrails, those wrong decisions make it stronger.
I make wrong decisions all the time. They’re not, they’re disastrous, but the wrong ones, and I learn from them.
I beat myself up about it, but I get stronger. I have that same expectation for my team.
@34:55 – Jimmy Wren
So, and mine is, Exactly what Roy just said is being able to respond quicker to you know just sometimes it’s just the simplest ideas and I’ll go backwards in previous positions that I’ve had with different companies.
A lot of times we found ourselves you know if someone came to me with the with an idea that I thought maybe it was a good idea.
The culture of the company was really to put more obstacles in place of the idea so that would just never really happen you know it usually started off as somebody come in with an idea and say you know it sounds like a really good idea why don’t you write up a proposal in three months we’ll present it to the leadership team and then we’ll see what happens and frankly hell I mean three months it’s probably not even a good idea anymore and probably wasn’t even going to work you know by killing it with with making them do a proposal but a TCI were
You know, just like Roy said, we have the latitude and the ability to see a good idea, and let’s run with it.
@36:09 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
And so when you guys, I’m sorry, make it really quick. So when you guys first came on board and maybe this is more easier for you, Roy, since a little more recent, but, and you sat down with, with management or whoever was bringing you on and basically having the discussion about getting you going.
Was this kind of presented to you as this is how you’re going to do it, or you can do it, or did you guys come up with this and present it to management, like, this isn’t, this is not traditional, as you’re talking about, right?
It’s not a typical company, especially of the size, even though TC has not humongous, they’re not small. And so there’s a lot of usually red tape and a lot of egos and a lot of ways you’re supposed to do things.
Where did this start? Would this come from you guys getting together and like, what a perfect product. Let’s do this, or was it, you know, I’m going with this?
@37:05 – Jimmy Wren
I know exactly where you’re going with it, and I’m sorry, Roy, but I started in 2019, and this, and whenever I started here, I started as a dedicated operations manager, and I reported directly to Ryan Flynn, which is one of the owners of the company.
And I think that, you know, of course, you know, at that time, there was a lot going on then, too, as it is now, but how that happened was I started on my first day, I was kind of giving the keys and just said, go get it.
And, you know, and I was able to, okay, I’m going to do this, and then we, I was able to make some quick decisions on some of the, some of the accounts that I had, and they were, they were very quickly, you know, there was a the I
very positive outcome very quickly and that was great to see. And then there were some some other decisions that I made that weren’t so great.
But at the same time, you know, I learned not to not to do that again and and be able to move on from there.
So so when I think it it actually started from from ownership really on the whole the whole piece of you know who you know how the culture got built to where we we feel like we can make these decisions.
And I can say that because that’s how I kind of got started here was just you know here you go these are your accounts go get it.
And and it was it was really refreshing to be able to to use that creative side and to be able to use those those the experience I’ve had in previous jobs on these on this job and on these accounts that I was given when I first started.
@38:51 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Roy, you had the similar experience?
@38:54 – Roy Sheraden
Absolutely. you know one thing here in South B.O.V. working out of Southern California. specifically at the end of empire for so many years, know, this section, you know, this area is just a transportation logistics hub, one of the largest ones in the United States.
And so just being in this industry now for, gosh, 24, 29, 29 years, you develop a reputation, right? so when you treat others as you want to be treated and not just from your employees, your teams, upper management, your customers, when you do that, good things will happen.
When you always have the right intentions in mind, great things will, great things will happen. You always have setbacks.
I have setbacks all the time, but you get stronger and you build off those. when I came out of TCI, lot of it came with reputation in the past, then a lot of folks who worked for TCI, TCI is just not a company where there’s an individual or a second individual that know it all and this is how it’s going to be done because I know better.
@39:54 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
We collaborate, we all put our best ideas, our best before, and we move with that, right? So you came in Roy with expectations.
So you already kind of knew what you were getting into, whereas Jimmy, you came in kind of not quite the same way.
@40:09 – Jimmy Wren
You kind of saw it as you were going through it. I knew no one whenever I applied here. And so I interviewed and was able to, I guess, them enough that I deserved to be on the team and got to join the team.
And it’s been great. And it’s been just that the fact that I’m on a team. And we’re all working together.
And we’re all working together for a goal. It’s no longer, I mean, there is politics everywhere, I mean, I’m not politically driven to be recognized anymore than Roy is.
And I don’t feel Roy is that way either. It’s just about, you know, we’re working together.
@41:00 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Can you gather for our common goals one last thing we got and you can take it back really quick.
Um, so Jimmy you had what three years before Roy came out. Uh, yeah, yeah two and a half three good at math I mean, what was it like before Roy came like where you did you have all the accounts?
@41:19 – Jimmy Wren
have other people you’re working with was it Uh Yeah So so I was here almost a year and then ros Dalton was hired and ros Dalton was hired as our vp of operations so So for a year there, I was pretty much on my own.
I saw I saw my boss once a month on a team’s call And uh, but then that’s just because I mean everybody had so much going on that you know, it was you know, we we had to be that way and and we were we were smaller and And and and uh, and we were I feel that we were getting smarter at the same time and uh,
I just came on at about the same time as kind of a system we used to really manage our business and then it kind of changed really immediately and at the end of 2020 on how we ran our business and things became more structured and the silos that Roy was talking about, it was completely siloed whenever I first started here.
didn’t know anyone outside of Texas and then after things started to, you know, as we started to grow at TCI then we had to start to collaborate more and then I started to see most everybody after Roy got here but before between the time Raj got here and Roy was arrived here.
I still only had my areas and then Raj was trying to run it all by himself, which that kind of drove him crazy a little bit.
I think he lost some hair in the process. now I think truthfully, I think the person is probably more thankful than Roy and I to be here is probably Raj for us to be here because he was going crazy before we got into these roles.
@43:31 – Jameca Lyttle
Because I want to just backtrack a little bit. So we talked about operations and your approach to how you stream on it.
But we talked about a few different things when it comes to your approach. But is there an example or a highlight, could you highlight a project or an initiative recently done that significantly boosted TCI’s efficiency or something that you guys are proud of where you applied that leadership style that you guys have mentioned too, that you’ve been able to see some really good results?
So, we just want to have a call out there somewhere in the article, such one.
@44:04 – Jimmy Wren
Yes. Yeah. So a year ago, we started up a customer based out of Florida and Louisiana. And so essentially, we brought on 230 drivers and the 15 managers I was talking about earlier in about a six week period.
So that was really big for us. And it was the tremendous growth, part of the tremendous growth that TCI saw in 2023.
I wouldn’t have been able to do it by myself. There’s no way I could do it by myself. And so there was a team, there was a team, a more on just the peer leadership side of the startup for these 10 locations for me to be able to just
to get to know the people, get to know the processes, and evaluate how we can best run these locations, and how we can be most efficient with it.
And the growth that we got out of it really is, we went through that startup with those 10 locations, and frankly, and I think Roy’s gonna be an agreement here.
There isn’t a startup here that scares me anymore. We went through that, we went through that transition, and it was very successful, it continues to be successful, and we’ve taken on more customers since then, and because of our ability to be more efficient with the startups and the efficient with these new customers, we’re able to replicate that with other new customers.
@45:50 – Jameca Lyttle
Roy, you wanna add anything there?
@45:51 – Roy Sheraden
That was good. No, Jimmy hit it right there. Just in my history, I mentioned, you know, mentioned that in my career,
Prayer I spent three years just traveling doing startups, right? Everything I’ve done in my past. Nothing matches up to what do you mean an entire TCI team accomplished with this startup?
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing comes close to it.
@46:12 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
So, so, so, but what? So, again, I’m trying to put my finger on the difference. Like, is there something?
Do you guys have a textbook process now that you kind of refer to? I got to believe every startup different.
So, there’s not going to be a one size fit all.
@46:31 – Roy Sheraden
I can tell you wasn’t a playbook going into this, right? Those, these SOB policies, we are in the midst of uploading all of our process procedures, SOPs to, you know, centralized, centralized web based format whatnot.
But there wasn’t playbooks and guidebooks. I think just what sets us apart is that all of us directors at every level would just work very well together, right?
We’re all, we’re all in it to win it. Nobody’s trying to beat out anybody else and it’s just that, you know.
Working together everybody right and pirate companies have worked out. There’s dysfunction here dysfunction there. There’s dysfunction everywhere But and there’s challenges here.
We’re not perfect, but We all work very well together. That’s what and we all we all Get motivated excited off each other’s ideas, right?
@47:18 – Jimmy Wren
yeah, and I was very important I was very fortunate to have Four regional managers at the time reporting to me that I could just say Guys, I’m going to be busy I know you know how to do what you do and I have all the confidence in everything you do If you need anything, please reach out to me I’m going to be more focused over here and and that allowed me to be able to do that is having such a strong team in place and being able to focus on the the the startup instead of having to To monitor how how the you know the existing region for running at the time sounds like sounds like the recruit
@48:00 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
The rooting team deserves like a round of applause.
@48:02 – Roy Sheraden
Oh, yeah.
@48:03 – Jimmy Wren
Absolutely. I mean, yeah, she, and I love Sylvia and I give her tons of credit for a lot of things that she does.
And, and, and, and truthfully, I think really frankly, I thought she was more important on the startup than I was with what she did.
She, she, she brought on so many, her team, she and her team brought on so many drivers, so many managers, then those processes coming through.
And I know they, they were road warriors. They were on the road for a long time during that, that two month period.
And, and it was, for me, I’m just proud to get to work with such great people.
@48:41 – EspinozaD
If I may, I know this is your entry, but I am going to give you guys, I will always do this.
Give them flowers when flowers are due. And it’s two, both of you guys. So one big thing that you guys said, which is it stands out.
It’s trust. So when it comes to Jimmy and Roy, they nailed it. Honestly, Mika and Jim, we want to make sure we can.
and throw that in there like they are very trusting not only does their team come to them because they trust them but they also trust your team so we have something it’s a it’s a tracker uh vision traction organizer sorry there was a glare on it so it’s a TCA vision and they really are the ones that they have they host these calls with their team and they say this is what the vision is for TCA and they’re really trust they tell us what their vision is but they also trust their operations they trust their managers goes it stems from regionals to managers to dispatchers who then relate down to the drivers and the crazy part is that they say like hey you know what this is the TCA vision but this is my vision for you as an individual and they trust that their team is going to take them to that next level and ultimately add a company if you don’t have trust within your team why are they there so Roy and Jimmy have really shown that and display that and really promote that trust within their team so I got to give it to them that
They really created that atmosphere and that culture because a lot of times, you know, these corporations, mom and dad is going to the corporation world and you go into a corporate bubble and you don’t have any lose that you’re like, I don’t know who’s trustworthy, I don’t know if I could go to my manager, don’t know if I had someone in factory, know, that they really do appreciate what these guys do and honestly, when you think of who what they are and who they are, if Jimmy and Roy, they are so impactful together, but if either one of them were to ever leave a company during this position where you would feel it, you, I think it would just be like a little bit of a somber, like what the F just happened, like holy crap, you know, sometimes people leave and you’re like, get rid inside and I could tell you guys what the, they always put their best foot forward, but they also put their best team forward
forward for everyone. And if their best team is in performing, they really go hard for them. They put them on a youth development plan to make sure they execute.
So they focus on the retention with the drivers. They brave bridewood drivers. You don’t see that often. They’ll sit down with the drivers and they’ll talk to them because they’re equal.
So there’s no like on the higher up. They’re very much engaging with their DMs. They’re just a manager. People are like, oh, he’s just a manager.
It’s their manager. So they call in, they do these check-ins no matter what position they’re in. So I got to give it to you guys.
They guys have really created this really great atmosphere and culture as TCI. a lot of it does stem from you.
It’s when we talk culture with me, thing Jim, all the time, we talk about what we do. It’s always you guys.
So I think it’s funny it because I know you guys, we see them all the time, but we really do talk really a lot about what you guys have done for the operation.
So the day-to-day, they are so much part of the day-to-day yet they’re not part of the day-to-day. So we really couldn’t get it done if it wasn’t for them.
So thank you to both of We got hard time walking out the office door, and my head is blown up there.
@52:07 – Jameca Lyttle
So guys, we got time for, I’ll ask one more question, Jim, and then you can close it out because we didn’t want to be respectful of everyone’s time.
We want to talk, you talked about vision, Diana. So we do want to talk a little bit about the vision moving forward for TCI.
And I’m just going to go in with saying ahead of the current. So the industry, we know it’s evolving, California has its own thing going on.
How does TCI plan to keep pace with the head or of the trends that are happening in the industry right now when it comes to what you guys do?
@52:37 – Roy Sheraden
Well, it’s a couple things building a world-class safety culture, a world-class leader and retention of our employees and being a training center company.
And once some of those fundamentals come into place, that just puts us in a better position. for that growth, right, for new customers, for retaining our customers, for audit renewals without our customers going to market.
The last thing before I give it to Jimmy is, you thing that we do is that we eliminate titles, right?
So I often get embarrassed when I have to say I’m a direct door right once with a vice president.
I try to in every case to eliminate any kind of title, but one thing that we all do is that we eliminate ego fear and excuses, right?
You leave that outside the door. That’s one of our modules, right? You eliminate that and then good things will naturally happen.
I’m always a believer that maybe things will happen in a couple of months, but maybe we’ll in a year or two, when you always do the right thing, good things will happen.
@53:39 – Jameca Lyttle
Eagle fear and excuses.
@53:40 – Roy Sheraden
I like that, really? I’m gonna write that down in my notes.
@53:43 – Jimmy Wren
You got it right there.
@53:47 – Jameca Lyttle
I think that that is so good.
@53:51 – Jimmy Wren
Yeah. so and just you can’t read this, but it’s our vision tracks and organ organizer and And what’s good about it is, I feel I have probably the easiest job when it comes to where we’re going to go and how we’re going to get there, because we already have our plan, and this plan is assigned off from ownership all the way down to the drivers of what we need to do to get where we are.
We have our goals for this year, how we’re going to get there, and we have our three-year vision, and what we have to do to get there, and it’s really easy for me to be able to identify, okay, what projects do I need to assign to my team, because all I have to do is look at what our goal this year is, or what our vision is for the next three years, and make sure that our projects are assigned in that direction to support these pieces along with our core values and our commitments to our culture.
@54:57 – Jameca Lyttle
Amazing. Jim, we got one time for one.
@55:00 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Mark, question if you want to relax Let me do two, but one really, the first one is really, hopefully, really quick, although you never know what you guys, so when you’re recording, recruiting or interviewing somebody new from outside of TCI, what’s your two-sentence final reason for them to consider or to come on board the team?
Well, how do you sell TCI to them in your words?
@55:29 – Roy Sheraden
What’s your closing argument to them? The next step in the process is to come on down, let’s see the office, let’s see the team, let’s see our equipment, see our drivers, see the operation, and that’ll tell the story.
That’ll sell it.
@55:42 – Jimmy Wren
Yeah, and for me too, it’s my thing that I always make sure I sell to them is growth. mean, TCI is committed to growth.
We’re going to be better today than we were yesterday, and we’re going to be better tomorrow than we are today.
And and we’ve done that since I’ve been here for almost five years already almost and and and I think that’s what most people want to see is, you know, I may, I may be hired to do this today, but it doesn’t mean that’s my only job.
I’m going to have a TCI.
@56:16 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
I have options to grow with TCI as TCI grows as well.
@56:33 – EspinozaD
It’s like full circle here.
@56:36 – Jameca Lyttle
Yeah, it’s really that’s the first thing I wrote down when we started this whole and for you to say like moving forward in the future.
For you to feel that I really do feel like you’re in your space exactly where you need to be.
@56:48 – Jimmy Wren
Yeah. And you’ll never hear me complain about more work. Yeah. Yeah, I work in a job where it would.
because it was really tough in the newspaper business from, you know, from about 2012 to 2018, and every day you thought you were going to come in, is this my day to be laid off or whose job, whose turn is it today?
And so I’ve never complained about growth because, you know, it’s the focus of TCI and we have our vision for growth, and that’s what sells TCI right now is that.
@57:24 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
I agree. So last, last, then we’ll wrap it up. And this is, we typically finish all of these with the same basic question.
If you’re at one of these events, you’re sitting at a table, you’ve just watched somebody from the industry present on something, and you’re sitting next to your peers, other people that do what you do for other companies, bigger and smaller, and they turn to you and they go, Jimmy, Roy, we got any words of it, like, what do we do to do what you guys are doing when it comes to growth and the successes that you’re having over there at TCI?
You know, what’s the secret? So what would you advise us that most important for us to get our ships in order?
@58:07 – Jimmy Wren
Yeah, we’re gonna go first on this one and and and this one’s this one’s the My mindset for for trucking is I think a lot of trucking companies lose sight on who or what the real asset is The real asset in a trucking company is the driver It’s not the truck.
It’s not the trailers It’s it’s nothing else. It’s the driver is the true asset and and that’s how we do it here at TCI as we identify that the drivers Are the true assets well Diana has a job right now doing what she’s doing is because we value the drivers as a true asset mean her job is retention manager because we want to make sure we’re retaining these assets that that are that are here at TCI And i’ll close it off is very similar
@59:00 – Roy Sheraden
That to me is that you got to operate as an inverted pyramid, if we will, right? So the drivers are up top and then as we go down, you got managers, directed BP’s and the ownership is at the bottom, right?
That inverted pyramid, that method, a technology that is, I think, one of the largest keys to success.