The John Sanders Story - How I Became a Heavy Hauler

by John Sanders
(Hazelhurst GA)

SO I'm John and i've been in the H/H business now for a little more than one year. i mean dont get me wrong i didnt jump right into that i started driving a flatbed. and i did that for less than 6 months before i went to a lowboy carrying wide earth moving equipment. now i did that for about 3 years as an operator. but around the time i purchased my 2nd truck , i got a call for what i thought was a joke and it was not by any means.

a man by the name of Brian chetti, he was/ is the project manager for an oversea generator manufacture , whose just so happens there re-manufacture plant is 10miles out of clearwater. so anyway he calls me up , it was just by chance that he got my number from an old friend who had met with him months before, and they somehow got onto the subject of my small business i was trying to get underway.

He asked if i could handle the job of hauling (8) T1540 generators. Yea you can guess what i said "are you kidding". but he wasn't. So i took the trip to speak with him. and we discussed how i would need the equipment, the dimensions were overwhelming and , i felt eager to see if i was up to the challenge.

SO two weeks, lots of coffee, hundreds of cigarettes, and lots of phone calls later i had managed to get the contract and the equipment i needed and i was able to hire 3 drivers to help out. and it was such a nightmare to get all the permits, and to get the right route.

so that's all done and im ready to make the first haul with the assistance of 3 additional drivers as the pilot car dvr and chase car , u know the escorts are very important and i believe that if not for these guys i dont know that i would have made if the first 5 miles.

we had a total of a little less that 300 thousand pounds gross, yeah i know that alone should have scared me off . i wasent discouraged that easily.

so were off and the crew and i were trying to work with the crane operators and it was this big mess and i was getting mad already it took over 12 hours to load and setup the jeeps and get it all laid out , but we did and @ 5 oclock the next morning we were underway , i was so scared of this thing it was one half of one generator. and it still was so much weight and was still 27+ feet wide.

when we first started out everything was going as good as it was going to get going between 35 to 55 mile an hour for a 1300 mile trip thats a long slow ride. But it was very very nerve racking. and the unusual custom build 4 tandem Pete i was in made it even more difficult,because i felt out of place kind of like you do when your company slip seats you. know what i mean., but i finally made it and i couldn't have felt more proud of myself for keeping my cool in such harsh conditions.



And just to let you know we delivered the last load 2 months ago. ...



SO here is my biggest word of advice For all :
Always keep your cool in any situation weather it be a heavy load or when its an empty dry box you must always have your head on straight and BE IN CONTROL of what ever it is you are in .



John
Johns Transport LLC.


P.S. sorry my writing skills aren't the best and i know i ramble on but i thank you all who read what I've written.