The Freight Floor E4: The Truth Behind MOTUS and Why it is broken

The FMCSA’s rollout of the new Motus registration system has caused massive disruption across the trucking industry. While intended to stop fraud and modernize the DOT, severe glitches, automated lockouts, and a broken system build have left thousands of legitimate owner-operators locked out of their accounts and risking their operating authority.

In this video, we break down exactly why the Motus rollout is failing, the massive technical bugs causing the "insurance black hole," and the specific role of the prime contractor, Changeis, Inc., alongside third-party vendors like IDEMIA and Login.gov

This episode and all episodes is brought to you by the ClearPath Initiative, a 501(c)3 registered non-profit focused on providing a clear path into the logistics industry for former foster youth and other at-risk children. 

https://www.clearpathinitiative.org/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Well, what's going on, everybody, and welcome to uh I don't know what edition this is. Not that many. Another edition of the Freight Floor podcast. Um we are it's gonna be a little bit different of a show because I'm gonna just kind of rant about one thing specifically, MODIS and what it is, and why so many people are up in arms about it, because I don't necessarily think people are talking about it in general, and and a lot of my viewers are not based in logistics, or you don't work in logistics, but because I feel so strongly that logistics is something that everybody out there should should have some involvement with, I think it's it only makes sense for me to talk about it a little bit. But my name is Steve. I've worked in transportation now for 20 years. I used to host the Freight Broker Live podcast. I then switched over to political commentary, and now I'm back talking about freight because, in all reality, I've been working back in the industry for about three years, and I have a different outlook on many things freight than some of the other people out there. Um, but with MODIS, so I guess I got to give a little bit of background just to just so people understand. And I think actually on my YouTube page, I have a video from years ago where I was showing people how they can register their own authority because there's always been this thing where people are going out and saying, hey, we'll help you get your trucking authority, and they charge hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to do something that someone could do very easily. So years ago, I put out a video on exactly how you could file for your own authority yourself using the old system to become a motor carrier, you know, to just for the people that don't have any background. In order for a trucking company to operate as a trucking company, there's a bunch of different things they have to do. They have to get insurance, obviously, uh, but that's million-dollar liability, $100,000 cargo. Actually, the the minimum is $750,000 a liability, $100,000 in cargo to haul commercially. Um, but most brokers or shippers won't work with you if you have less than a million, so that's kind of become the standard. Um, you also have to have a certificate of authority from the federal government, which gives you the right to operate interstate, um, which means crossing state lines, hauling goods for hire. Some states have their own versions of it. If you're running intra-state, like Tennessee has a motor carrier number, Texas, Pennsylvania, several other states have motor carrier authority. Some states require you to have a DOT number if you're running interstate, intra-state. Um, others don't. There's all these different weight exemptions, like you gotta file a UCR if your vehicle, uh, regardless of the size of your vehicle, heck, even if you're a broker, you need to do a UCR. But I believe. Um, but you need to do IFTA if your truck is over 26,000. You need to have hazmat authority if you're doing certain things with hazmat. And there's all different uh rules and regulations. But the first step everybody takes is they f after they file their LLC and get their EIN number, which again, everyone could do for free in every state, super easy to do. You shouldn't pay anybody to do it. Um, but the very first step in order to become a trucking company is to file for your authority. It used to be a relatively straightforward process where you just go online, you'd fill out their form, and uh, you know, a long form, like 25 minutes. I think the video that I made that's on my YouTube channel is probably 30 minutes, but that's because I'm talking, giving explanations of everything as I'm filling out uh one of the one of the like filling out an actual authority. Then it started getting tricky because of the fraud, right? We started having a lot of fraudsters come in, setting up fake companies, buying, you know, an insurance policy, paying down the down payment, stealing freight for the first 30 days, and then going belly up. That's been happening for a long time. Uh, and it's gonna continue to happen. I don't think that this new MODIS system is gonna actually stop that if it ever actually starts to work in the first place. But so they started enacting certain things like uh tying in the login.gov ID, which is like a standardized one. If you're trying to do anything with the government now, uh, you need to have a login.gov account, uh, which is basically an identity verified account saying you are who you are, right? And it's supposed to be it's supposed to protect everyone from fraud. I know like to access student loan records, you got to do it. Uh, to file your business taxes, you have to have it. To do any updates to your MCS 150 in terms of trucking, you need to have that login. And you've had to have that login for a while. The problem is, even with that login in general, if you associate that login, so say, you know, you have a chief operating officer that works for a company, and he's associated his personal email to your DOT when he was updating MCS 150 or anything like that, or changing authority or applying for a new authority, that email is hooked as the owner, or if you sell a company or whatever the case is, so that email and that login.gov identif identifier is is locked into that system. So that caused a lot of issues. And then there was just it was an antiquated system, the old system. So I in I think it was in 2022 or something like maybe 24, um, they put it out for bid uh to build a new system. And it were originally wasn't called MODIS, they changed it to something else. But a government contractor out of Alexandria, Alabama, Alexandria, Alabama, Alexandria, Virginia got the cover this contract to do it. It was a small business, disadvantaged business because it was a woman, I believe it was a minor minority-owned company. Now, that company, and I think it was like Choice IT or Choice Ed or something like that out of Alabama, they ended up getting the contract, I think initially for two and a half million dollars to build out this system, which I mean that's a pretty good haul if you think about it. But they misjudged just how much goes into it because the US United States government not only wanted to use a login ID, but they wanted to hook up with Identico and all these other systems in order to do ID verification and this and that. Uh, and then all the different government systems all have to be able to talk to each other. So by the time the project was actually launched and published, the government spent over $9 million with this government contractor in order to get this system going. They released it, they told everybody they were doing it and sending out, you know, and and setting up this new system, which was supposed to, it was supposed to, it was, it had good intentions because the idea behind it is that it would protect the industry. The idea behind this whole system is that it would prevent people, you know, the no-name guys and the people that didn't have or weren't based in the United States, it would stop them from being able to register trucking companies. And I don't believe it's doing that because it's not working. Uh there's a there's a whole bunch of issues. And and I guess from what I'm able to research, the major issue that everybody's having is the two the two systems, so that MODIS is operated by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Login.gov is not operated by the U.S. Department of Transportation. So whenever there's an issue with the logins, which is the crucial first step in order to be able to fill out your application on MODIS, what if there's an issue with the login, like say you affiliated yourself with a different company already, or you have issues even with your login, or you forgot your password and you can't reset it, and you don't want to wait on hold for seven hours trying to get through to someone who will then reset it for you. There's no option for the Department of Transportation to do any of that because they're two different departments. So even though they're using the same system, MODIS can't like the the folks that are running MODIS on the on the government side, they can't do anything to help you with the login.gov uh issues. So that's a major problem. And I took a bunch of notes when I was researching this yesterday because there were a lot of issues with it, you know. Um in addition to that, because that was just a big problem. Um so again, and this is a little bit of background on the notes. Modus requires a company official to log in using the login.gov account that matches the original FMCSA portal data. Furthermore, it uses biometric and face ID scanning. This has triggered massive issues because one of these issues is the orphaned account. So in small to mid-size trucking companies, this is when you're trying to go up and update your MCS 150, which you're required to do every two years, or if you have any notable changes, if you switch at your address or you're switching, you know, uh contacts or anything, you need to be able to log into your portal account in order to change that. And if you have an orphaned account, which means in small to mid-sized companies, the person who sets up the DOT portal a decade ago might be long gone, a former employee, an outside registration service, or a dead email address. If that exact original email isn't used, the current owners are completely locked out from claiming their own DOT number. That's according to Freight Waves. And then also, there's all sorts of scan failures that are associated with trying to set up your login ID. Have any of you guys ever tried to use those systems where it's requiring you to like upload a photo of your uh of your ID or doing a selfie or something, and it's like you have too much glare, and you're like, there's no glare. Because I've been that guy where I try to do it and and it just won't allow me to upload it, and it says there's glare. Now that that's the same kind of issues that they're having with this login.gov. And if it's saying it's not good and you've tried 15 times to get it up it or to to to get it to connect and it's still not working, well, guess what happens? You're locked out of your system again. And DOT can't do anything about it because they don't have access to the login.gov system. That's a whole different department, which is is kind of in its in its it's crazy if you think about it. Another issue that they're having, and and this is one just because the all of the different components within the system and the legacy system and MODIS, they're just not cooperating and they're not communicating properly between each other. So the most critical issue right now everyone is having is the system has experienced serious glitches with the processing of insurance filings, policy renewals, and authority changes. Because of the digital pipelines stalled, many carriers who reviewed their policies on time couldn't get them verified in the system. So their insurance or so their insurance, their new policies were never reflected in MODIS and their authorities were deactivated, or they were showing that they were non-compliant or pending cancellation. It caused essentially a black hole where legitimate companies risked being falsely flagged as uninsured or having their um operating uh operating authority paused. I believe one such company was Werner. You know, like the the mega fleet out there with like 5,000 or 15,000 trucks, they had the same issue where their authority was showing inactive for like 40 days after the launch of MODIS. I I personally have never had any issues with MODIS. Anytime I've tried to go in and do anything, I've never had any issues, but other people have, uh, which kind of sucks. And I may, you know, if I have to do something with one of my authorities or I have to go in, it it may just happen. Another issue before launching MODIS, the FMCSA sent over two million letters to prepare carriers. This is this tells you we got a problem. Two million letters went out to motor carriers in the United States saying, hey, we are going to be migrating from our legacy system to this new system, MODIS. You're gonna have to set up a login.gov if you want access to it. I received letters, actually, I received like six of them the same day because I had all these different authorities. I've got some uh four hire authorities, broker authorities, I've got two personal property authorities, so I can haul our own goods, you know, on our own trucks where I'm not hauling for hire. Um so I got a lot of these letters, but roughly 18% of the two million letters or 400,000 of these letters were returned to the FMCSA for being undeliverable, which meant they were going to different addresses and stuff that weren't existing, or people had moved and they didn't update their information. So 400,000 trucking companies across the United States or 400,000 authority holders, not necessarily trucking companies, never got the notice that they were switching over for MODIS. And so when they're trying to go in and do anything on their file, they were like, wait, what is this new system? How do we do anything? Um, because MODIS forces immediate real-time business address and identity verification, hundreds of thousands of carriers are running face first into an administrative wall because their background details are slightly outdated. So if if your address is wrong on the FMCSA and you're trying to claim it based on your current address, it's not gonna allow you. And if your address is wrong, but you've already switched your ID over to your new address, it's not gonna allow you. So there's all sorts of errors and glitches with the system, which are a pretty big deal, you know. Uh routine mandatory tasks like the MCS 150 biannual update have become impossible for many to complete. Carriers are trying to do quick 10-minute updates and are met with spinning wheels, broken pages, error messages, and hours and hours and hours on hold. Because, well, frankly, they turn to the FMCSA for help, but only to find customer support infrastructure for the FMCSA is completely unequipped for the volume. Users report being stuck in chat cues between hundreds of people sitting on the phone for hours or being told by frontline reps to simply refresh the browser because they lack any technical ability to manually fix the accounts. Now, ironically, the whole idea behind MODIS was to stop freight fraud. Uh, it's the confusing rollout created a perfect opportunity for scammers. Within days of the launch, fake look-alike websites like MODISregus.com or.us, and paid search ads popped up, tricking stressed-out locked-out truckers into inputting sensitive data into their systems. Uh and then, you know, pay registration fees and all that stuff, and they just ripped them off. Um, the ground uh the legitimate owners, oh legitimate owner operators are highly frustrated because every hour spent fighting broken software or sitting on hold with the government help desk is an hour their trucks are not moving freight. Industry compliance experts are currently advising carriers if you do not absolutely have to interact with the system right now, meaning your MCS 150 doesn't need to be updated and your insurance is stable, stay out of MODIS. They're just saying don't mess with it at all. Let them figure out what the issue is. Now, some of these issues, and I talked about them, Idemia, not Idenigo. Idemia is the company that is dealing with all that government ID uh validation. Now, Idemia's algorithms are highly rigid and built for security, not user friendliness. In a standard TSA environment, a human agent standing there can override a camera glitch. Uh in the automated motive rollout, if a fleet owner's smartphone camera has a glare, or if their current driver's license photo doesn't perfectly match the real-time biometric scan, the system triggers an immediate unauthorized access flag. Once flagged, the system protocol locks that account for security, sending the user into an automated loop that can require physically going to an approved location, like a post office, to verify their identity. Now, this is where I was talking about, where the two systems don't talk. So instead of building a standalone login system, the FMCSA mandated the use of login.gov, which is managed by the GSA, the General Services Administration of the United States government. Now it was created initially to be a single secure sign-on for all civilian federal agencies like the IRS, VA, and SBA, and it was pushed hard by the Office of Management and Budget to standardize cybersecurity across the government. Now the problem is login.gov requires an absolute one-to-one data match with the agency's internal databases. For decades, FMCSA's legal legacy database, uh, the Motor Carrier Management Information System, or also known as MCI MCMIS, allowed outside registration services, dispatchers, or spouses to manage portal accounts. When MODIS launched, if a carrier tried to log in using a login.gov account under John Doe at gmail.com, but the 15-year-old F FMCSA file listed John's Trucking Inc. at Yahoo.com as the company official, login.gov blocked the link because the GSA who also runs login.gov and the FMCSA who runs MODIS are entirely separate departments within the United States government. Um and they're completely separate bureaucratic entities. Frontline M FMCSA Tech literally do not have the administrative clearance to even access uh the login.gov to fix any of the issues there. So that's where a lot of the problem that's that's going on is. And also the smart logic and commercial address databases within login.gov and MODIS, they're the idea behind it, it's noble, right? The idea behind doing an address verification is it was supposed to automatically detect and block out ghost offices or P.O. boxes or or just fake addresses, you know, with 500 apartment, 500 units to a house or whatever the case is. We see it all the time on Twitter where people are talking about how you know one apartment in each bumfudge, Alabama has 500 carriers running out of that, 500 registered entities running out of it. Now the system now uses commercial grade geographic information, GIS databases, uh, and validation API similar to the UPS or USPS coding accuracy systems mixed with commercial property data to instantly cross-reference the type address against known commercial and residential property registries. The problem is in MODIS, the smart logic lacks real-world trucking context. Many completely legitimate asset light owner operators legally run their business out of their home, a rural root box or a shared agricultural facility. The automated verification system frequently flags these rural or non-traditional commercial addresses as invalid or physical, invalid physical locations, um, and which basically freezes the application, requiring a human to actually look at it. Um but the humans are so backlogged they can't even look at it. It's crazy. The ultimate issue with the MODIS build isn't necessarily that the code is cheap because I mean it costs 9 million bucks, which does kind of seem cheap when you think about how much actually goes into this stuff. It's that the data uh the FMCSA tries to build, they tried to build a hyper-secure modern tech stack on top of a messy decades-old data set. Uh, when strict systems like Idemia and login.gov demand perfection and they hit a trucking database full of typos, retired emails, and old paper filings, the software doesn't adapt, it just breaks. The result is an administrative bottleneck where automated security is working exactly as it's programmed, but completely failing the humans trying to use it. Um to me, it's funny. Now, Changes Inc. is the company that originally had the contract. Uh, they are the primary and IT management consulting firm tasked by the federal government to design, develop, and implement the system in contract modifications throughout 2025. The title shifted to include the new system named Unified Registration System. Uh or oh, so oh, that's why. MODIS? Oh, so it's called uh URS FRS MODIS. Huh? The full picture of the MODIS Roloffs combining technical glitches, vendor dependencies, and the specific contractor behind the scenes explains why this transition has been so painful for the trucking industry. Now, uh about this company, Changes is an award-winning women-downed premier federal IT contractor based at Arlington. And it's so funny. When I started looking into them again, they it seems like a great company, um, but they also have existing contracts right now to build in the hazmat qualification system that they already have to qualify hazmat carriers. They they're now integrating that into MODIS on the back end too. They can't even get MODIS right. What's gonna happen when we have all these errors starting with the hazmat groups? Because they just got the contract. I think it was like $900,000. They got the contract, which seems really low. I mean, I know what I charge to build a custom TMS system, and it's not $9,000. I wish it was, but I know what I'm charging to build something, and it takes me roughly six or seven weeks. I I am now in the mindset where I can look at any piece of tech and determine whether or not I can build that same an identical piece of tech within an hour of looking at any any available public raw data of that site. And and to be honest, when I'm at uh when I'm looking for a software, like for example, say I hit a wall. So for anyone that doesn't know, I work in the tech space now on the logistics side of things. I own a consultancy and I build custom tech based AI. Solutions for companies, whether it's a TMS system, a DMS dispatch management software. I just uh I'm waiting on a proposal to be accepted for a con uh warehouse management software. And then I do other side projects. Like one of my viewers on on Facebook actually reached out and he's like, hey man, I own a dirt trucking uh like a dirt haulage dump truck business out of Chattanooga. Here's my idea. Can you build it? I said, absolutely. And I was so into it. Yeah, I think he we started the contract on Saturday or Sunday. I'm delivering his project on Thursday. It's already done. I already built the whole damn thing. Granted, I bumped everything else I was working on because I was super interested in this program, and I probably have 60 hours in it in four days because I've worked incessantly on it. But it it's a really cool project to me. And so I was happy to do it. But then I had to go to him today and be like, hey, by the way, I finished your project four weeks early. Here's your final invoice. My bad, dude. Uh so I'm waiting for him to do that. And and unfortunately, that's what happens a lot. But so that's what I do. And so a lot of the times, like, for example, um, Cam Scanner. For many of you guys that use the trucking or are in trucking, you've all used this app on your phone called Cam Scanner. I can almost guarantee if you've worked in trucking, you've used Cam Scanner. Cam Scanner is a great piece of software, it's AI-based. You know, I I don't even know if it's AI based. I think it is now, but what it is, it's a Chinese-owned company. I know there was all this controversy a couple of years about about a couple of years ago about it and the fact that they're getting all your information, but so is everybody else. Who cares? But essentially what it does is it takes an image, like so, say you take a picture of a PDF, a delivery receipt that you're delivering, you take a picture of that, it'll automatically edit that into what appears to be a printed PDF from the, you know, as if someone sent you a PDF. And and this technology's been around for a while. It's like called J-coding, and there's all sorts of different tech that you can use to do it. But I had a customer that uh what contracted me to build him a custom TMS system and he wanted to use a cam scanner integration. And because we uh you know have put out a driver app for his drivers, we also needed to figure out a way for him to be able to modify the PDFs on the tech side of things, right? So when a driver submits a PDF, or if they text it to him or it's emailed, he can then upload that use camscanner functionality within his desktop, you know, web hosted app and do it. Well, camscanner doesn't have a desktop um version, they're only they only do APKs for Android and uh Google. So then I had to try to find a different solution and I started getting quotes, and I'm like, holy crap, these companies charge. I got quotes of 25 grand a year. I got quotes. We ended up choosing a uh and I tried to build it myself. I spent two and a half weeks nonstop trying to build it myself so it even mimic camscanner. I couldn't, but you know, I found a company out of Europe that that has a product that is actually pretty good, and so we're integrating that into the system. Normally, every other product I build, like you know, initially he wanted Macro Point. I was like, I'll build it myself. And I did. I built my own version of Macro Point that lives in the driver's cell phone that we dispatch out from the system and it goes directly to the driver's phone and it pings every five minutes in real time. Like, there's those kind of things because, in all reality, why do you have to pay for it? If I can build it now with all the tools and everything that's available, it takes me a little bit. But I think one of the reasons why on the AI side of things or on the operational, you know, building logistics software, the reason why I get it is because I have 20 years of operational experience as a broker and a carrier. So I see things, I know how everything has to line up. The problem with a lot of these companies, and probably the problem with this Changes Inc. company and a lot of the other companies that are it that are finding their way into the logistics space is just that. They are finding their way into the logistics space without any experience. They've probably, I guarantee they didn't have anybody that actually ran through, besides like when they got the contract, ran through what it was like to actually set up a company, ran through and figured out, okay, we can make this change, we could do this change, we can make this change to streamline this. That's the whole way you have to do it in order to find solutions to the problems, let alone all of the back end. And so I think what happened, what happened was they they were overwhelmed. And especially when you're trying to deal with all the government stuff. I've never done any government builds. I thought about bidding on one the other day, and I'm like, no, because I didn't I didn't want to do it. Well, I have all the same certifications that all these big government contractors have. I just don't feel like muddying the water. Plus, you got to deal with net 60, net 180, and all that stuff. And I don't, I like billing on phases. Anyway, so this company, they got the contract in October 2023. They won the competitive award under GSA STARS uh three vehicle uh to overhaul the FMCSA's ancient registration framework, originally valued valued at around 3.2 million. It is ballooned nearly 200% over 9.4 million as through December of this year, this upcoming December, uh, because they still have all these milestone payments and all that. Uh, they were hired to act as a primary architect, taking legacy data silos of the old UCRs or USRs, the unified registration uh system, and rebuild it into an enterprise capability MODIS that could handle real-time safety, insurance, and commercial data. They also deployed internal IT SWAT team via separate FMCSA task orders to handle rapid deployment challenges. But it didn't work, and that's why so many people are complaining about MODIS, right? Because a lot of companies can't go in. I saw one report of a guy I'm not going to mention because I don't like him, um, but he tweeted out that they're doing these data dumps. And so they dumped out 5,000 new registers, and these are supposed to be complete data sets. So the complete uh data set of all of the information in MODIS, all of the active carriers. And one time it came back with 40,000, next time it came back with 5,000, next time it came back with zero. So clearly it's not dumping the right data. Now, I think the actual system itself looks kind of cool. It took me a little bit to figure out uh because I was canceling a contract because I don't have the the four hire carrier authority anymore. I had to cancel a contract, but I had to prove that I wasn't uh running four hire anymore uh in order for them to cancel it. And because with that particular authority, my four hire carrier authority was was gone because you know I canceled the insurance and and deactivated that aspect of it. But because my brokerage authority that was tied to that authority was active, they're like, no, it's showing you're active. And I'm like, no, with this new system, you got to click here, here, here, here. And so I had to figure out how to do it in order to tell these guys to do it so they would actually cancel it. Because they're like, for us, it's still showing active. And I'm like, yeah, but you're not going where you need to to show it's inactive. It's very convoluted and it's very difficult for people to figure out how to do it. Now, I haven't re tried to register a company on MODIS. I may try to do it just to see what it's like and record it. Um, but I think it's interesting, you know, because a lot it this whole thing started off with good intentions. It was to fight freight fraud, it was to make the whole system uh smoother and and better for everybody. And it turns out that it did none of that. It did none of that. Now there's reports that people are stockpiling MC numbers or DOT numbers because they're kind of getting rid of the MC numbers now, that you have fraudsters going in and stockpiling DOT numbers. It and the whole thing is just weird. And I don't know if they're still issuing them in sequential orders anymore. You know, I I don't know. The whole thing is very, very, very peculiar. But anyway, you guys want to see more of what we do at OTR Insights, which is my consulting company, check it out.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

In logistics, if guessing costs you money, if knowing makes you profitable. Welcome to OTR Insights, the premier practitioner-led consulting agency where logistics gets sharper. We don't deal in academic theories, we deliver real-world education. Whether you're a free operator, a PL or managing a busy distribution, our team optimizes your workload, sharpens your DOT compliance, and scales your technology. Maximize your marketing. Visit OTRinsights.com and schedule your consultation today.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

All right, so we're back. Now, again, when I started this show today, I said I didn't have a heck of a lot to talk about. I just really wanted to focus on the MODIS thing because I think it's just really important. And again, it it just shows some of the glitches and some of the issues that truck drivers and brokers and anybody that works in the logistics space every single day has to face just in order to begin operating. You know, the reason why the MCS 150 is so important is because it's supposed to update all your information. It tells you know your insurance company how many trucks you're running. That combined with inspection history of truck, you know, your trucks getting inspected on the road. I had a carrier that tried to onboard with us that had been operating interstate. I even asked him, I said, Are you running hyperlocal? And he's like, No, no, we run all over. They went two years without a single uh single inspection, two full years. Now, granted, when I had my operating authority, I went nine months without a single inspection. Half the time I was trying not to get inspected. If you guys know that any truckers in there, you know what I'm trying to say. I was I was trying to avoid getting inspected. But then the other half of the time, I'm like, what do I care? I got a brand new truck, brand new trailer. I'm not worried about failing an inspection. And then and then the first inspection I got pulled in for, I failed. Go figure that one because I had my break, uh, breakaway cable connected to the chain instead of the loop, which I because it was stupid and I was in a rush. Um, and they put me out of service for that, and I moved it one inch, literally one inch. But and they wouldn't let me do it without putting me out of service as crap. Um, but I think I think the general public knowing some of these things about trucking are important because it helps you just understand what it's like. I remember when I was a kid, people I don't I don't know if they looked up to truckers, but I I always thought it was an awesome job, you know, always. You know, my father was in construction, uh, he later on got back into trucking. I guess he drove truck earlier. My father-in-law was in trucking. Um and I got started very, very young. Even when my wife and I first met when we were dating back in the day, I bought a van and filled it with U-ship freight and went to California. I was gone for like three weeks. I hauled a jet engine from California into New York, a jet engine on the back of a U-Haul trailer pulled by a van that barely could make it down the road. But you know what? I was trucking and I was doing something I liked and I was making money. And then when I started getting into the LTL game and realizing more and more and more, and then when I hit brokerage and figured out how I could make money without owning assets, then I was like, this is crazy. But when you think about supply chain and logistics as a whole, it's one of the coolest industries. And I've said this all the time. You can look around your house right now. You can uh you may be watching me on a cell phone, you may be watching me on a TV, you may be just listening to the podcast on Apple Podcasts. By the way, we just hit 100 downloads on our on our first episode, which is pretty badass. Um, but no matter where you're listening, if you're listening with earbuds, you're listening in your car, no matter what, if you use that device, whatever's feeding you my voice right now, it was on a truck at some point. The headphones were on a truck when they came over from overseas and they went to a CFS, and from the CFS, they went on another truck to a distribution center, and from there they went on another truck to a you know, a wholesaler, or they went on another truck to Amazon, who then put them on a truck to ship them to you. This this water cup was on a truck. You know what I mean? At some point, every single thing in your life at some point was on the back of a truck. All the food you eat, everything. So when you think about it from that perspective, it's supply chain is amazing, you know. No matter how you no matter whether you think truck drivers are lazy or and I've heard every stereotype about truck drivers. Like, I personally I hate going to truck stops now. I hate it because it smells awful. That's really the only reason. But you know what I like the most about going to truck stops is listening to the sounds of the trucks because I love trucks. I just realized my hat is bent wrong, but whatever. Um, I'm wearing my hat because my hair is long, I gotta cut my hair. But it's you know, I've I've always loved trucking, you know, through and through. And I think I think if a lot of people like one of the proudest moments I ever had in trucking, and you guys may remember some of the old Freight Burke Alive or or the protest coverage, you know, viewers that have been around for a long time. Uh hold on, my wife is asking me if I want a chocolate cake too. I'm gonna say not unless you want to make it. Because today I turned 42 years old, and I shouldn't be at work, I should be at home. And but that's why I'm doing this show early, because it's not live. You may have thought it's live, but it's not. It's actually pre-recorded and then uh posted to post live later, maybe if I did it right. The podcast has been out for a couple hours, but yeah, today is my birthday. But anyway, trucking is one of the coolest things in the world. Um, the logistics of anything is just fascinating to me. And I forgot what I was talking about before. Oh, truck stops. The sound listening to the sounds of trucks is something I've always liked too. Um, but yeah, it's uh it's a great industry, and the more I'm gonna talk, you know, the show will eventually take its regular format. Eventually, right now it's kind of just about what I want to talk about. But initially, or the idea behind this show is that I'll cover about 15 minutes of the news and headlines in the trucking industry. I'll focus for another 15 minutes on a talking point, something that I want to talk about that's related to the freight industry. And then I will probably give an outlook on like Mondays, what the week's gonna look like in terms of fuel and rates. And then I'm going to try to get out of my comfort level and do some in interviews and things like that, which I don't necessarily like, but I'm really interested in hearing one of my clients actually maybe uh on the show in the very near future because I want to I want to highlight people that started from the ground up, like people that started as drivers. I listen, there's something about someone that's self-made that has run their whole way through logistics. You know what I mean? Started as a driver, worked for a company, worked in operations for a company, saw how it's done, went out, started their own truck and company, and are now doing well. There's something about a kid that graduates from college, goes into a brokerage, learns how to sell freight, learns how to open the brokerage, and now runs a huge brokerage. That those are stories that I believe everyone should need to everyone should hear. You know, where they actually work. When you come in and you're like uh an executive within one company that's not connected to logistics and you enter logistics, or you're a tech developer that has no experience in logistics, you just see dollar signs and know that you can make money with this industry, which I hate that, because that's why we have so many broken systems. That's why, you know, the MODIS isn't working. Because they didn't hire an actual operator, someone that's familiar with the process of onboarding, at least in it appears that way. They didn't hire someone that actually knew what they're doing to run the system. And that's probably why it's not doing what it's supposed to be doing. But uh, I do appreciate all you guys for hanging out. One thing I would ask is that I own a non, well, I don't own it. I run a nonprofit called the Clear Path Initiative. The whole idea behind it is to give at-risk youth, specifically former foster youth, a pathway, a clear path into the logistics industry from truck driving to brokerage to anything. So I it's a nonprofit that I've started. Uh, you can all go to it, clearpathinitiative.org. There's a lot of opportunity. I'm looking for mentors, I'm looking for financial support, I'm looking for someone that has, you know, a warehouse that'll allow us to bring classes in and do OSHA certifications for forklift driving. I'm looking to open the first, you know, completely nonprofit logistics academy here in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the free capital of the world, where we can teach people everything about logistics through and through, uh, and job placements and all that stuff. So that's a project I've been working on for a while. You can go to the clearpathinitiative.org. You know, if you want to contribute, today is my birthday. So, you know, even if everyone went over there and did five, 10 bucks or 100 or 500 or 5,000 or whatever, you know, the big guys. Um that money is just used to further that group. You know, I'm gonna start off by doing scholarships to trade schools, a couple of CDL schools, things like that to help people form you know, at-risk youth, former foster youth, things like that, to give them a leg up because I speak from experience. I was a former foster kid. I'm one of the fortunate ones. I just had a drive. I hated drugs, and I had a drive to just break the stereotypes of foster children. Uh, and I think I've done it. I'm at I've I've married for a very long time. I've got two wonderful, wonderfully smart kids. I own a house. I, you know, I'm not rich, but I I I I'm rich inside, you know. I'm not financially rich. I'm like everyone else struggling to make a book, but I'm rich in terms of of everything I got going on. Not a lot of kids are offered that same opportunity. So I want to create, and I believe logistics gave that. Logistics and and my wife. Like, let's be honest. She is the whole reason why I'm successful, to be honest with you. Don't tell her that, but um, she kind of keeps me grounded, you know, and not not being like, yeah, she she does, she's she's good. She'll never watch this, so I can say that. Um, but yeah, if you guys want to support that, go to theclearpathinitiative.org. I've got a little video here that talks about it, and I will see all of you guys on Friday. Have a good day.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

Every year, 20,000 young years.