Before Overdrive became a partner in the Truckload Carriers Association's former Owner-Operator of the Year competition about a decade ago, our Trucker of the Year recognition and award effort annually rewarded 12 of the best owner-operators in the business, along with monthly profiles published in the magazine and, with further evaluation, a final winner, whether an independent with authority or leased. Among the last such winners was Boyd Bros.-leased flatbedder Dan Heister.
Owner-operator Dan Heister grabbing a gear in his 2004 International 9400.
"My truck’s in the shop right now," he noted when I caught up with him yesterday. Outside of the pages of Overdrive (a former colleague went on a run with Heister in 2016), I haven't seen the owner in the flesh since he showed me his early-'70s-vintage Ford Gran Torino hot rod on Memorial Day in 2012, at his home in Tennessee Ridge, Tennessee. The owner-operator is living now in Alabama, Jasper to be exact, where he purchased 10 acres about five years ago. He's built a 30'-by-40' shop on the property, has been saving to build a new house, and in the 10 years since I saw the Gran Torino has amassed quite a collection of other vintage cars, in addition to more work put into the original, which he raced for several years.
Among the more than two-dozen vintage autos Heister and his wife, Tawn, have collected, putting extensive work into many of them, is this group -- the black Fox body Ford Mustang he picked up just this weekend, in fact. It's pictured next his son's well-preserved red Mustang.
And yes, Heister's still trucking, still leased to Boyd Bros. in the 2004 Caterpillar-powered International 9400 he'd purchased around the time of that Memorial Day gathering.
His sons are grown and working as diesel mechanics -- fringe benefit for the owner-operator from time to time when something goes wrong in the International (pictured). They
Equally significant, "I have had some of the best years of trucking in my 26 years" in the business, he said of recent history. Even this year, with fuel prices skyrocketing and a somewhat shaky freight-rates situation, depending on the niche, the flatbedder's gross revenue, including big fuel surcharge payments from Boyd of course, has been tracking well above 2021 to the extent that he thinks he won't be off much at all for net income when the year-end accounting is done.
