CCJ Innovators profiles carriers and fleets that have found innovative ways to overcome trucking’s challenges. If you know a carrier that has displayed innovation, contact CCJ Chief Editor Jason Cannon at jasoncannon@randallreilly.com or 800-633-5953.
Podcasts have made multi-millionaires out of the likes of Joe Rogan and Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, but not everyone gets into it for the money and fame (at least initially).
A podcast is basically a series of audio episodes, each focused on a particular topic or theme. The modern and technologically savvy community equivalent of the ham radio, podcasters and listeners collide in hoards on Spotify and iTunes, among other platforms, to share opinions on everything from sports, to politics and everything in between.
FreightWorks, a 100-plus truck, hazmat, high-security and temperature-controlled freight hauler based in Rutherfordton, N.C., debuted a podcast last September – just one more podcast trying to stand out in an ocean of more than 2 million worldwide.
"We started this by acknowledging among ourselves that none of us were podcast experts, but we had a strong conviction that telling the story of professional drivers and reinforcing for a broad marketplace of people that would have specific interest in trucking and logistics – and beyond that, folks that are drivers have been drivers, drivers, families – reinforcing the professional nature of what they do, the fact that they have unique stories and the fact that the three-and-a-half million-plus drivers in America represent a broad tapestry of colorful stories," said Butch Maltby FreightWorks communications director and host of Life by the Mile. "We went into this saying, 'we don't want this just to be a FreightWorks infomercial.'"
The bi-weekly series is now up to 77 episodes. It went on a break following season 1 in February and kicked off season 2 at the Mid-America Trucking Show (MATS) in March, where the production team recorded 18 episodes.
Maltby said the podcasts are purposely absent of recruiting pitches that tout FreightWorks' home time and driver pay, rather its focus is on news and events that affect the industry as a whole, telling the stories of the men and women who keep it moving, and the people trucking touches along the way.
