Pro-Trucker Magazine

My dad was a firm believer in learning by seeing and being involved. He didn’t teach step by step or give hours of lessons; you watched, he showed you things and you figured it out. Questions would always be answered of course, but there was always an element of independence. The importance of “doing” and making mistakes in order to learn from them and get better. This concept applies to everything, and I’m realizing now, as I write this, that the way my dad taught me gave me irreplaceable confidence.

I always remember dad saying, “don’t ever claim to know everything” , “don’t carry yourself as a know-it-all”, “prove yourself by doing”, “don’t build expectations, under sell and over deliver”, “don’t ever claim to have it all figured out”. These tag lines stuck with me throughout my life, and I realized they are all centred on humility. How you carry yourself and how you show up to others are integral to building good relationships. Presenting yourself with humility conveys the attitude that you’re not better than anyone else and that everyone has something to bring to the table. I didn’t realize it then, but my journey in humility would become paramount later in life. After all, we are called to patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control; the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Crop years were bad for quite a few years in a row, and my dad got tired of the losses. He bought a semi, hauled grain for a little while, and did a few other commercial transport endeavours. At the time, I was working for a farmer in Saskatchewan, helping manage a 5,000-acre grain operation. Dad called me up and said he was going to sell a quarter section, buy a double drop and asked me if I was in. I had gained a lot of experience at the farm in Saskatchewan and had a lot of independence there, exactly how my dad taught me how to learn. I had brought my dad’s set of bulkers and one of his trucks to make seeding with the 60’ Bourgault we used more efficiently. Again, there were countless situations that I found myself in where I didn’t have a clue what the right answer was, or the right move to make. You made decisions, sometimes they were mistakes, and then you made more decisions to rectify the mistakes. You learned by doing, by failing and not giving up. Every single time, without fail, if you thought you had it all figured out, around the corner was a catastrophe that would pound humility into you. Humility, after all, is a biblical concept and the way we are called to carry ourselves. It just so happens I’m a pretty stubborn guy, with a big head: it took a lot of lessons to drive the point home.

So we ventured into the commercial world together and started hauling down to Nevada to service a few mines there. CMS Trinity Transport presented many challenges, and I often didn’t know what I was doing, but we figured it out one job or one problem at a time. We got so busy that we started supplying loads for a couple of other trucks. I was clearing customs, ordering permits, invoicing and chasing money down, all from the driver’s seat; it was a whirlwind. Eventually, I reached out to a couple of people my dad knew, who had worked for them in the past, and I asked them for a couple of hours a week from one of their office staff to relieve some pressure. This went on for a few weeks before Stacey, at the time the owner of 6S Transport, came to me and said, “It’s not making any sense to build 2 business, why don’t we merge?” So we did. We formed 6S Trinity Transport LTD, melded our equipment and office roles together and set out to “make trucking personal”. To be a light in a dark world and deliver not only freight, but also integrity. Building lasting relationships on trust with the model of the cross and an embodiment of humility.

My third load, I think, as a commercial driver, back when Dad and I were on our own, was a 14’6 W rig deck, Alberta – Texas. I had a pilot in Alberta and Colorado, but none in Montana, set in the middle of winter with icy road conditions. I was green as green could be, had no idea what I was doing, but had to get the job done. I pinned the trailer in the yard, as my dad had loaded it for me, and the kingpin didn’t latch. I went to pull away, and the trailer fell to the ground. There I was, in -25, trying to jack the trailer up to re-hook it before my pilot showed up and saw what I had done. Blown up fan belt, Denver traffic and single lane highways, with bridges every 3 miles where I needed the entire road; it was one for the books. In the end, though, I got the job done. I gained confidence and realized once again that I was never going to have it all figured out.

Shortly after we merged to form 6S Trinity Transport, I faced one of the biggest challenges of my life. I had started doing 5-10K runs and injured my calf in the process, or so I thought. Dad was bringing up a screen deck from Arizona on a 9 axle that I was to deliver to the Yukon. We were waiting on a superload permit from British Columbia when I moved the load to Demmitt, Alberta, to wait at the border. During the drive, I became entirely unable to put the clutch to the floor with my left leg. 85% of my left leg power was gone. I unhooked at the border scale and made my way back home to High River. I told my dad I wasn’t going to be able to complete the move myself, and so when we got permits, we went together; I wasn’t much help. I spent 2 weeks in the bunk, throwing up, in pain and unable to stand by myself; all the while my dad was fighting harsh conditions, chain-ups and winter blizzards on the 37. It was a nightmare; however, we got the job done again.

I got back, and my chiropractor sent me to emerge. He didn’t tell me at the time, but he knew I didn’t just have a calf injury; I was walking with a spinal cancer gate. Scans and 2 gruelling weeks in the foothills neurosurgery wing would reveal I had a mass in my spine at L4-L5 and a webbing in my head around my pineal gland. The hospital didn’t know if what they planned to do would work, as they had limited experience with my condition, which was extremely rare. Faith really steps in, in a big way. Diagnosis was 2 months to live, likely never walk again; God had other plans. Yet again, throughout my life, I have been put in situations that force me to realize I don’t have it all figured out, and humility is an aptitude that should lead.

Here I was at 30, in the cancer ward on the 11th floor; 13 rounds of chemo, the hardest they had to penetrate through the bloodbrain barrier and then a stem cell transplant, my own. I can’t begin to describe what this process was like. One moment everything is fine, and in the next, the future is a question mark. I remember after the diagnosis, before I started treatment, I sent an audio recording to my family. They were devastated by the news, but there was strength and confidence inside of me bursting at the seams. I told them this battle had already been won, God’s already cured me of this, I just have to walk through it. Humility took the lead, and again I didn’t have it all figured out, but knew someone who did.

For 5 years now, I have been in remission, and I tell you the truth, yesterday, before I wrote this article, I ran a half-marathon. You may wonder what this all has to do with trucking, but I don’t think it matters what you do. It’s about how you show up, how you carry yourself. I love driving, I always have, and I love a challenge; countless hours in my life spent driving aimlessly around and countless hours attempting difficult things to prove to myself I could. Transport puts me in places I normally wouldn’t be, in front of people I normally wouldn’t see or deal with, and I have an opportunity in that. An opportunity to demonstrate humility, show a stranger love, and show up for somebody. That’s a privilege I don’t take lightly

This business has given me countless opportunities to make an impact, delivering integrity along with the freight on the trailer. If I can encourage a single person with my testimony, it’s all worth it. It’s not about what I do, though I love it dearly, but a matter of where my heart is in the process. I don’t have it all figured out, and around every corner in life, that has been resoundingly true; my dad’s words ring loud in my ears, “Stay humble,” “never claim to know everything”. Whether it’s a delivery or a phone call with a customer or a random interaction at the truck stop, I choose how I show up. In integrity and in love, undersell and overdeliver.