Exit Only: Synched Up
I t's not every day a driver finds himself at the center of a bur-geoning cultural movement, but such is the case for Aubrey Allen Smith, a 30-year veteran of the trucking industry, most of that time spent as an owner-operator running household goods long-haul. Smith is an on-call hauler for Florida-based Pipeline Transporta-tion, pulling gas tankers in a day-cab between Tampa and Ocala. His part-time status has run parallel to a growing business and per-sonal quest, which today has Smith and his wife, Donna, a medical lab researcher, standing at the nexus of technology and media as it relates to a growing community of drivers concerned about the state of the industry. Smith traces the origins of that quest to a conversation overheard in a Kansas truckstop. This guy was talking on the phone, Smith says, and he was worried. He couldn't make his truck payment and feared losing his home. Smith had heard this sort of story many times. So many, in fact, that he tended to put others' problems out of my mind, he says. But at that moment he determined to do some-thing to help. He set about penning a book, , to give new drivers the hard facts about training, the on-road lifestyle and business entry. In 2003, he began offering it to readers via in e-book form, and as attention to it slowly rose, he took note of many requests for audio versions and CD-ROMs and also launched to provide readers an avenue for their questions to his and others' years of experience. Smith's call-in radio show has been a going con-cern since late last year, too: . Recent shows have taken on driver-training schools, union trucking, lease agreements for owner-opera-tors and more with expert guests, including drivers, from all sides of every issue. Perhaps his most ambitious proj-ect became a reality in March. He and Donna are the proud parents of the first resource iPhone appli-cation designed specifically with truck drivers in mind. The Trucker app, $.99 via , aggregates Smith's educational and media pursuits with social and busi-ness networking functions, user-provided content and other outside resources in a central location for iPhone users. Ken Sneed, of InfoMediaInc, a company started by Web market-ing guru Joel Comm and the devel-oper the Smiths worked with on the iPhone app, says The Trucker represents new ground broken in their business. The company approached the app with a mind toward making it a prototype for other small-business customers, not their normal clientele. We're big in the celebrity industry, he says. The Smiths were likewise unique in that, while business-building was certainly an ancil-lary concern, the idea behind The Trucker app had more to do with furthering progress toward Allen's goal of bringing solid information to truckers and connecting them around issues important to all than marketing. The industry has really been in the news a lot lately, Smith says. The general public is getting drawn into it. He cites response to last year's fuel spike and recent rest-area closings in Virginia and else-where as examples of what he sees as a burgeoning grassroots activ-ism among drivers, haulers coming together around issues to the better-ment of the industry. You don't see a lot of that, where we're all coming together, Smith says, and he wants to at least help make it a more fre-quent occurrence. Hopefully we're playing a small part in that, rais-ing awareness and bringing people together. Synched Up Florida gas hauler brings industry conversation to truckers' iPhones exit only todd dIlls Truckers News Senior Editor Todd Dills is the author of a novel, , and blogs daily at channel19.blogspot. . Write him at or http://twitter.com/ . note of Hope: FedEx expedited owner-operator Phil Madsen (in a team with his wife, Diane), featured in these pages in Carolyn Magner's When the Road Is Home cover story in March 2008, offered a down-and-dirty perspective on the freight slowdown in April via his blog (at . He and Diane hauled 25 percent fewer loads for a gross revenue down 25 percent in the first quarter of this year, he wrote. In other words, the freight slowdown is not only continu-ing, but the decline is accel-erating. Last year's 20-per-cent decline has given way to [the first] quarter's 25-percent decline. Looking around to see what else is going on, the news is not encouraging. Container ships are stacking up on ports around the world. ... Airlines are mothballing planes in record numbers... But he continues on a more hopeful note with an admis-sion that, more than anything, he and his wife are grateful as ever to be healthy and happy on the road. While we would, of course, prefer to be making more money, we continue to believe this is the best job we have ever had. Madsen's prior career was in financial consulting. Hang in there. posted June 2009 86 trucKers news