We debated on attending Landstars, BCO days (Business Capacity Operators) as we were new to the company and we needed to run freight. What a bad decision it would have been to skip this event.
We registered for BCO days in January and called our hotel for rooms, Landstar picks up one night at a
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Main tent used for meals and prizes |
hotel for each driver. At each of the six hotels full of BCO's and also from the overflow parking area for trucks and trailers is a plethora of shuttle buses driven by Landstar employees. The employees all welcomed everyone and we learned a little about them and their job on the trip to the main Landstar offices in Jacksonville, FL. Landstar also provided everyone with a continental breakfast, a very nice lunch, followed by an even nicer supper. On Friday night we were all treated to steaks, potatoes, vegetable, and dessert.
I believe that nearly 2000 BCO's as well as employees were in attendance and everything run like a well-oiled machine. The event started each day with opening remarks from Jim Gattoni, Landstar President and CEO. Followed by question and answers from the crowd. Next was a break and another chance to see vendors or to stop by the tables to learn and ask questions about some of Landstars procedures like Direct Scan. In the evening we watched a brand new truck given away and then the main entertainment started and that was giving away some very nice prizes. From steer tires, computers, kindles, money loaded on our settlement cards to nights at hotels were all given away. Gregg Nelson was the commentator for the evening and even though we did not win a prize we laughed until our sides ached at the antics Gregg pulled. It was great fun and with that many prizes it could have became very boring just listening to numbers being called.
During the day we had time to visit the five story offices and visit with the different departments and ask questions. We had some logging questions so we headed up to the 5th floor and met with logging, and then we headed back down to the 4th floor to meet with many of the people that deal with Express America. While work was still going on all of the employees still made time to talk with the many BCO's wandering the floors. Each floor had a sign when we came out of the elevator pointing us to the different departments. As always it was great to put faces to names and we enjoyed meeting these people and they seemed glad to meet the BCO's face to face.
Each day there was a safety meeting that highlighted Landstars CSA scores, what the top violations were, and what was the most common accident. After the safety meeting we went our separate ways to attend the different workshops. We attended the Landstar Express American workshop and learned even more about this small division of Landstar and the goals. On the next day I gained my certification as a TAT member and Bob attended "Are you smarter then a roadside inspector".
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Awesome 2nd place trophy |
On Saturday there was truck driving championships and also a truck beauty contest, which we entered. It was tough after all of the rain on Friday that went through the night. All of us spent a lot of time wiping down the trucks and cleaning the floors due to mud being tracked in. There were some really beautiful trucks entered and we were thrilled to win second place. The Western Star that beat us had beautiful paint with matching graphics. One of the interesting thing we have learned at Landstar is we have freedom to change the colors of the Landstar logos to match our vehicle. Next year the Western Star will have a run for his money!
We left BCO days with a clearer understanding of the company, many new friends and were able to catch up with old friends, and we better understand how to make our business more profitable within this system.
Great JOB Landstar for a well-run fun educational event and we are counting down the days till 2016 BCO days.