Robert Hallahan learned the hard way.
He began his trucking career in 1990 at the age of 18 doing local delivery work for Coca-Cola before briefly going over-the-road, then returning to regional work hauling gasoline tankers around Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. From there, he got into hauling liquid petroleum, and his hauls found him farther afield -- down to Florida and other, warmer places in the winter. He then started hauling anhydrous ammonia and doing other tanker work.
Around 2000, Hallahan bought his first truck but “I lost my butt and went bankrupt,” he said. “I learned all the money from trucking didn’t go to you, it went to the truck. I learned the hard way. I was young and dumb.”
Following that experience, he was a company driver again for about seven years before giving an owner-operator business another try.
He bought a 2006 Kenworth W900B when he started LaCrosse, Wisconsin-based Hallahan Transport with his own authority in 2016, driving it for a year and a half before he hired a driver who wanted to lease on to his business. He sold the truck to that driver, who then leased on with him.
“He blew the motor out of it and left it sitting on the side of the road,” Hallahan said. “That gave it back to the bank, then I bought it back from the bank," got it in full working order and sold it to another would-be owner. By that time, though, Hallahan had bought a couple other trucks.
Hallahan has seen steady, quick growth in his business since its 2016 start. The school of hard knocks taught him what it takes to be a successful owner-operator, and since hanging out his shingle with his authority, he's used that experience to grow his business from a one-truck operation to having as many as 12 trucks in his mostly dry van-hauling fleet, a mix of company equipment and owners leased on, some of whom he's assisted in the transition from company employee to independent contractor owner-operator. Hallahan Transport is among 10 semi-finalists for Overdrive's 2021 Small Fleet Champ award.
