In this week's Overdrive Radio podcast edition, drop into my long talk with Daryl Zimmerman of Belgrade, Minnesota, co-owner with his brother, Nelson (also featured), of two-truck Zimmerman Ag. Joined by Nelson during the talk, Daryl was looking out the windshield glass on a bright and sunny day running between Minneapolis-St. Paul and his area in Central Minnesota bound for a feed mill that has been a principal customer for much of Zimmerman Ag's nearly 10-year history.
"Good day to be out trucking," he said, after a load of corn in his hopper dropped around the Twin Cities, and the reload with feed ingredients made its way back.
Since launching as a one-man, one-truck business in 2015, Daryl was joined by Nelson when the latter got his own truck and leased it to the business, starting in 2020. They’ve now fully joined forces as a partnership, extending a family base that stretches back to Daryl and Nelson’s father’s time as an owner-operator in the late 1990s.
Zimmerman Ag is Overdrive’s latest Trucker of the Month semi-finalist for the 2024 Trucker of the Year award, marking the end of the run of our semi-finalists for this year. In the coming weeks, expect more from all of them as judges begin the evaluation process for our final 2024 Trucker of the Year winner.
Today, join the Zimmermans for a tour through their history in business, its entirety for both men as owner-operators working in service to farmers and ag-support businesses, by and large, around their home base. They're containing costs and boosting profits with a strong focus on keeping as much maintenance as possible in-house, likewise deliberate used-truck-model selection for a powertrain that maximizes fuel-mileage potential and maintenance simplicity while minimizing weight for greater payloads. Take a listen:
[Related: Trucker of the Year Jay Hosty nets new Bostrom Seat, custom replica of his '06 Western Star 4900EX]