“Paul Rissler Transportation gets the job done and looks good doing it.” Those are the words of Tom Arnold with Dutchland Refrigerated Transport, a primary customer of six-truck Paul Rissler Transportation.
Paul and Michelle Rissler own the small fleet, which operates out of the small town of California, Missouri. The fleet moves LTL freight for Dutchland out of Pennsylvania back to Missouri and Kansas two to three times a week. Part of the fleet has been dedicated to Dutchland for 27 years. The fleet also has a couple of trucks that run out to Colorado and back hauling refrigerated and frozen food products.
Paul got into the trucking business at an early age, being “born and bred into it,” as he put it. His dad was a truck driver from the age of 18 and then owned trucks through Paul's childhood. Rissler started driving for his dad, but after meeting Michelle at 19 years old, the pair moved to buy a truck from the elder Rissler and and started out with their own authority in 1997.
Five years later in 2002, Rissler’s father sold his business to Paul and Michelle, so they added his three trucks to their fleet of five at the time.
With eight trucks, “it was getting pretty hectic with three boys, three little ones,” and the Risslers were at a crossroads, trying to decide how they wanted to move forward. They'd talked about downsizing to allow Paul to be home more with the children. Then, in 2003, one of their sons had an accident and injured his head and had to spend six weeks in a hospital.
Paul and Michelle Rissler
Paul Rissler Transportation has stayed between five and eight trucks and drivers through the years, which is what they have found to be their sweet spot as fleet owners.
“The more trucks you have, the more headaches you have,” Paul said. “The more money you make, yeah, but it’s not all about the money. It’s all about keeping our drivers happy and to find the perfect drivers out there.”
The Risslers are picky about those they bring on, but they also reward those drivers with top-notch equipment. Trailers are all stainless-steel spread-axle reefers that are replaced every few years. All of the fleet’s trucks are ELD-exempt gliders -- a 2002 Kenworth W900; a 2008, 2014 and two 2016 Peterbilt 389s, and a 2020 Freightliner Coronado.
Michelle said she might like to see the fleet grow some down the road, but to no more than 10 trucks.
“You get too many [drivers], it’s just hard to be a family team,” Paul said. “We really believe we’re all family, driving together and working together.”
Michelle noted that half of the current drivers are related to the Risslers, so keeping that family dynamic isn’t difficult as the fleet currently stands.
For these and other reasons, Paul Rissler Transportation is among five semi-finalists in the 3-10-truck division for Overdrive's Small Fleet Champ award.
[Related: Direct freight: Delivering a modicum of stability in a turbulent market]
Getting the freight: 'If you're good at one thing, stick with it'
Since Paul got his start in trucking, he’s been hauling for Dutchland. When he was driving for his dad in 1996, “I went and hooked up with Dutchland and never looked back.”
This is one of several Small Fleet Champ semi-finalist profiles that will air throughout this month. (Access all of the published profiles via this link.) Two finalists in each category (3-10 trucks, 11-30 trucks) will be announced in October.
Rissler drivers working the Dutchland lanes work for three weeks a month and are off a week, with Paul himself filling in during each driver’s off week.
Another of the company’s drivers also loads in Pennsylvania, except he doesn’t work weekends like the Dutchland-dedicated drivers do.
The way Paul sees the business, “if you always haul food, you should never go broke because everybody’s got to eat,” he said. Throughout his time in trucking, he’s stayed that course, resisting temptation to swap to other types of freight, depending on the market dynamics. There's value, he knows, in the known known, as it were.
“If you’re good at one thing, stick with it,” he said. “It’s like playing baseball, football or basketball," all at once. "You won’t get good at all three. You’re better off staying with one thing and staying good at it. That’s my whole philosophy about trucking and sticking with reefer.”
With the spot market trudging along with rock-bottom rates for the better part of the last two years, the Risslers said their customer relationships have “been a blessing.” They still sometimes use the spot market to get trucks from Missouri to Pennsylvania to run their dedicated lanes, but having half of their work dedicated has helped the fleet tremendously, they said.
[Related: From $13/mile loads in a 'zombie' truck to stability, growth: Evolution of Dana Gardner Trucking]
“It’s a time-saver,” Michelle said. “We built that awesome relationship [with Dutchland]. Both parties, we know each other well, and we’re always there and they always have us freight. We take care of each other.”
Paul acknowledged that today’s freight environment is probably the worst since the 2008 recession and said, “if you don’t have a dedicated run at these times right now, or a relationship with a carrier, you’re in trouble because you can’t run off the board. The loads are so cheap on the board, you can’t make it. We don’t do that very often.”
When they do negotiate spot freight, relationships pay off there amongst regularly used brokerages, he said. The Risslers tend to stick with the same brokers hauling the same loads going to Pennsylvania to get them where they need to be. It's helped them get better rates than what's advertised on the boards, he added.
Business dividends of freedom from debt
Perhaps the biggest thing Paul and Michelle have done through the years to improve their business is to focus their finances and become debt-free. Michelle had listened to finance guru Dave Ramsey and, though skeptical in the beginning, decided to take a shot at reducing the business’s debt with the goal of becoming debt-free.
The National Association of Small Trucking Companies is sponsoring this year's Small Fleet Championship program. Finalists receive a year's worth of membership in the association, with access to a myriad of benefits from NASTC's well-known fuel program to drug and alcohol testing services and much more. All will be recognized at the association's annual conference, where the winner will be announced in November in Nashville, Tennessee. Find more about the association via their website.
Once they started working together toward the debt-free goal, it took about two years to get there, and they’ve been debt-free for about the last three years.
“We were 27 years in debt,” Paul said. “You just feel like you’re never gonna get out of it.”
They quickly discovered the benefits of not having payments when it came time to buy a new trailer -- they'd built savings such that they could easily pay cash for it. In fact, they bought three without taking out a loan.
It's no doubt helped weather the tough trucking market of recent years, as has all the pair have learned through decades in business. Michelle credited the pair's longevity with knowing just “when to spend and when not to on certain things. If fuel is going to be real high this month, then we’re not going to be out there buying extra chrome,” she said.
In addition to running their longtime trucking business, the Risslers also started a shop, officially making it its own LLC in 2022, with their three sons, where they work on their own trucks in addition to outside business. The Risslerbilt LLC garage handles all of the maintenance for the Risslers' fleet, including oil changes every 18,000-20,000 miles, all routine service and anything else that needs to be done.
The company’s drivers are all intimately involved in a diligent preventive maintenance program. Operators all get home to Missouri at least once a week, and they drop off a list at the shop of anything that needs to be looked at closely. “Our trucks aren’t out on the road for a month at a time," Paul said, "so there’s no on-the-road services, hardly ever,” anyway, reducing risk of a high repair outlay.
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“One look at their trucks and trailers will explain their commitment to the trucking industry,” noted Dutchland’s Arnold. “From their shop servicing the equipment to the drivers washing and polishing, Paul Rissler Transportation gets the job done and looks good doing it.”
Rissler operators are paid a percentage that's based in part on time with the company, and they earn two bonuses a year to help cover the costs of health insurance that the drivers have to get on their own. Most of the Risslers’ drivers have been with them for a number of years, and some have even left and come back.
“That tells me and my wife a lot about us, because if you’re going to come back because we treated you right, we must be OK,” Paul said. “Nobody would come back if you treated them bad the first time around.”
[Related: Family legacy keeps Southwind Transportation maintaining through loss, market chaos]
