Robert Touchtone, PGT Company Driver

Flatbedders are a Different Breed

Every truck driver has a story.  Sometimes the stories are similar, and sometimes they are worlds apart.  Always they are individually significant.  Because for all of us, the sum of our experiences adds up to who we are, and where we go. In the trucking world, our life experiences lead to the roads we drive.

Take Robert Touchtone, for example. When we reached Mr. Touchtone, he was driving outside Laredo, Texas.

Times can be hard.

Robert Touchtone grew up in Michigan.  He enlisted and served in the Navy.  When he was discharged from the service, it was a bad economic time for anyone living in Michigan.  The year was 1989. 

When he decided to get into trucking, Touchtone started out in flatbed driving. He has been a Flatbedder for over 20 years now. Along the way, he ended up in Pennsylvania, and discovered PGT.

Flatbed drivers are always doing something.

According to Touchtone, it takes a certain mindset to be a flat bed driver.  It’s not sedentary, and he said it’s challenging and gratifying to do the work, because at the end of the day, there’s a sense of ownership of a job well done.

The best companies have dispatchers who come from truck driving experience.

In many cases, the dispatchers at most companies are young and have little to no truck driving experience. That wasn’t the case at PGT.  They made a great impression on Robert Touchtone from the start, accommodating him and going out of their way to try to work with him.

In his own words:

I shifted to PGT because I am treated like a human being…not a number.  They honored my experience as a Flatbedder and paid me top wages.  When I got set up with my first dispatcher, John, I was amazed.  He treats his drivers like they’re the most important thing. I was so pleased with the treatment I got at PGT; I actually emailed a letter to the director of the company.

We couldn’t have said it better.