SPEAKER_01 0:00

A lot of times we will take our best drivers and say, here, now I need you to go teach somebody how to drive. And they can't always explain when to turn the wheel and why and how to make those perfect U-turns. And so I thought that that was the skill you had or you didn't. But when we sat down and we started kind of going through it, we said, Well, we can take people that have these attributes and teach them how to teach.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Hello everybody, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Ground Transportation Podcast. Unfortunately, today I don't have my partner in crime, Ken Lucci. I'm sure he is out somewhere doing an incredible financial deal. However, I'm super excited about my guest today. I have Julie from Hotard, and I couldn't be more excited. I've gotten to spend time at her operation. I've gotten to spend time working with her staff, working and developing their training program, and I'm really, really stoked about getting to talk to her today because it's a very unique operation with a lot of neat things going on. Julie, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Thank you. Super excited to be here as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Well, I'll tell you what, I think for me, one of the cool things about our industry is there's such rich background and history to most of the companies. I was a little cheeky and that I didn't use your last name because you have a married last name now. So the Hotard is no longer front and center. But I want you to be able to tell the story because, like a lot of us, I don't think you came to this business on purpose, but I feel like being a family business, it's very fitting that they have you as part of the family still running the operation. So can you tell us a little bit of your family history?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Sure, sure. So the the company was started in 1935 by my great-grandfather and really as a line run company connecting New Orleans to the outlying parishes. And he eventually turned that company over to his sons and a nephew. And one of his sons was my grandfather, and they continued that line run service, continued to grow the business a little bit. And then, like what happens with most family businesses, there's a bit of a disagreement on where to go. And so Hotard Bus Line, which was the original Hotard Bus Company, it broke into two. And so my great uncle decided to go off on his own and start Hotard coaches. So you had two separate Hotard bus companies, both named Hotard, two different DOT numbers, two different companies, and both growing in their own way.

SPEAKER_03 2:57

Um that's not confusing at all.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

No, not not at all. Eventually, my uncle took over from his father, my grandfather, and they didn't call him when they were ready to book. And so through a lot of changes and struggles, and I'm sure a lot of talks, my uncle, when he was taking over from his father, my grandfather, he decided to sell that Hotard name so there would only be one Hotard bus company in the area. And he changed the name from Hotard Bus Line to Premier, and then quickly realized that there were a ton of premieres in the world, not just Premier Bus Companies, but Premier Paints and Premier Everything.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

From one confusing name to another.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yep, yep. And and so then he decided to go completely original. And he and his wife had a travel agency, and the travel agency was Calco. So it's his name Callan and his wife's name Colleen combined. And so they decided when they fully took over the business from my grandfather, they would change the bus name to Calco. And the funny part is at this point, Greyhound Laidlaw had purchased Hotard coaches from that Hotard family. So in 2007, I joined the organization. I went to work for Callan Hotard at Calco. Hotard Coaches was not owned by a Hotard at all. And so it was quite an interesting time in the industry. But I joked with Callan that I would go to all these different conventions and I would tell him I worked for Callan. I am a Hotard, but no, I don't work at Hotard. And so it would really just make my life easier if he would just purchase Hotard back. And and and so I'm not sure that's why he did it, but he did.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Oh, we're definitely giving you credit for that. That's exactly why I bought it to make your life easier.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

So he purchased Hotard coaches back. So for a while we ran as two different bus companies, Calco and Hotard, if it then eventually joined under one umbrella. And Hotard again was run by the Hotards, which was great. But I guess I skipped over a little bit the way that I ended up in it because my father was never involved in the bus company. And growing up, I never thought that I would work for the bus company. I went away to school and graduate degree and all this education and started my professional career in the nonprofit world. And so, you know, just kind of doing my own thing and was actually working for our local casino in event planning. And with that, had to book a lot of motor coaches. And we had a contract with a company. I was not allowed to use whoever I wanted. So I was not using Hotard or Calco. One day I'm at work and having a particularly bad day, and gotten an argument with a bus driver and had some words that I won't repeat here on a family show and quit my job that day, turned around, put in my notice because a bus driver really ticked me off. And then my uncle calls me and says, Hey, I heard you're looking for a job. Do you want to come work for a bus company? And I like, sure. And that was almost 20 years ago. And so I was initially hired to do sales. And I'm just really fortunate that I grew up in the business and grew up working for Callan and learning from him. And from the first day, he said he felt like if you take care of your drivers, your drivers will take care of your customers, and the bottom line takes care of itself. And it was just a really simple way of looking at a very complex business. And really, that's the strategy that we have followed.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

I think you need to repeat that one again. And it's a shame we don't have Ken with us because I can tell you right now, Ken would absolutely love that, especially being the financial guy and that tying to the bottom line. How did that go again?

SPEAKER_01 7:05

So if we take care of our people, and really our people are our drivers, they are our operators. You like to say everybody's important, but they really are top of the food chain. So if you take care of your drivers, your drivers take care of your customers, and the bottom line takes care of itself. And, you know, he was a big believer in that, and most decisions, everything we did followed that rule of thumb.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

I have to tell you, for me, that's very similar. You know, we have a concept that we teach at PAX, and it's that CEO is not what most people think it is, right? Most people think it's chief executive officer. We teach it as customers, employees, owners and management, right? You have to add the customer exactly what your uncle came to. He got it, and then your employees are how you reach them. If you ever want to have a company, you can't just go do it yourself, and then owners and management come last. What I love that he did is Callan tied it to the bottom line, which the business owner in me is like, yes, yes, right. That's what now you're speaking my language, right? Hey, customers owning it, yeah. The the culture, all that's great, but I think that says a lot. And I will say, from the way that you have that operation running and the way that you guys are set up and kind of the environment and the culture and everything I saw while I was there, I think you guys are still doing that. Because I can tell you I've been to a lot of operations where there's you know, what what's your job role? Everything. What about their job role? Everything? Well, what about this person? Everything else? Well, where do you guys overlap? Everything. Whereas I feel like when I was there, and even when I came back with BISC, it's very organized. Everybody seems to know what their role is, everybody seems to interact well. I guess my question would be as you kind of made your way from sales to the position now where essentially you're running Hotard there, how did that transition happen? And then at the point where Callan is no longer in the business, how were you able to kind of take that and still keep that front and center?

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah, so obviously it wasn't the plan, you know, and so you weren't drawing buses on your notebooks and binders, and that was the dream. It wasn't my big dream.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

The driver didn't yell at you, and you weren't like, I'll show you, I'll run a bus company.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Right. No, but you know, I say it was never my dream, however, to go off topic just a little bit. One day at work, we're having a conversation about what we would do if we won the lottery, things like that.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

I love that conversation, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:52

And and I said when I was younger, I used to say that I would get a limo and pick people up at bus stops and bring them where they wanted to go in a limo. And my coworker said, You really have wanted to do transportation your whole life.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

And you just didn't know it.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Yeah, I'm not sure if that made me feel good or bad, but yeah, that was apparently always a dream of mine, which is kind of weird. But so yeah, started out in sales, and really when I was hired, my job was to take care of our employees and to really make sure we were good and we were doing employee engagement and to do customer engagement. And so outside sales, you know, go after some customers. I think it's just very fitting as I've grown up in this industry, I've seen how important relationships are. And so, you know, we never went into a customer and said, Hey, give me your money, you know, I'm gonna drive you from point A to point B and we're done here. It was always about how can we make your life easier? How can we make your life better? You know, we want to have a relationship. We want to do business with you, and we want you to want to do business with us, you know, not because we're the lowest priced motor coach that you can find, or not because you don't have any other options, but because you're excited to do business with us. I see that across our industry. We really are relationship driven with our vendors, not just with the customers, but with our vendors and with each other and we help each other. You know, starting off in that sales world and learning how important relationships were really did benefit me as I grew and took on other responsibilities. It's funny to hear you say that that you see how we do have very defined roles here, and I agree with you, but again, one of the things I learned very early on is that we cannot operate in silos. And it is very, very important for everyone to understand how what I do, what I did in my sales job would have a direct effect on drivers, have a direct effect on operations, have it, you know, and and so it was really important to play nice with everybody because sometimes from a sales standpoint, we had to do something that was a little bit harder on us, but it made more sense for the drivers, or you know, vice versa. So I think working in a department and then working for a little bit in the dispatch world and just kind of working in each department and seeing how we affected each other and really knowing that okay, I'm gonna do this and it's gonna have this trickle around effect and it's gonna affect everybody, was really beneficial. I was also very fortunate that Callan just didn't decide one day, okay, I'm out of here. Good luck. It was a slow roll, and I think a little bit of that was for him as well, because he obviously loves this industry and loves this company, and it wasn't easy for him just to walk out of here. And so to have him around so that I can bounce ideas off of and that he could say, Well, this is how I would do it, or this is what you need to think about was really beneficial. It's also, I think, it's really hard to say, okay, we're gonna train you for every single scenario that you're gonna encourage. It's not realistic, not realistic, it's not realistic, and so it was more of a this is our philosophy. We is your decision safe, because again, safety obviously drives everything. So is what you want to do safe? And is it right by our employee? Is it right by the customer? And so you can use those kind of guiding principles to make decisions, and then it made things a little bit easier to say, okay, well, I'm gonna use this and these are the decisions I'm gonna make, knowing that unfortunately, a lot of times there's not really a right or a wrong. There's doing the best we can with the information we have and just feeling good that okay, I'm using these principles and this is how we come to the decision. We also have a really, really great staff. And so to have other people in the room and to be able to say, okay, well, what does everybody think? And know that between all of us, I feel pretty confident that we are considering all options, all angles, and coming to a good decision obviously makes it a lot easier as well.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

Well, it's interesting because you were talking about kind of the transition, and Ray Dalio has a book called Principles. One of the neat things that he talks about in there is he talks about the first time he tried to get out of his business. And he put someone at the helm, he thought he had everything taken care of, but unfortunately what ends up happening is that person isn't successful. And when they went back and looked at why they weren't successful, what they found was a lot of it is how you prepare that next person and what that handoff looks like. And like you were talking about, I mean, it would have been really easy for your uncle to be like, all right, I'm gonna turn the light off on my way out. I think not focusing on I'm gonna try to train you for every situation. It sounds like he very much subscribed to the school of thought that I like, and that's that he's teaching you how to think, not what to think. How do I think about problems? How do I learn kind of the role? How do I learn those pieces? And then using that, then I'm able to say, okay, I now have the information I need to be able to make a decision, and I have my team, I have my staff to help me know what feels right.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

So with that in mind, I guess my question would be as you kind of moved into that role, as you kind of built things out there, when was the moment where you're like, okay, okay, now this is me running, this is kind of my time.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Yeah, I think, I mean, that's such a great, you know, a great tie-in. And so for a long time, I did not move offices. And so his office stayed his office, and people were always- Did you have it empty? It was just empty, and people would always ask, When are you gonna move offices?

SPEAKER_03 17:20

When are you gonna when are you gonna move into the boss's office?

SPEAKER_01 17:22

And so I think I finally did when we were like running out of space, and so we needed it, and so I painted it and you know, changed it a little bit and made it feel a little more girly.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

It's a beautiful office, by the way. I'm not sure. Thank you. We're only getting the corner of it.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Right. I was very nervous for him to see it as well. But, you know, I think that that kind of helped. And then also, you know, I was always a lot more comfortable and very happy to be behind the camera. And so to set up the interviews for him and you know, to do those things. And so as that became more and more my role, I think then it was like, okay, yeah, this is real. These are now my decisions. And we have drivers who have been here for 40 years, and so when they come to me with good news or a question, and I feel like, okay, they're looking for my advice or they trust me, that kind of brings it home. Okay, yes, maybe I'm settling in a little bit, but I tell you, it's the fear of it, I think, comes right away where you're like, okay, this is mine not to mess up before the ownership of wow, this is something really great that's mine. But for a long time, I just felt like that I just need to not screw this up. This is really an amazing company that my family has built.

SPEAKER_03 18:47

Well, I think that's something that I've seen, especially with generational operators, right? You've got this rich family history going all the way back. And I think for a lot of people, when they're coming into that, now it's like, well, I have this pressure. And I think one of the compliments I'll pay you that you deserve is, you know, the whole time I've known you, I think you've been in that confidence, you've been in that point where you know what you're doing, you've been to that point where you have it. And I think it speaks a lot because there's a lot of people that I feel like they run the company, but they've never gotten over that imposter syndrome, or they've never gotten over that fear of I'm gonna mess it up. And it keeps them from getting and building their legacy and getting and building kind of their their part of it almost gets kind of stunted. And I would love to tell you that you never had to go through any of that. It sounds like you had a little bit of that, but like I said, the entire time that I've known you, you've been over that hill, you've been at that point where it looks like you guys are growing and developing, and I think that says a lot. Well, thank you. So let me ask you, I know that one of the neat things we got to do is we get to work a little bit on your training program, but unlike most people that call me to fix something that's broken, you didn't really seem to have anything broken. You really seem to be kind of driving for making it better. Is there something that you're trying to achieve or that's driving you, or that you see as your legacy that's driving your decisions? Or what drives those types of decisions?

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yeah, I think a few things. One, I have some very strong feelings about training, about our hiring, new hiring process, bringing people on, retention. I was at an IMG conference and this guy gave a talk and he said a lot of things that supported what I thought. No, this guy we love when we're right. And so I said, I said, yes, I'm I'm not too far off of my thinking. And so that was one thing. It was some of the things I had the thoughts, but you articulated them so well, and you actually put the science behind a lot of it. So it was no longer just, hey, this is a gut feeling I have. You actually went out and did the research. And so that was nice. And so that that was probably the final piece of it. But I think knowing that, yes, what we had wasn't necessarily broken, but it could still be so much better, almost makes it easier to bring somebody in because you're not completely embarrassed, right? You're not your house, isn't a hoarder house and you have to really just let somebody see the mess. And so I'm proud of what we have, but I know it can be so, so much better. And when we think about our driver turnover and we hire drivers and we lose them within the first six months or first year, I really feel like that's a reflection on us. And so, what can we do better? How can we really prevent these accidents from happening? We all love to talk about after an accident happens, what's the recurring training we're gonna do? What are we gonna do? But if we can just prevent that from ever happening, then how great is that? Because, you know, I don't think any driver goes out there and says, Oh, I want to sideswipe, you know, a sign today. And so how can we give them the tools so that they really can be the best they can possibly be? And we've discussed that for a while. We were doing a lot that was just in people's heads. We had a lot of ideas that never made it to paper. Sitting in that talk and listening to you, it was like this aha moment where it was like, okay, this was the missing link that we needed to really take our training program, our new hire program from pretty good to wow, this is something really great. And this is something that can really sustain us and move us to the next point.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

Well, and you've hit on what I always talk about as the single most important thing, right? And that's prevention. And this is something that Ken and I have talked about, you know, obviously, me on the safety and training side, him on the financial and Cost side, it's very hard to justify something that never happened.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

It's very easy to say, well, if we don't have an accident, we'll save a ton of money. But then it's really hard to say, well, how are we going to put that in our projection? How are we going to budget for that? How are we going to do that? And I do think that at a lot of companies, it's tough being a driver because a lot of times they're really judged on their mistakes, not their successes. I agree with you. I don't think there's any driver that goes out there and says, Oh man, that's a good looking pole. That's it. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's a little cockeyed. I bet I can straighten it out with the bus. Yeah. Um, but it's tough because you're driving this 45-foot vehicle, and a lot of times, one of the things that when I was there, Daniel and I talked about, a lot of this really comes down to making sure they understand how important it is to know where they're going. Yeah. And to get on Google Maps and to use Street View. And, you know, you've been in the business. You know, there's no lack of, well, the last bus driver, right? They got us right under this awning. Right. Your last bus driver's bus was shorter, right? You guys didn't have a full-size motor coach in here. So I think that's really important. How do you justify that, or how are you able to make that a priority and be able to financially say, hey, this is how we're going to take care of us, this is how we're going to do it. Do you have a measurable way that you're doing that? Or what are you using to kind of gauge what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 24:33

I think it's one of those things where it's easy to say, man, we can't afford to do that. And it was, we can't afford not to do it. We saw that safety is the ultimate form of customer service. We realized looking at it that so many of our accidents, so many of these little dings were happening because our drivers felt like, oh, I just I want to get you right to the front door. I want to go into that parking lot where I never should go. And I'm trying to provide this customer service. And then we're going to turn around and terminate somebody because they sideswiped a car while they were trying to do the things that we harped on them to do, you know, customer service, customer service, customer service. So, you know, we needed a way to bridge that together and to get all that on paper. And, you know, we do track, we track our side swipes and we track our at fault accidents. And so if we can see that going in the right direction and see less and less of that, then I know there's a direct correlation because we're introducing, you know, this training program and we're doing these things differently. So it is really easy to forget where we came from and to forget about the accidents that we've been in. But I think when you look at those trends and you see, okay, we're going a month and no at fault accidents, right? Okay, what did we change? Well, we introduced this training program and we're doing these things. You know, it's not a coincidence.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Well, you hit on something that I always think I beat to death, but I probably don't say it enough. And that's that if there's no safety, there's no service. Customer service is built on top of safety. And I have this thing that I do with drivers whenever I'm working with them. It doesn't matter the industry. It could be chauffeurs, taxi drivers, you name it. And one of the things I always ask, you know, can a person that doesn't feel safe or that didn't have a safe ride have a great experience? And everybody says no. And then I say, Well, can someone who doesn't feel safe with someone have a strong emotional attachment to the person that's driving them? And it's well, no, not a positive one, at least, right? Right. And you go through these things, and I think I think that's one of the tough things is like you said, there's times where they feel like we're getting closer, or I'm trying to do this, and then it comes with, well, the second you can't open another roof on the awning, or the second you're not doing something safe, now all of a sudden it backfires. So I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Yep. You know, we tell them, like you said, do you feel safe? Do you feel safe? And, you know, I take it one step further and think about, okay, I'm think about these parents that are dropping their children off to you, you know. And that's, you know, a lot of times that's even worse because you're even your standards are even higher for your kids, you know. And you know, you have just a few minutes to make that impression and to make a parent feel safe and make a parent feel good about, hey, I'm leaving my child with you, and their life is literally going to be in your hands. And so, you know, yes, we worry about customer service and obviously New Orleans and being from the South, hospitality is huge. And so, you know, I think that makes it even harder for us to remind our drivers that, you know, at the end of the day, convenience, not the same thing as safety.

SPEAKER_03 29:07

I think, by the way, I'm gonna have a clip dropped in here by a producer because if you want to talk about hospitality, when you guys hosted BIS, I'm gonna have you, we're gonna have John overlay the clip. So we're not watching the clip live, but I'm gonna have you explain, send out and do it justice. When we pulled up, the bus pulls up, and there is a full marching band out front. The bays are open, the mechanics are there, everything's out. One of the things that always is telling to me is when someone opens up their facility the way you guys did for BISC, and they invite people in and they show everything. Does it look the same as when I come and visit by myself, whether that be a site visit, whether that be training? And I can tell you, much to your credit, Julie, it was the same. I mean, everything was exactly the way it would be. The place was spotless when I came down for the training we did together. The cool thing though was pulling up and having a marching band. And by the way, I think we have some pictures we can put in, putting the percussion section in that little watch bay, so it just resonated. So do them justice because I'm not gonna do them enough justice. Who did you have?

SPEAKER_01 30:15

I have to give credit to Lewis Coaches because it was South Central was here. And again, going back to that relationship, working together with our local gray line affiliate and Lewis Coaches, it really is nice. Lewis was able to get the St. Aug marching band, and I did tell a couple people this is really wasted on a bunch of outsiders because thanks, Julie. St. Aug, the St. Aug marching band is Grammy winning. It's a local high school, they are unbelievable. They were incredible, and it's almost impossible to get them for a private performance like this. They, you know, they march in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, they march in the Rosebowl parade. They are just an unbelievable, unbelievable high school band. And so you guys were really treated to something really nice. And yes, and so we got the benefit of it being here at our facility, but I do have to give Lewis coaches their kudos because they're the ones who pulled the strings and was able to get them here. And yes, so that is, you know, almost a typical Monday, right? You know, I would love to say we did that just because, you know, you were gonna be here, but you know, it was South Central, so it was a pretty big deal. But our drivers do believe in that hospitality and that southern hospitality and showing that level of customer service. And so that's something that is really easy for us to teach, baking that into the training and making good, safe decisions, not so easy. And so that's where we really needed some help. We needed help on actually drawing up courses and creating that and coming up with that from scratch and then putting some of our ideas down. You spent a lot of time asking us questions and asking us about the training. One of the things that really became evident to me after COVID, and all of our kids went home for homeschooling, is that we're not all teachers. And, you know, a lot of times we will take our best drivers and say, here, now I need you to go teach somebody how to drive. And they can't always explain when to turn the wheel and why and how to make those perfect U-turns. And so I thought that that was the skill you had or you didn't. But when we sat down and we started kind of going through it, we said, Well, we can take people that have these attributes and teach them how to teach. And so, you know, that's a goal mine for us because now we don't have to go out and find these people who are never gonna have the experience that we want them to, but we can take what we already have and teach them how to teach these tactics. So that was super helpful.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

I think you've just so I'll kind of set the stage because you actually described what I would say was my favorite moment working with you and your team. And we were in the conference room right next to your office, and you had who'd we have in the room? We had training, we had operations, yeah, we had yourself, the GM.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

I think sales was in there too.

SPEAKER_03 33:29

I think sales might have been involved. We had maintenance, which by the way, Lewis will need his own episode. Right, yes. Another, another Hotard family member who will definitely need to have his own episode when we talk about maintenance. I think Lewis has forgotten more than I will learn.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 33:44

But the thing for me, when we were sitting in there is a lot of, you know, I talk to a lot of trainers and they think I'm gonna show up and tell them how to do their job. And I'm gonna tell them everything they're doing wrong. But for me, a lot of it is trying to uncover what needs to happen, and most of the answers that I find are already at the operation. And when we were sitting in that meeting, I remember for me, and I always I'm very big on going to the fundamentals first. I remember the conversation was about what are the attributes that a and so the way that you guys are set up, obviously you've got your trainer, and then you've got drivers that come in that act as driving instructors. And that was one of the things that we did was we changed that terminology. Instead of having a head trainer and trainers, we wanted them to be known as driving instructors so they would know their area and their focus. Your job is the driving instruction. And we spent like an hour, Julie, trying to figure out what the actual attributes were of those people. And it was so neat to me because best possible driver, right? Incredible driving skills, that's not what it came down to. It wasn't like, you know, the best being able to back into the best. None of those things came out. And I think my absolute favorite part, because I always talk about being a coach, not a trainer, and I I promise it was never my intention to see other leaders there. I don't even think it was me that suggested it, but I think being coachable became one of the biggest things.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Yep, absolutely. Yeah, and you know what I really wanted, I wanted you to come down here and meet with all of our trainers, and then you tell me, okay, yes, that person's a good trainer, that person's not, and you wouldn't do that.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

And so, but you know, the good in a good way, not in a bad way, right? In a good way, it's not like I was refusing to help.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Because what you would have to do is come down here every time we have a new trainer and tell me. And so you taught us how to do that, and in a way where we can have somebody that says, Hey, I want to be a trainer, and we can look at them and say, Okay, well, look, these are the attributes we're looking for, and you don't fit this mold, or you're gonna have to work on this in order to do it, because everybody thinks that they want the title, everybody thinks that they want to do it, but they think, Oh, I've been here for 10 years or 15 years, and so now I I just deserve to be a trainer, but this really g gave us a way to say, Okay, yes, this person does fit what we need, and so yes, it was very helpful. And I thought you asked kind of almost the same questions over and over again until we really got to the point where we had an answer, and that was really helpful.

SPEAKER_03 36:33

Well, I will say, in having talked to Daniel, your trainer, I think one of the big things for me was seeing that play out and seeing how he felt after that last one compared to the first one. And one of the neat things is you guys have a really unique training program in the way you do it. I don't want to give away your secret sauce, right? That stays in the Coca-Cola vault, right? We're keeping the recipe. But the way that you guys do your training is really unique and it's very effective for how you guys do it. Now, I will say what I told other operations that you guys have such great retention that you can get away with doing a training class every six months to a year. I had several people immediately try to figure out how to land on your payroll and move down there instead of having to do a training class. No, I kid. But you guys have a very unique process and a very unique setup. And I think my concern was I didn't want to take or break that. I wanted to make sure that we were leveraging and optimizing what works for you.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

And where we are now is not where we've always been. And I think that is one of the things where I had to get some confidence to be able to make some of those changes because obviously the hiring environment is not the same as it was 10, 15, 20 years ago when Callan had to decide, okay, how are we doing classes and what's involved in the class? So I think we have been successful because we've been willing to make some changes. We've been willing to, okay, this is working, so let's keep this. When things weren't working, get rid of that. But then bring in people like yourself and say, okay, how do we make this even better? I think it does. It does work for us. What we're doing now may look different in five years. And I think that's been one of those lessons that we've learned is yes, we have great success with what we're doing right now, but we never want to just sit back and say, okay, now we're on autopilot. And I think that was one of those things. Like, yeah, we have a good training program, we have a good hiring program right now. But when we saw we can make it even better by introducing PACs to it and getting that next piece, we're not fixing something that's broken. We're not waiting till, okay, this isn't working for us anymore. We're evolving and hopefully staying ahead of the curve.

SPEAKER_03 39:01

One of the favorite things when we talk about training that Ken loves to bring up, and I promise I don't pay him for this, is the companies that actively invest in training and development are almost always the ones that he evaluates that are more profitable.

SPEAKER_02 39:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:14

And I think you've really hit the nail on the head because one of the quotes that I talk about in my talks is you have to continually evolve the plan as you face new challenges. I think it really speaks to how you are doing that, how you're trying to actively continue to develop that and continue to change that. Let me ask you something that I think is really important. You started by saying that you had these strong thoughts and ideas, and a lot of what I was saying lined up with that. Do you think that those come from growing up kind of around the industry and kind of knowing about it, having it in the family? Or do you think those came from somewhere else? Where do you think for you, obviously it's affected your leadership style in a very positive way. Where do you think those feelings came from? Because I know we've also talked about our kids and how a lot of the learning things apply to kids.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Yeah, so I think a lot of it came directly from working under Callan and his ideas and seeing things and the proof was there. Yes, he would say something, he would have this philosophy, and then you would actually see it play out. So a lot of it was definitely that. And then also I've been very fortunate to just be surrounded by some other really successful companies in the motor coach industry. And I'm not shy about stealing ideas or stealing thoughts, repurposing, yes, recycling. And so Hotard, we're a member of IMG and being a part of that organization and really learning a lot through that organization. It is surprising how often I'll have the same conversations with my teenagers at home that I have with staff here sometimes. Um and and, you know, it's definitely, you know, it all kind of overflows. And I hope I'm setting my children up for success as well, you know, that with some of my thoughts. And, you know, I told you I think you should write a course for teenagers because it's, you know, they need some of this knowledge as well.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

But yeah, I don't know that it's come up on the podcast, but we'll give context here. So my stepdaughter's 21. Her mom and I started dating when she was three, so I got to go through all that fun. And then I've got an eight and a 10-year-old. So I have already been through the teenage phase once. I am now trying to get my will together to be able to go do it again. But I think you've brought up something really important, and that's that you know, a lot of times when we're talking about learning and retention and all of the key things that we want people to take away from our training courses and material, that comes up everywhere. I use the same techniques of interleaving and space repetition. I use that in my personal life to work on my golf game or playing hockey, or when we're coaching the kid. I mean, a lot of these things, like so much in life, I think bleeds over. Yeah. And I think being able to have those lessons and pull them over is huge, especially for me. I don't know that I have the time right now to write the books. So at some point we'll have to do a memoir, I think is probably what I'm destined for.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

When you do it, I deserve full credit, just like Callan purchasing Hotard back. But you had asked, like, what do we like about our new higher training right now? And what don't we like? And one of the things I said was we give everybody a notebook, we give them a pen when they walk in, and we're giving them all this information, and really no one takes notes. And you said, What is their background? Like, how many of them have gone through college or how long has it been since they've been in school where they were in the habit of taking notes? I'd never thought about that before. And I just thought about my own world in which I'm constantly writing things down. That was a great point. And we need to learn how to meet people where they're at. And if there's things we need them to take away from the training, making sure we're setting them up for that, not just giving them a notebook and a pen and saying, okay, now you know what to do with this and helping them a little bit more. One of the things that we do and we've done for a long time now is we bring them back six months after we call it a six-month reunion and we ask them, hey, what do you wish we would have told you? What did we miss? What are your questions that you have now? And we have gotten suggestions for our next class based on that. I think that's some of those things that we've learned along the way. Like we think we're doing this great job of telling them everything they need to know. But if you never take the time to ask and to say, okay, where did we miss the mark? Then you're never going to get better. Those were some of the things we were doing. But once we went through the training with you and talking to you, we actually made it shinier and better and more concise. We were making it so where, okay, you have to take notes. This is what you have to do. Like I said, we had a really good process and really good things in place, but taking the time to sit down, all the things that we have said we are meaning to do for the past several years, we did, you know, right. You kind of forced us to. You locked us in that conference room and made us do it.

SPEAKER_03 44:30

Locked is such a strong word. I believe you meant to say barricaded.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Right, yes. But you know, it's all these things you have the best intentions of doing, but they never get done. And so to bring somebody in who that's their specialty and that's what they do really was a benefit for us.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

I will say I've had the pleasure of getting to work with companies all over the country. Obviously, there is an expense involved, especially when you're doing it the level you are. Not every company is going to have the funds to be able to pay to bring someone like myself in for three days and have them there. And I think the big thing for me that stands out is that, like I said, you were in a position where you already had a program that was doing well. You were looking at how to make it even better. And so I think that for me was one of the reasons I wanted to have you on and have you speak about your experience because there's a lot of people that are at a point where things are not going well. They're at a point where they're trying all these different things or doing different things, and they're at the point where they're saying, I can't afford to do this. And so I would be really curious, kind of sitting where you're at, having been in the industry, what would you tell to someone who was kind of in that point of, well, I just I can't afford the time right now, or I can't afford that. I don't know that you need to ever tell if there was a time where something like that has happened to you guys, because I don't want you to have to put anything out there. But I think everybody's had their struggles, and I think you're at a point with Hotard where you were getting ahead of struggles, you were never letting it get to that point. What would you tell someone that is not there and trying to get there but is worried that? can't afford to do it time or money wise.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

I think we're still there. You know, this is just one small department, right? This is just our safety and training. And so, you know, you look at things that you want to do in each department. And, you know, from a maintenance standpoint, you're like, okay, I want to go in and we want to do all this training with all these guys, but we can't afford to pull them off of a motor coach, you know? So yes, it's definitely a real thing. And I think if you look at it just on a smaller scale and say, okay, maybe we can't afford to reinvent the wheel. We can't afford to do everything. Let's just look at maybe our annual retraining. Let's look at one small piece of it and commit to do that. Um say this is the budget I have and this is the time I have and I'm going to commit to that. Somebody told me once if all you do is put out fires, all you're ever going to do is put out fires. And so it's making the commitment to do something that your future self is really going to appreciate is huge. You have to have your departments on board because they can say all right well do you want me doing operations or do you want me to do this? And so really having them understand how important it is and how in the long run it really does serve you and it makes your life easier and it makes things better. It's really easy to look at it and say okay well we just need to blow this whole thing up. Okay, we can't do that. Let's just take a small piece of it and let's see what we can do. And when that small piece gets better and they see how it pays off then it's easier to take kind of a bigger chunk and take it piece by piece. But I always think we just can't afford not to, you know eventually we will run out of drivers if we have to keep terminating everybody, you know, for oh a hundred percent for hitting things.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

Well and I think you've also nailed one of my favorite quotes and that's if you take care of the small things, the big things will work themselves out. There was this moment and hopefully you don't mind can I share the U-turn story? Oh sure yeah so one of the things that you guys have told me that you wanted to work on you'd struggle with is U-turns. And one of the key things that I knew and that I see all the time is they're rolling into U-turns or doing them too quickly. You lose turning radius. So I sat down with Lewis and Daniel Lewis being the maintenance genius that he is literally pulls out like the schematics right he's got like the actual diagrams and we're figuring out the radius. We're doing complex math and geometry that I haven't done since I was a kid and we're figuring out and we end up going out with one of your driving instructors and we set the course up and we built a cone setup that can only be done if you get in the correct position you turn the wheel all the way to the left you lock it out and then you go at a slow speed. The second you start going too quickly the second you roll in the second you don't lock the wheel out you hit one of the cones. And I think when we were doing that you know obviously there's a lot of playing around with it and trying to figure it out but there was two really neat things that came out of that. The first was when she got done and I don't think she'd mind sharing when she got done she came to you and she said I've been driving what how long has Michelle been driving for you guys? Like 20 years? Yeah yeah she came to me and she said I've been driving for 25 years. I've never been able to see it and think about it this way. This changed the way I think about it because now I know how much I lose. Because the bus will do it but if I don't lock it out and I don't hold it locked out and I don't line up right and it it's very interesting from a technical side because when we were looking at all the diagrams, the diagrams don't show a full U-turn. We couldn't find a single diagram. You guys are very unique in that the vast majority of your fleet is MCI. And I remember going to Dave Marlott and I said hey did you know that it is one bus tall and two buses wide to do a U-turn and he was like what? And I'm like so we were in a parking lot all morning and we figured out it's exactly one bus tall and two buses wide to do a U-turn he starts thinking about it he goes well I mean it makes sense when you think but these are things that you don't necessarily think about and I think the neat thing about that is it's really hard to be like oh you got 150 or you know it's 45 foot bus. So you got you need like 90 feet eyes are glazing over but if you can tell someone hey it's about two buses wide right you need two bus lengths to be able to do a U-turn that's something you can understand and then watching someone to be able to do it was really huge for me. And I think the best part about that was we knew there was an issue maintenance was involved training's involved right I think the issue came from ops then Lewis gets involved on the maintenance side then we've got Daniel and train you've got your whole team there that is coming up with this solution to something that you know is an issue and I think it really kind of speaks to what I said in the very beginning of that environment you've created where everyone's working together everyone's supporting each other they have their areas but they're not silos. Yeah they're all working next to each other together so I think for me that was probably one of my biggest takeaways was that you know when all of them come together you get these incredible things that happen.

SPEAKER_01 51:38

Michelle was a current trainer she was training drivers before you got here and so how was she training people to do a tight turn to do a U-turn when she herself really couldn't articulate it didn't realize it and so those were the things that I struggled with that we have drivers that they don't know why they're doing what they do. They don't you know and it was great she came and told me the exact same thing I think about turning in a completely different way now. And she's going to take that information and she's going to spread that and that's exactly what we wanted to accomplish.

SPEAKER_03 52:15

And I think for me the big thing there is you know a lot of people think like oh that's a deficit oh they can't I see that more as a growth right like you have someone that's had all this experience they've now expanded they've now grown and and that for me out of everything we talked about with what you wanted in your driving instructors in the people doing the training coachable was the one that I push all the time you want to be a coach not a trainer right yeah you don't want to be an demonstrator you want a coach and for me part of that of her kind of growing and being able to say I see it differently I can explain it differently that's a growth and that's a coach's mentality which I think ultimately is going to make its way down to the drivers.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

Because you could have somebody who's been driving for 40 years and say I know how to do it but you're not going to tell me and that person may be great to drive charters but that's not who we need training other drivers.

SPEAKER_03 53:09

Right. And the worst possible scenario of someone teaching oh you just got to feel it. Well great you've got 30 years of feeling it I got 30 seconds of feeling it. What part of my body am I trying to feel it in my foot my arms?

SPEAKER_01 53:21

Right. Stop here okay now turn yeah yeah okay are you going to be with them the whole time every charter?

SPEAKER_03 53:27

I think for me that was huge. Let me ask you as we close it out is there anything that stands out to you that you want to leave our listeners with is there anything where if you were talking to someone else that maybe hadn't grown up in the industry like you had or that is not thinking about it the way they should or that is on the fence or any of those things, what would you tell them Julie?

SPEAKER_01 53:52

I I think the investment in training really is one of the things that does set us apart from other bus companies whether it's somebody who's coming in for the first time and we're hiring them off the street when they go through the training and they see the amount of money and expense and time and effort we put into helping them be successful it really does set us apart. You can't always put a dollar value on that but it is something that in my experience has just been so valuable. And then to have your drivers and to continue to train them and continue to educate them and have your entire organization be a part of that. So it's sales continuing to talk to them and maintenance continuing to talk to them and getting everybody involved. I just think there's really that's one of the most valuable things and one of the most rewarding things that I've seen as I've been a part of this organization.

SPEAKER_03 55:02

I don't think that there's anything better we could end on. I think that's the biggest possible thing you could have touched on. Well let me ask you if people want to get in touch with you or want to get in touch with Hotard, what should they do?

SPEAKER_01 55:14

Sure, give me a call send me an email my email is Julie C at Hotard or you can reach me at 5042741751.

SPEAKER_03 55:25

Well I can't thank you enough for coming on thank you everyone for listening hopefully you found it valuable and we will see you on the next episode of the Ground Transportation Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 55:34

Thanks James thank you for listening to the Ground Transportation Podcast if you enjoyed this episode please remember to subscribe to the show on Apple Spotify YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about PAX training and to contact James go to packstraining.com and for more information about driving transactions and to contact Ken go to drivingtransactions.com. We'll see you next time on the Ground Transportation Podcast