August 13, 2025 • 38 mins
We're interested in trucking here at Odd Lots. It's one of those industries that can tell us a lot about the economy, both in terms of the short-term cycle, and also long-term structural trends. Of course, we know that the industry is prone to big boom and bust cycles. And Alaska itself -- driven so much by oil and natural resource extraction -- is also known for its boom and bust cycles. So on our trip there, we spoke with Josh Norum, the CEO of Sourdough Express, an Alaska based trucking company that's been around for over a century. We talked about how the business works, the history of the company, the current economic environment, tariffs, and the unique challenge (and opportunity) of moving freight in America's northernmost state.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
So, Tracy, we're here in Alaska. We're still here in Alaska.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
We are.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
It's beautiful, stunner, and it's bright. It stays light until
like eleven ps.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
So bright.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I couldn't believe it. It's amazing Alaska and August it's
the best. It's already such a fascinating place to me.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
What iconic industries will we be talking about while we're
in Alaska, Joe.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, there's many industries that we've hit over and over.
Obviously we like to talk to people in the trucking
industry for all kinds of reasons. But also, like, one
of the things that I'm aware of is that Alaska
has its own distinct trucking culture. I think there was
a reality TV show about it, right, Ice Road Trucker,
Yeah right, Yeah, wasn't that based here?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yes, I have questions about how realistic that actually is,
but you are absolutely right that trucking in Alaska is
the sort of well known thing, maybe because of the
reality TV show, But when you think about trucking in Alaska.
You think like these crazy like mud riddled roads and
people having to kart these like huge payloads of I
don't know. I heard it was mostly dirt in the
(01:21):
summertime because people are doing a lot of road construction.
But I don't know that much about it.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I don't know that much about it. Trucking is a
fun topic to cover a because it's just an interesting
logistical industry in any environment. And then B I don't
think anyone has a better pulse on the economy at
any given moment than people in trucking. So while we're
here in Alaska, for all these obvious reasons, we got
to talk trucking.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I think you have to come clean, Joe and admit
your secret dream to become an owner operator working in Alaska.
I don't even know if that's possible.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Well let's find out. I'm really excited to say we
really do have the perfect guest. We're going to be
speaking with, Josh norm He is the president and owner
of Sourdough Express. Josh, thank you so much for coming
on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
What is Sourdough Express mean and what is.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
The company so Sourdough Express is a trucking company in Alaska.
All of our assets are based in Alaska. My family
bought it in the nineteen twenties. It's been in existing
since eighteen ninety eight, so or celebrating one hundred and
twenty seven years this year. We are a all service
trucking company. So we were in the Hall Road, the
ice Roads up.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
In prude O Bay.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
We haul between Anchorage and Fairbanks, which are the two
main population centers in Alaska. We also in a moving
and storage company that focuses on DoD military members moving
in and out of Alaska's military basis.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
What does Sourdough actually mean in those contexts? Because I
hear Sourdough Express and I think, are you, like, you know,
driving around huge, huge loads of baked goods.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Yeah, most people think that we're a bakery, but no,
Sourdough is a basically a long term Alaska So somebody
who's been here for many years or experienced winters here
and really understand the culture of Alaska and I understand
what it takes.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
To live here.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Just one more question before we dig into the now.
But you said your family bought this company in the
nineteen twenties, and it's existed into the late eighteen hundreds.
What was it actually in the early nineteen hundreds, because
I assume you weren't you know, it wasn't big trucks
back then.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
So most of the freight coming into Alaska then was
gold mining and they were coming from Dawson City. And
so the owner, Bob Ellis, ended up coming into Alaska
and establishing in Fairbanks. And my family was working in
and out of the company through that time and ended
up purchasing it in nineteen twenty three. And the first
years was not trucks. It was dog sleds and sleds
(03:36):
and I mean with users and walking the trails with
the freight. And by the nineteen twenties, the pitchers show
that there are trucks and makeshift roads that they're traveling on,
but most of it was not far. It was makeshift
trails that they were getting where they needed to go
to their mining claims. And then as the community established
in Fairbanks, we continued to grow and moved heavily into
(03:57):
heating fuel and the different supplies that people need to.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Live in that climate.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I already want to do this for like three hours.
There's right, like we could just like, let's just talk.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Let's just start in nineteen twenty exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Let's just go a decade by decade for the history.
I'm already fascinated, all right, but let's just take it
up to today. What are the main goods that you move,
whether it's industrial, whatever it is, what are the main
things that are moved in what are like the big routes.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
So seventy percent of our freight is oil field related,
and it's going up to Prude Bay, and generally it's
coming into the Port of Anchorage and traveling up the
road through Fairbanks to.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Prude O Bay.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
A lot of it runs on the rail from Seattle
area Tacoma up through the waterways to Alaska, and then
from there they rail at the Fairbanks and we pick
it up there and continue the journey to Prudo. We
do a lot of stuff down south to the Kenai
and basically anywhere on the road system that needs freight,
(04:53):
our trucks will travel. We do not leave Alaska because
we feel that our assets are best used here for
the freight that's local. So most of our freight that
comes from outside is coming on the steamships that come
into Alaska four times a week.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
If I'm a customer, I mean, obviously this will vary
by customer, But what are the decisions I'm making or
what are the constraints when I'm deciding whether to send
something by road by rail versus a ferry.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
So there's generally three options that people look at. One
is over the road up the Alcan Highway through Canada,
and that one is generally the quickest because you can
have a driver ticket from point A to point B,
do the checkpoints, and make it into Alaska the quickest.
The second fastest is steamship, and so there's two companies
that run two boats each and they go from Tacoma
to Anchorage twice a week, and both of them are
(05:43):
sailing on Sundays and Tuesdays into Alaska. So I always
tell people that if you want to get fresh groceries,
go after the boats come, because that's when everything shows up.
There's also barge, which that travels more on a set schedule,
and there's a few different barge companies in Alaska, and
that's slower, but it's generally more economical to ship. So
there's different options.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Ship from Tacoma to Alaska. How long does that take?
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Three days?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Okay, you know you said all your assets stay in Alaska?
Like how long are these routes? How long are the
drivers on the road? Like talk to us about like
those routes that they do, and how tough that is.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
So as groeling as the roads are in Alaska, the
truckers actually have a pretty decent schedule compared to Lower
forty eight truckers. All the routes can pretty much be
a two day route no matter which way you go.
So the ones going from Fairbanks to prude O Bay,
those ones generally leave Fairbanks on a Monday, they go
to prude Obay, they deliver their load, spend the night,
and then come back on a Tuesday. So they're getting
home every other night doing that route.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
That is better than a lot of drivers in the
lower forty eight.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Yeah, and most of them have done Lower forty eight
freight and love that they're home that consistently. The other
routes are generally anchoraged to Fairbanks, Fairbanks to Anchorage, and
those ones you can do round trip in a night,
so those guys are home almost every night.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Are there special skills you need to be a trucker
in Alaska versus elsewhere or in the Lower forty eight,
do I have to be really really good at taking
chains on and off my tires?
Speaker 5 (07:09):
You definitely chain up consistently in Alaska. The thing that
we look for the most in our drivers is teachability.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Drivers that are.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
Willing to learn and learn from the people who've been
doing it for years and years. There's a lot of
things that they teach you in truck driving school and
down in Lower forty eight that technically is the correct
way to do something, but in the situations they're in,
it can cause issues that you can't recover from. So
there's a lot of small technical.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Give us some examples. What are some things that people
encounter here that they don't encounter elsewhere.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Sure, one of the big things is running for hills.
A lot of times in the States people they'll run
and get speed up for hills. But in Prudo on
the road there it's almost critical that you run for hills.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
And what does that mean?
Speaker 3 (07:51):
You have to speed up, speed up to.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
Get over the hill, so you know you're coming up
on a hill and everyone has call outs, so everyone
has rados in their truck and they're calling out truck
whatever's coming up the hill, and so everyone waits at
the top and basically you just get speed and then
your momentum carries you as far as you can before
you start downshifting. And it's critical in the winter time
because if you start slow, you will never gain traction,
(08:15):
so you will be stopping and chaining at every single hill.
Where there's generally a few hills you chain consistently. If
you run at them, you can usually momentum up and
over a lot of them without having to do that,
so it saves a significant amount of time and energy
for the driver. Having to get out and chaining up
on that road is not a fun experience. Generally it's
(08:37):
twenty thirty below and once you get up further north,
it's windy and it's dark. It's not a pleasant experience.
So any tricks like that that you can incorporate really
help their time and their quality of life.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
You mentioned the radio just then, and this was going
to be one of my questions, which is like, are
people able to use the radio out here, and are
they on like Citizens Band or something else.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
On Cbee radios anywhere and they have channels that they
run on. A lot of trucks have we call them
the big radio, which goes further and they can it's
usually like more of a chatting station. But on the
CBS there are a.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Lot of chatting. Just because you're in Alaska and you're
sort of on your own on a big highway or something.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
There's a lot of chatting. But everyone knows each other,
so generally on that road, if you go up in
one day and you come back in the day, you're
passing all your friends either way at some point, so
they all know each other by their truck, what they
look like, they can tell on the radio. So a
lot of it's just them checking with each other. How's
your trip going, beautiful day? Man, that hill was icye?
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Whatever it is? Hey, there's caribou ahead.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
A lot of it's just banter back and forth between
friends on the radio that help each other out. The
hall road is very special in the sense that if
a truck is pulled over and has an issue, everybody's
going to stop. Nobody's going to drive by and without
checking to make sure he's doing okay and that he
doesn't need help. So that's a pretty special thing that
you don't see everywhere. I know there's some places that
(10:03):
people will stop and help, but in Alaska it's almost
critical that you do because somebody could be in trouble.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So someone told me that, like, used cars are more
expensive in Alaska. I don't know if that's true. Actually,
I haven't gone to verify that, but I'm just curious
about like the cost of like the physical yeah, your
physical assets, Like is there a significant price gap between
just what you pay for any sort of equipment, whether
it's the truck or some part or et cetera, in
(10:29):
Alaska versus the rest of the country.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Sometimes it's hard to compare because we don't have a
sales tax. Oh so without a sales tax, a lot
of times it reduces the price right back to where
the cost of getting the goods here is offset by
not having that sales tax. So I can honestly say
that I've not noticed a huge difference in prices between food,
used cars. A lot of the stuff that we ship
(10:52):
up business wise, like big trucks, and that we are
dealing with the shipping ourselves, So depending how we want
to drive it or what we want to do with that,
we're paying the cost at manufacture and hauling it up.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
What about fuel costs, because I guess there's two things.
There's the price of fuel out here, and I know
there's a big oil industry, but I don't know if
you actually refine that much, so I don't know what
gas prices actually look like. But then secondly, I imagine
when you're out in you know, middle of nowhere Alaska,
there probably aren't that many places to have fuel stops
for and I guess maybe you have to be more
(11:25):
strategic about where you're stopping to refuel.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Yeah, so I would say fuel is definitely more expensive
than say in Texas or the place where they have
big refineries. We do refine some fuel in Alaska, not
a lot. We have the pipeline going right through the
middle and a lot of it just goes south and gone,
but they do refine some. I don't think we save
on price by doing that. It's just more of an
(11:49):
efficiency thing. Fuel stops are extremely important. So our big
trucks that go to Prude Bay have three hundred gallon
tanks on them and there's only one gas station between
leaving Fairbanks and Prude Bay, which is almost five undred miles.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
So generally you don't want to run out of field.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
You don't want to run at a field. There's not
a lot of a lot of options. And people are
used to driving in the country and they see farms
and they see, okay, there's a truck stop. And when
you leave these communities like Fairbanks and you go north,
there's nothing. It's just woods and there's no one to
help accept the other truckers on the road. You'll see
the tourists and the hunters, but there's nowhere to stop.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
So drivers when they.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
Pull over there stopping on the side of like a
pull off, just a little spot to stop. But there's
no bathrooms or showers or anything like that. So planning
your trips and where you get feel you can get
feeling prudo. But it's more than double the cost of
fuel in Fairbanks, so you definitely plan your field and
carry a lot of it.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
So we're recording this August fifth, twenty twenty five. How's
business right now or how does it compare to August fifth,
twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
Business has been very good and very steady. A few
of the different oil companies in Alaska have put a
lot of investment and a lot of that's on the
future and investment.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, Chris Wright, the Energy Secretary was I think in
Alaska not too long ago, like Telly and.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
We had a big delegation come up here and you
went to Pruto to pumping the gas line up, the
potential gas line that they're trying to get approved. But
the overall investment in the oil fields and the downstream
effects of that of people coming up to work those
and the good jobs it creates, that then trickles through
the rest of the economy. So a lot of our
business is also groceries and lumber and housing supplies and
(13:44):
basically anything that a worker on the slope that we
also provide drilling pipe two. They still need everything back
at their house when they're on their off shifts. So
the overall as economy has been healthy. There hasn't been
a huge growth, I don't think, but I think it's
replaced a lot of what was on a downward slide
five ten years ago.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
So one of the things we've learned from doing all
these trucking episodes over and over again is that it
is an extremely cyclical industry and supposedly a lot of that,
at least in the lower forty eight is because there
are really low barriers to entry. So if people see
freight rates start to go up, they think, oh, I'm
going to get a truck, I'm going to get my CDL,
and then I'm going to make the big money driving
(14:26):
this truck around. I'm curious in Alaska is it the
same way? Do you see those sorts of boom bust
cycles where you have lots of new entrants flo at
the market, and then freight rates start going down and
people start going out of business, and then eventually you
go through the cycle once again.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
I would say Alaska's entire economy is that exact situation.
And so in trucking, we have company drivers, and most
companies that are at a scale that we are at
have company drivers, but they also use owner operators or
they use contractors which they hire on for the busy times,
and those contractors over the years become very flexible, so
when times are not good, a lot of times they'll
(15:03):
head south. When you need them again, you call them
and they'll come back up and start hauling again. So
I would say that people do buy more trucks and
try to start their businesses during the really good times,
but a lot of examples of truckers who've done that
and not been successful. When it does decline, it seems
like we've done it enough that the truckers are getting
(15:23):
more savvy to know how much they can spend in.
Instead of buying five trucks, they buy one truck or
two trucks, and they keep those trucks busy with the
flexibility of going out and finding other work down in
the States.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Because as an.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
Owner operator, you can go out of business very quickly
if there's a few slow months.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
How is Sourdo Express state in business so long? Like
you know at this point, I'm sure you like, have
there been any near death experiences in the last century
or any close calls in there?
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:52):
So through the generations, I'm fifth generation owner of Sourdo
and my business partner is my mother, and she's a
and been the CFO for Sourdough for thirty years, and
she's extremely conservative. So she's told me stories of the
history of the generations and her ability to save and
plan for the future for those bad times. I think
(16:13):
is why we've been so successful. When the big shiny
loads are sitting out there, we don't always run at them.
We let those go and we continue servicing our customers
that have been dedicated customers and reliable freight for years
and with her management of those assets and over time,
I think it's it's been very successful. But I can
(16:34):
tell you that we're in a minority in that sense
where there's been a lot of trucking companies come and
go over the years that we've seen come up and
go down. And I would say her ability to plan
has been the biggest asset to Sour in the last
thirty years.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
What would be a shiny load in that context, is
it like, you know, some oil company needs something like
right some crucial component for a pipeline or something, and
they need it right now, and so they're paying loads
of money.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
That could be an example.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Well, I mean it's just anybody who needs something very
quickly that requires a lot of assets, and so sometimes
they dangle that out there and trucking companies, well, I'll
go buy ten trucks and I can do that. Twenty
fifteen was a good example of where the oil companies
had come and said, hey, we're going to produce all
this oil and there's a good chance for growth. We
ended up everyone purchased trucks and got ready, and then
(17:21):
the oil prices crashed and so no fault to them,
but they couldn't sell oil at a profit, and so
they had to pull back the loads and coming back around.
I think everyone was a little more cautious. But we've
also learned with them as a group that works together,
because if we're not successful, they're not successful, and vice versa,
that we're able to plan better and adjust how the
(17:44):
loads work to make sure that the freight gets there
without that risk of the boom bust. So we've done
a lot better job, i'd say, in the last ten
years of planning those cycles and how that's going to work.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Joe, I feel like I have to say that we
are in Anchorage, and so might hear the train going by,
Just that it's very atmosphere.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
It's very atmospheric, I mean, and actually sort of walking
through Anchorage, you turn your head and you see like
ports facilities and you see oil facilities right there, and
so it does feel like just walking through here, we
are in this hub of logistics industry and commerce, and
you could certainly hear it. You know what, I'm curious about,
how does a family keep people at Alaska, because I
(18:26):
have to imagine that a lot of young people generally speaking,
and it's like, yeah, probably some tough, dark, long winters
and maybe get attracted to like it might be nice
to move to Los Angeles or something like that. Sometimes
talk to us about like just the culture of like
who the type of people who stay in Alaska over generations.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (18:44):
Now, I think that a lot of people have been
here for a long time. They like what Alaska's to
offer outside of the cities. So a lot of people
you talk to, you have cabins and have places they
go and spend time, and they build those family units
that are strong and based on these experiences they've had together.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
A lot of people.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
When they graduate high school do go out to the
states and they go to college and they get their degree.
And my sister's a good example where she went out
and she was gone for ten years and decided that
she could be an eye doctor in Alaska just as
easy as she could be in Oklahoma. So she ended
up moving back with her family more so to just
get that family unit that she had been looking for.
I think that a lot of people like the community
(19:21):
that it has to offer, and for some reason, the
misery of living here in the winter, I think brings
people together too. I'm not quite sure on that, but
I've been here for a while so.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Well, in the summer it is very very nice. I
have to say, I haven't seen it in the winter,
but right now it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
You know what, the flip side of eleven thirty.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Yeah, I lived in London and it getting dark at
three pm in December was bad enough. I imagine it's even
worse here. Okay, this is my moment to just ask,
can we get some ice Road trucker type stories, like
tell us some of the harriest moments when you know
you or one of your drivers is on like the
Dalton Highway or something like that.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
So I've driven the road twice in my career.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
I had got my CEO when I was nineteen, and
I mostly worked on the moving side of our company,
moving in storage, and so I never did the Ice
Road long term, but I did drive a couple of
loads up there and got to experience what that was
like as a driver. The benefit to our trucks now
is we have cameras in every truck, so when stuff
does happen, we have very good advantage points of exactly
what that is, and it's probably four years ago. The
(20:23):
best camera foota drive scene is we were climbing out
Agan Pass, which is on the Dalton and out of
the corner of the camera it was night but you
could see snow starting to come and an entire avalanche
came down and pushed the truck up against the guardrail
and when everything came still, the snow was over the
front and he was just sitting in an avalanche that
then he had to wait for the loaders to come
up and dig him back out. We've had a few
(20:46):
of those avalanche type stories. That was the biggest one.
We consistently see wildlife every day.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
You can see.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
Caribou or wolves or bears on the road and moving
out in front of the truck.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Do love life posts a danger? You talk about having
to chain the tires when you're out, like, is there
any risk you're just like when you're out of the cab.
So is there any danger to the driver in those situations?
Speaker 5 (21:11):
Yes, And they've gotten smarter over the years. Back in
the seventies and eighties when it was kind of the
good old days, they used to feed a lot of
the animals, I think, and the animals got very used
to that, and we have a lot of pictures of
bear standing up to windows and taking food back in
the seventies. Drivers have gotten a lot smarter since about
inviting the wildlife to the trucks. And there are notices.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
This is what they took from us, this is what
they took from us.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
But they do post notices and you'll hear on the
Facebook groups and on the communications that, hey, there's a
bear at mile post two twelve, make sure you watch
out when you're chaining up or I mean, there are situations.
They had a wolf problem last year at one of
the construction sites that the pilot cars had to really
be paying attention to, and so there are risks to
that general it's not an issue, but over the years
(22:02):
there definitely have been stories.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
You know, you mentioned cameras in the trucks and this
reminded me. But is there technology that people are using
out in Alaska that might mitigate some of the like
Alaska specific dangers. Do you have better weather forecasting technology
or do you pay more attention to the forecasts, Like
are there specific things you're doing with tech that might
make it easier for your drivers.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
I would say Facebook groups.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
So Facebook groups is just an example, but tech threads
and the different communication between the drivers that are traveling
it every day. They all have their groups of guys
they know and Hey, I just went through this milepost.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
It was really bad.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
You might as well stay home until tomorrow. It'll get
better by tomorrow. And so their feedback is way quicker
than the weather way, more accurate, and their ability to
get that through the road is uncanny. So I think
that camaraderie between the drivers is really what keeps that
road safer.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
So I take it to our wildfires this summer in Alaska.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
This summer was a beginning of the summer, and there
were a few that were very close to the road.
There's two ways to get from Anchors to Fairbanks, and
so we had to send our trucks the longer route
this summer for about a week because they had so
much activity next to the road and it wasn't a
reliable route to send the trucks to get stuff through.
So we've had to deal with that over the years.
(23:21):
A few years ago south of Anchorage, there was a
lot of them that it was delaying the drivers on
a nightly basis waiting for openings to get through.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
On this topic, is there seasonality in this business in
the sense that some routes are only open at certain
times of the year. So I heard, you know, for instance,
some roads have to be frozen for the trucks to
go over them. And then I also heard that there
are some trucks going over like actual frozen water, so
you have to wait for the water to freeze before
you can actually get to the specific part of the world.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
So the big ones that everyone talks about are the
ice roads up in prue O Bay, and most of
those are not actually frozen lakes or vers that they're crossing.
There are some, but most of it is they're building
up the ice to protect the tundra so that when
the ice does melt, there's no damage to the tundra.
So if you fly over four wheeler trails that in
the summer, you can see where all those vehicles went.
(24:14):
But if you go up to Prudo and fly over
the oil fields, you can see no trace of trucks
because they build those roads up so strong. They do
go out on the ice in certain areas, but it's
very controlled and very measured.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
There was a Netflix movie about that, I think a
few years ago. There was like it was not a
reality show.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
About protecting tundras.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Just about like those like the literal like going over
the frozen water and stuff like that. I forgot about.
It was really stressful.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
They in the shows and the reality shows they obviously.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Dramatic over they overbake it.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
They over bake a little bit, and nobody would go
on them if they were that on st Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, if the movie made it look like there was
a fifty percent chance and time of like.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
Making the volume of trucks that travel on it, and
they're Yeah, they have dedicated crews to just maintain those
roads on a daily basis.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
It's not something that anybody's willing to risk.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
So something I'm curious about is are the tariffs showing
up in any way that you notice in your business?
Have they had an effect on anything, maybe even with
you know, Alaska Canada trade or anything like that.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
We haven't seen significant ones yet in our pricing, other
than we pre ordered a lot of stuff with the
anticipation of tariffs that might not have.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Been When you say preorder stuff, is this like equipment
or parts or something like that.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
Mostly parts, parts that were specifically tire chains. We ordered
a lot of tire chains, a lot of gear that
was related to.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
If you're sitting out, you're still sitting on inventory from
some of this that you've pre ordered.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
We're prepared for winter.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
What's the big constraint on your business now? Like, if
you had to name a single frustration that is stopping
you from growing further, what would it be. Whether it's labor,
I don't know, money available for capital investment, regulation, what
would it be.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
I would say it's probably the availability of work.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
So the more that they open up the oil fields
and allow us to produce on them, I think that's
going to be the biggest factor to growing all of
the businesses in Alaska. They've proven over and over again
that they can continually do it safely and that we're
one of the cleanest producers in the world. And so
as they open those up and responsibly start producing them,
(26:29):
that's what grows the Alaska economy is when we construct
those sites and then produce over the long term. The
oil pipeline since it was built has declined and in
volume that has traveled through it, and for the last
couple of years is the first time it's upticked together.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
So that's a very positive.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
Thing for Alaska because it's kind of the lifeline of
almost all Alaskans is the oil and gas industry. DoD
is not very far behind with the Department of Defense spending,
but for what really drives Alaska, so oil gas developments.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
So you said, DoD, you just then and I noticed
at the airport there was like a military lounge. So
I guess, like military is a big presence here, right,
Like what exactly is going on? I should know this already,
but like, what is happening.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Here looking over the water at the Yeah, I know, I.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Get that, but like, what exactly is here?
Speaker 5 (27:18):
So in Anchorage, which is where we're sitting now, there's
a joint Air Force and Army base that's fairly large.
If you go north the Fairbanks there's an air Force
base and an Army base separated, but also very large
that that Air Force base is used for all the
training for a lot of our allies. They come there
in the summer and you see fighter jets parked all
over and they're doing war games. Outside of Fairbanks, they
(27:42):
have Fort Greeley, which is missile silos in there it's
more of a protection base. And then on the other
side they have clear Air Force Base, which is more
of a identification base where they they're able to monitor
closer to our enemies.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
All right, I'm going to ask you a button question
that I know divides much of the freight community. But
is there a truck driver shortage?
Speaker 5 (28:06):
I don't think there's a truck driver shortage. I think
that there is an industry that has put truck drivers
in positions over the years where maybe some of them
have left the profession or hold their kids not to
join the profession. I think there's a lot of quality
truck drivers out of there. I think there's a lot
of companies who don't treat their truck drivers the way
they should be treated, and so that they have a
(28:26):
shortage of employees, more so to do with their policies
and the requirements of what they expect of their drivers
rather than what they give.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Back to them.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
So a sourrow, We've always tried to treat our drivers
as best as possible. We give them schedules that are
family friendly, and we understand that life happens, and so
I think that's been a huge benefit for us and
not just taking drivers for granted that they just keep
coming through the door to really develop your drivers and
make them the high quality drivers that they can be.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Other hot button question, So you know, families owned, it's
going to be self driving ice trucks in one hundred years.
Your family's had the company about one hundred years. Whether
there be human drivers in one hundred years.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
I have no opinion on that one. I think that
would be a very hard road to do an actual
self driving truck. I think if they came up with
some sort of rail system or something they could they
could potentially do it, but it would require an extreme
amount of investment to set that up. Just because the
train is so extreme, that road does not have lines
on it, the road shoulders change every mile, the snow
(29:34):
how they plow it changes every year. So I think
it would be an extremely extremely hard road to send
a truck driving itself up.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Have you seen any effect yet from labor related policies
yet from this administration that in any ways like affected
the business for better worth?
Speaker 4 (29:50):
No, we have.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Now, if you're in a bar in Fairbanks or wherever
with a bunch of other sourdoors, what do you sourdough people, sourdough, sourdough.
It's sourdoughs and trucking buddies. What's getting you guys riled up?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Like?
Speaker 3 (30:03):
What does the topic of conversation do? Short?
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Most of it goes from stories on the road back
to family camping trips and hunting trips and fishing trips
and what they're doing.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
On their off time.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
The trucking industry in Alaska pays very well, so most
of the drivers have the ability to buy snow machines
and four wheelers and go out and experience what Alaska
actually has to offer beside city life. And most truckers
are very independent and they like that lifestyle. So I
would say it's it's mostly comparing camping stories.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
If there's someone who's just like a young guy looking
for direction in the world, if they come to Alaska
and can they probably find a job of venturely if
they go through the CDL training, et cetera. Like, Yeah,
is this someone in the lower forty eight looking for direction,
looking for maybe some adventure and excitement and decent pay
and that sort of lifestyle, Like is their demand for
it that right now?
Speaker 5 (30:54):
So we've learned over the years that a lot of
people have this dream of Alaska. Yeah, and until they
come here, they don't quite realize what that dream is.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
They just know that it's this.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
Vast place that they want to go and spend time.
So we always recommend people come and visit it not
in the summer but in the winter to make sure
it's a place that they want to be.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
And then we have a lot of very good.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
Truck driving schools, so if they come without a CDL,
in three weeks you can get your CDL. And there
is a lot of opportunity locally in the different cities
to learn to be a truck driver. And so patience
is the biggest one, and people knowing that the first
day they get in that truck, they're not driving the
Hall Road. They're going to be delivering produce to Fred Myers,
or they're going to be delivering lumber to Spinnard Builders
(31:34):
supply it's patients. And then also, like I had mentioned earlier,
the willingness to learn from the experienced drivers who have
done it for years and years, and drivers are very
generous with their knowledge as long as you're willing to
learn it. As soon as you start pushing back most
drivers don't want to teach you anymore because it's not
worth their time. So there's definitely an opportunity to grow
(31:56):
your career and make a life in Alaska.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
You just have to be patient.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
I'm going to ask the flip side of Joe's question,
which is is there anything that people are underestimating about
the Alaskan truck driver experience or something that people might
have misconceptions about when they're starry eyed youthful would be
Alaska truck drivers.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
So if you're talking ice road trucking, which is what
the show is based on, I think that the show
romanticized it in the way that it's kind of this
very fun and entertaining thing. But the road from Fairbanks
to pru is twelve hours long and you're by yourself
the whole time. So I think a lot of people
underestimate how much.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Time they spend alone.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
And you're not sleeping at truck stops, you're not seeing
people in person. You're talking to them on the radio,
but you're not getting that interaction that a lot of
truckers in the States are used to walking in. You
have one spot cold Foot, Alaska to stop and see people.
But I think the lonesomeness of it, and then coming
back to the terminal and going home to a in
(32:56):
the winter, it's very dark. I think the darkness is
what really drives a lot of people back out of Alaska.
The cold is not fun either, but you can turn
the heater on, you can put a jacket on.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Actually, I did have one more question related to this, which,
as you mentioned, it's like you're truly in the middle
of nowhere. There are in gas stations anywhere. If there
is some sort of an accident or something like that,
what are the sort of like state level infrastructure for
like emergency response out there, Like is there a helicopter
that like helicopters?
Speaker 5 (33:24):
Yeah, the state troopers have helicopters that they will fly out.
The problem with helicopters is you got to be able
to land at somewhere, and a lot of the roads
not wide enough or in a position where they can land.
So generally the first responders or other truckers, and a
lot of them have training on what to do with
an injured driver or or something like that. You can
(33:44):
call the different towns on either side of it, but
I mean it could be eight hours before you see
an actual ambulance or something. So a lot of it
is very remote and requires the help of your your
fellow truck driver.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
And weather restricted too, and right if you're in trouble
because there's a storm, then a helicopter is not gonna
be able to get to.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
This year, the road washed out too, but it wasn't
for very long. But they've had years where the road
gets shut down by avalanches and there's a bunch of
drivers stacked up and the road's too small to turn around,
so you're stuck facing the avalanche and it's been a
couple of days. Or they send fuel trucks out to
go fuel the truck so they can continue running and
staying safe and hand out food, but most of the
(34:25):
drivers carry a few day.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Drivers create like a little camp for themselves. I have
this vision in my head of like a group of
like twelve truck drivers just like getting along in the
wilderness while they wait for the avalanche to get cleared.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
I definitely think there's probably a lot of stuff that
they don't feedback to us. I don't know if if
the campfires included.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
But Josh Nora, president and owner of Sourdot Express, thank
you so much. For coming on outlock.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
Yeah, thank you guys for having me.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Tracy. That was a lot of fun. You know, it's
funny thinking about like, you know, obviously Alaska as you know,
a literal gold rush, and then this idea that the
whole state is a big boom bus cycle, right, because
if you start with gold mining and then you're very
levered to the oil industry. Yeah, so it's like trucking
is like truly the tail end of the whip. It
(35:24):
sounds like cyclical square, yeah, cyclical squared.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
The other thing I was thinking about is, you know,
in terms of new technology, Josh mentioned the cameras, but
also you got to imagine something like starlink would have
a big impact on drivers' quality of life. If you're
driving out where there's no cell service, maybe if you
have starlink, you finally have a chance to download a
Netflix movie or download all your favorite podcasts so you
(35:49):
don't feel so lonely on the road. But then, you know,
he mentioned Facebook as just a messaging network for the drivers,
and this is something that I really didn't get until
like two years ago when I got the house in
rural Connecticut, which is like Facebook is essential in rural
parts of the country, Like that is actually the local network,
(36:13):
and that's where when people see a bear coming through,
you know, the neighborhood, that's where people post it. Yeah,
or you know maybe your like neighbor will text you
directly or something. But like all that local info is
going on Facebook.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
It is.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
That is really interesting. Also, like it's not the first
time that trucking specifically is still an industry that runs
on like sort of group chats and WhatsApp pages, WhatsApp channels,
et cetera. Like that, even the message boards for the
message boards, like that technology that power is like clearly
still like deeply embedded into like sort of core industrial
(36:52):
you know, the core. It's core infrastructure for what makes
the economy run well, all of logistics.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Right, it's a then in the port in Europe or whatever.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah, right, right, And yeah, I mean, as you noted,
it really feels like this is a logistics hub. The
listeners can literally hear it while we're doing the episode.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Oh yeah, I mean when you get to the airport,
you can already realize it's a logistics hub. Like I know,
our producer Dash was talking about people carrying fish through
the airport. There's the military lounges in the airport because
you have the big military airbases and when you're coming
in you can see all that infrastructure, so you do
get that sense. Yeah, all right, shall we leave it there.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Let's leave it there.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
This has been another episode of the Oudlots podcast. I'm
Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
And I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.
Next time you're shipping oil industry equipment, call up Josh
at the Sourdough Express. Follow our producers Kerman Rodriguez at
Kerman armand Dash'll Bennett at Dashbot and cal Brooks at
cal Brooks. For more Odd Lots content, go to Bloomberg
dot com slash odd Lots, where we have a daily
newsletter and all of our episodes and you can chat
(37:58):
about these topics twenty four seven in our discord Discord
dot gg slash lots.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
And if you enjoy All Lots, if you like it
when Joe and I go to Alaska, then please leave
us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember,
if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to
all of our episodes absolutely add free. All you need
to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts
and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
So, Tracy, we're here in Alaska. We're still here in Alaska.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
We are.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
It's beautiful, stunner, and it's bright. It stays light until
like eleven ps.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
So bright.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I couldn't believe it. It's amazing Alaska and August it's
the best. It's already such a fascinating place to me.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
What iconic industries will we be talking about while we're
in Alaska, Joe.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, there's many industries that we've hit over and over.
Obviously we like to talk to people in the trucking
industry for all kinds of reasons. But also, like, one
of the things that I'm aware of is that Alaska
has its own distinct trucking culture. I think there was
a reality TV show about it, right, Ice Road Trucker,
Yeah right, Yeah, wasn't that based here?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yes, I have questions about how realistic that actually is,
but you are absolutely right that trucking in Alaska is
the sort of well known thing, maybe because of the
reality TV show, But when you think about trucking in Alaska.
You think like these crazy like mud riddled roads and
people having to kart these like huge payloads of I
don't know. I heard it was mostly dirt in the
(01:21):
summertime because people are doing a lot of road construction.
But I don't know that much about it.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I don't know that much about it. Trucking is a
fun topic to cover a because it's just an interesting
logistical industry in any environment. And then B I don't
think anyone has a better pulse on the economy at
any given moment than people in trucking. So while we're
here in Alaska, for all these obvious reasons, we got
to talk trucking.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I think you have to come clean, Joe and admit
your secret dream to become an owner operator working in Alaska.
I don't even know if that's possible.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Well let's find out. I'm really excited to say we
really do have the perfect guest. We're going to be
speaking with, Josh norm He is the president and owner
of Sourdough Express. Josh, thank you so much for coming
on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
What is Sourdough Express mean and what is.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
The company so Sourdough Express is a trucking company in Alaska.
All of our assets are based in Alaska. My family
bought it in the nineteen twenties. It's been in existing
since eighteen ninety eight, so or celebrating one hundred and
twenty seven years this year. We are a all service
trucking company. So we were in the Hall Road, the
ice Roads up.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
In prude O Bay.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
We haul between Anchorage and Fairbanks, which are the two
main population centers in Alaska. We also in a moving
and storage company that focuses on DoD military members moving
in and out of Alaska's military basis.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
What does Sourdough actually mean in those contexts? Because I
hear Sourdough Express and I think, are you, like, you know,
driving around huge, huge loads of baked goods.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Yeah, most people think that we're a bakery, but no,
Sourdough is a basically a long term Alaska So somebody
who's been here for many years or experienced winters here
and really understand the culture of Alaska and I understand
what it takes.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
To live here.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Just one more question before we dig into the now.
But you said your family bought this company in the
nineteen twenties, and it's existed into the late eighteen hundreds.
What was it actually in the early nineteen hundreds, because
I assume you weren't you know, it wasn't big trucks
back then.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
So most of the freight coming into Alaska then was
gold mining and they were coming from Dawson City. And
so the owner, Bob Ellis, ended up coming into Alaska
and establishing in Fairbanks. And my family was working in
and out of the company through that time and ended
up purchasing it in nineteen twenty three. And the first
years was not trucks. It was dog sleds and sleds
(03:36):
and I mean with users and walking the trails with
the freight. And by the nineteen twenties, the pitchers show
that there are trucks and makeshift roads that they're traveling on,
but most of it was not far. It was makeshift
trails that they were getting where they needed to go
to their mining claims. And then as the community established
in Fairbanks, we continued to grow and moved heavily into
(03:57):
heating fuel and the different supplies that people need to.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Live in that climate.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I already want to do this for like three hours.
There's right, like we could just like, let's just talk.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Let's just start in nineteen twenty exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Let's just go a decade by decade for the history.
I'm already fascinated, all right, but let's just take it
up to today. What are the main goods that you move,
whether it's industrial, whatever it is, what are the main
things that are moved in what are like the big routes.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
So seventy percent of our freight is oil field related,
and it's going up to Prude Bay, and generally it's
coming into the Port of Anchorage and traveling up the
road through Fairbanks to.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Prude O Bay.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
A lot of it runs on the rail from Seattle
area Tacoma up through the waterways to Alaska, and then
from there they rail at the Fairbanks and we pick
it up there and continue the journey to Prudo. We
do a lot of stuff down south to the Kenai
and basically anywhere on the road system that needs freight,
(04:53):
our trucks will travel. We do not leave Alaska because
we feel that our assets are best used here for
the freight that's local. So most of our freight that
comes from outside is coming on the steamships that come
into Alaska four times a week.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
If I'm a customer, I mean, obviously this will vary
by customer, But what are the decisions I'm making or
what are the constraints when I'm deciding whether to send
something by road by rail versus a ferry.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
So there's generally three options that people look at. One
is over the road up the Alcan Highway through Canada,
and that one is generally the quickest because you can
have a driver ticket from point A to point B,
do the checkpoints, and make it into Alaska the quickest.
The second fastest is steamship, and so there's two companies
that run two boats each and they go from Tacoma
to Anchorage twice a week, and both of them are
(05:43):
sailing on Sundays and Tuesdays into Alaska. So I always
tell people that if you want to get fresh groceries,
go after the boats come, because that's when everything shows up.
There's also barge, which that travels more on a set schedule,
and there's a few different barge companies in Alaska, and
that's slower, but it's generally more economical to ship. So
there's different options.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Ship from Tacoma to Alaska. How long does that take?
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Three days?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Okay, you know you said all your assets stay in Alaska?
Like how long are these routes? How long are the
drivers on the road? Like talk to us about like
those routes that they do, and how tough that is.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
So as groeling as the roads are in Alaska, the
truckers actually have a pretty decent schedule compared to Lower
forty eight truckers. All the routes can pretty much be
a two day route no matter which way you go.
So the ones going from Fairbanks to prude O Bay,
those ones generally leave Fairbanks on a Monday, they go
to prude Obay, they deliver their load, spend the night,
and then come back on a Tuesday. So they're getting
home every other night doing that route.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
That is better than a lot of drivers in the
lower forty eight.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Yeah, and most of them have done Lower forty eight
freight and love that they're home that consistently. The other
routes are generally anchoraged to Fairbanks, Fairbanks to Anchorage, and
those ones you can do round trip in a night,
so those guys are home almost every night.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Are there special skills you need to be a trucker
in Alaska versus elsewhere or in the Lower forty eight,
do I have to be really really good at taking
chains on and off my tires?
Speaker 5 (07:09):
You definitely chain up consistently in Alaska. The thing that
we look for the most in our drivers is teachability.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Drivers that are.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
Willing to learn and learn from the people who've been
doing it for years and years. There's a lot of
things that they teach you in truck driving school and
down in Lower forty eight that technically is the correct
way to do something, but in the situations they're in,
it can cause issues that you can't recover from. So
there's a lot of small technical.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Give us some examples. What are some things that people
encounter here that they don't encounter elsewhere.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Sure, one of the big things is running for hills.
A lot of times in the States people they'll run
and get speed up for hills. But in Prudo on
the road there it's almost critical that you run for hills.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
And what does that mean?
Speaker 3 (07:51):
You have to speed up, speed up to.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
Get over the hill, so you know you're coming up
on a hill and everyone has call outs, so everyone
has rados in their truck and they're calling out truck
whatever's coming up the hill, and so everyone waits at
the top and basically you just get speed and then
your momentum carries you as far as you can before
you start downshifting. And it's critical in the winter time
because if you start slow, you will never gain traction,
(08:15):
so you will be stopping and chaining at every single hill.
Where there's generally a few hills you chain consistently. If
you run at them, you can usually momentum up and
over a lot of them without having to do that,
so it saves a significant amount of time and energy
for the driver. Having to get out and chaining up
on that road is not a fun experience. Generally it's
(08:37):
twenty thirty below and once you get up further north,
it's windy and it's dark. It's not a pleasant experience.
So any tricks like that that you can incorporate really
help their time and their quality of life.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
You mentioned the radio just then, and this was going
to be one of my questions, which is like, are
people able to use the radio out here, and are
they on like Citizens Band or something else.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
On Cbee radios anywhere and they have channels that they
run on. A lot of trucks have we call them
the big radio, which goes further and they can it's
usually like more of a chatting station. But on the
CBS there are a.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Lot of chatting. Just because you're in Alaska and you're
sort of on your own on a big highway or something.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
There's a lot of chatting. But everyone knows each other,
so generally on that road, if you go up in
one day and you come back in the day, you're
passing all your friends either way at some point, so
they all know each other by their truck, what they
look like, they can tell on the radio. So a
lot of it's just them checking with each other. How's
your trip going, beautiful day? Man, that hill was icye?
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Whatever it is? Hey, there's caribou ahead.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
A lot of it's just banter back and forth between
friends on the radio that help each other out. The
hall road is very special in the sense that if
a truck is pulled over and has an issue, everybody's
going to stop. Nobody's going to drive by and without
checking to make sure he's doing okay and that he
doesn't need help. So that's a pretty special thing that
you don't see everywhere. I know there's some places that
(10:03):
people will stop and help, but in Alaska it's almost
critical that you do because somebody could be in trouble.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So someone told me that, like, used cars are more
expensive in Alaska. I don't know if that's true. Actually,
I haven't gone to verify that, but I'm just curious
about like the cost of like the physical yeah, your
physical assets, Like is there a significant price gap between
just what you pay for any sort of equipment, whether
it's the truck or some part or et cetera, in
(10:29):
Alaska versus the rest of the country.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Sometimes it's hard to compare because we don't have a
sales tax. Oh so without a sales tax, a lot
of times it reduces the price right back to where
the cost of getting the goods here is offset by
not having that sales tax. So I can honestly say
that I've not noticed a huge difference in prices between food,
used cars. A lot of the stuff that we ship
(10:52):
up business wise, like big trucks, and that we are
dealing with the shipping ourselves, So depending how we want
to drive it or what we want to do with that,
we're paying the cost at manufacture and hauling it up.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
What about fuel costs, because I guess there's two things.
There's the price of fuel out here, and I know
there's a big oil industry, but I don't know if
you actually refine that much, so I don't know what
gas prices actually look like. But then secondly, I imagine
when you're out in you know, middle of nowhere Alaska,
there probably aren't that many places to have fuel stops
for and I guess maybe you have to be more
(11:25):
strategic about where you're stopping to refuel.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Yeah, so I would say fuel is definitely more expensive
than say in Texas or the place where they have
big refineries. We do refine some fuel in Alaska, not
a lot. We have the pipeline going right through the
middle and a lot of it just goes south and gone,
but they do refine some. I don't think we save
on price by doing that. It's just more of an
(11:49):
efficiency thing. Fuel stops are extremely important. So our big
trucks that go to Prude Bay have three hundred gallon
tanks on them and there's only one gas station between
leaving Fairbanks and Prude Bay, which is almost five undred miles.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
So generally you don't want to run out of field.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
You don't want to run at a field. There's not
a lot of a lot of options. And people are
used to driving in the country and they see farms
and they see, okay, there's a truck stop. And when
you leave these communities like Fairbanks and you go north,
there's nothing. It's just woods and there's no one to
help accept the other truckers on the road. You'll see
the tourists and the hunters, but there's nowhere to stop.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
So drivers when they.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
Pull over there stopping on the side of like a
pull off, just a little spot to stop. But there's
no bathrooms or showers or anything like that. So planning
your trips and where you get feel you can get
feeling prudo. But it's more than double the cost of
fuel in Fairbanks, so you definitely plan your field and
carry a lot of it.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
So we're recording this August fifth, twenty twenty five. How's
business right now or how does it compare to August fifth,
twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
Business has been very good and very steady. A few
of the different oil companies in Alaska have put a
lot of investment and a lot of that's on the
future and investment.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, Chris Wright, the Energy Secretary was I think in
Alaska not too long ago, like Telly and.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
We had a big delegation come up here and you
went to Pruto to pumping the gas line up, the
potential gas line that they're trying to get approved. But
the overall investment in the oil fields and the downstream
effects of that of people coming up to work those
and the good jobs it creates, that then trickles through
the rest of the economy. So a lot of our
business is also groceries and lumber and housing supplies and
(13:44):
basically anything that a worker on the slope that we
also provide drilling pipe two. They still need everything back
at their house when they're on their off shifts. So
the overall as economy has been healthy. There hasn't been
a huge growth, I don't think, but I think it's
replaced a lot of what was on a downward slide
five ten years ago.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
So one of the things we've learned from doing all
these trucking episodes over and over again is that it
is an extremely cyclical industry and supposedly a lot of that,
at least in the lower forty eight is because there
are really low barriers to entry. So if people see
freight rates start to go up, they think, oh, I'm
going to get a truck, I'm going to get my CDL,
and then I'm going to make the big money driving
(14:26):
this truck around. I'm curious in Alaska is it the
same way? Do you see those sorts of boom bust
cycles where you have lots of new entrants flo at
the market, and then freight rates start going down and
people start going out of business, and then eventually you
go through the cycle once again.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
I would say Alaska's entire economy is that exact situation.
And so in trucking, we have company drivers, and most
companies that are at a scale that we are at
have company drivers, but they also use owner operators or
they use contractors which they hire on for the busy times,
and those contractors over the years become very flexible, so
when times are not good, a lot of times they'll
(15:03):
head south. When you need them again, you call them
and they'll come back up and start hauling again. So
I would say that people do buy more trucks and
try to start their businesses during the really good times,
but a lot of examples of truckers who've done that
and not been successful. When it does decline, it seems
like we've done it enough that the truckers are getting
(15:23):
more savvy to know how much they can spend in.
Instead of buying five trucks, they buy one truck or
two trucks, and they keep those trucks busy with the
flexibility of going out and finding other work down in
the States.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Because as an.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
Owner operator, you can go out of business very quickly
if there's a few slow months.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
How is Sourdo Express state in business so long? Like
you know at this point, I'm sure you like, have
there been any near death experiences in the last century
or any close calls in there?
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:52):
So through the generations, I'm fifth generation owner of Sourdo
and my business partner is my mother, and she's a
and been the CFO for Sourdough for thirty years, and
she's extremely conservative. So she's told me stories of the
history of the generations and her ability to save and
plan for the future for those bad times. I think
(16:13):
is why we've been so successful. When the big shiny
loads are sitting out there, we don't always run at them.
We let those go and we continue servicing our customers
that have been dedicated customers and reliable freight for years
and with her management of those assets and over time,
I think it's it's been very successful. But I can
(16:34):
tell you that we're in a minority in that sense
where there's been a lot of trucking companies come and
go over the years that we've seen come up and
go down. And I would say her ability to plan
has been the biggest asset to Sour in the last
thirty years.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
What would be a shiny load in that context, is
it like, you know, some oil company needs something like
right some crucial component for a pipeline or something, and
they need it right now, and so they're paying loads
of money.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
That could be an example.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Well, I mean it's just anybody who needs something very
quickly that requires a lot of assets, and so sometimes
they dangle that out there and trucking companies, well, I'll
go buy ten trucks and I can do that. Twenty
fifteen was a good example of where the oil companies
had come and said, hey, we're going to produce all
this oil and there's a good chance for growth. We
ended up everyone purchased trucks and got ready, and then
(17:21):
the oil prices crashed and so no fault to them,
but they couldn't sell oil at a profit, and so
they had to pull back the loads and coming back around.
I think everyone was a little more cautious. But we've
also learned with them as a group that works together,
because if we're not successful, they're not successful, and vice versa,
that we're able to plan better and adjust how the
(17:44):
loads work to make sure that the freight gets there
without that risk of the boom bust. So we've done
a lot better job, i'd say, in the last ten
years of planning those cycles and how that's going to work.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Joe, I feel like I have to say that we
are in Anchorage, and so might hear the train going by,
Just that it's very atmosphere.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
It's very atmospheric, I mean, and actually sort of walking
through Anchorage, you turn your head and you see like
ports facilities and you see oil facilities right there, and
so it does feel like just walking through here, we
are in this hub of logistics industry and commerce, and
you could certainly hear it. You know what, I'm curious about,
how does a family keep people at Alaska, because I
(18:26):
have to imagine that a lot of young people generally speaking,
and it's like, yeah, probably some tough, dark, long winters
and maybe get attracted to like it might be nice
to move to Los Angeles or something like that. Sometimes
talk to us about like just the culture of like
who the type of people who stay in Alaska over generations.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (18:44):
Now, I think that a lot of people have been
here for a long time. They like what Alaska's to
offer outside of the cities. So a lot of people
you talk to, you have cabins and have places they
go and spend time, and they build those family units
that are strong and based on these experiences they've had together.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
A lot of people.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
When they graduate high school do go out to the
states and they go to college and they get their degree.
And my sister's a good example where she went out
and she was gone for ten years and decided that
she could be an eye doctor in Alaska just as
easy as she could be in Oklahoma. So she ended
up moving back with her family more so to just
get that family unit that she had been looking for.
I think that a lot of people like the community
(19:21):
that it has to offer, and for some reason, the
misery of living here in the winter, I think brings
people together too. I'm not quite sure on that, but
I've been here for a while so.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Well, in the summer it is very very nice. I
have to say, I haven't seen it in the winter,
but right now it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
You know what, the flip side of eleven thirty.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Yeah, I lived in London and it getting dark at
three pm in December was bad enough. I imagine it's even
worse here. Okay, this is my moment to just ask,
can we get some ice Road trucker type stories, like
tell us some of the harriest moments when you know
you or one of your drivers is on like the
Dalton Highway or something like that.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
So I've driven the road twice in my career.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
I had got my CEO when I was nineteen, and
I mostly worked on the moving side of our company,
moving in storage, and so I never did the Ice
Road long term, but I did drive a couple of
loads up there and got to experience what that was
like as a driver. The benefit to our trucks now
is we have cameras in every truck, so when stuff
does happen, we have very good advantage points of exactly
what that is, and it's probably four years ago. The
(20:23):
best camera foota drive scene is we were climbing out
Agan Pass, which is on the Dalton and out of
the corner of the camera it was night but you
could see snow starting to come and an entire avalanche
came down and pushed the truck up against the guardrail
and when everything came still, the snow was over the
front and he was just sitting in an avalanche that
then he had to wait for the loaders to come
up and dig him back out. We've had a few
(20:46):
of those avalanche type stories. That was the biggest one.
We consistently see wildlife every day.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
You can see.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
Caribou or wolves or bears on the road and moving
out in front of the truck.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Do love life posts a danger? You talk about having
to chain the tires when you're out, like, is there
any risk you're just like when you're out of the cab.
So is there any danger to the driver in those situations?
Speaker 5 (21:11):
Yes, And they've gotten smarter over the years. Back in
the seventies and eighties when it was kind of the
good old days, they used to feed a lot of
the animals, I think, and the animals got very used
to that, and we have a lot of pictures of
bear standing up to windows and taking food back in
the seventies. Drivers have gotten a lot smarter since about
inviting the wildlife to the trucks. And there are notices.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
This is what they took from us, this is what
they took from us.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
But they do post notices and you'll hear on the
Facebook groups and on the communications that, hey, there's a
bear at mile post two twelve, make sure you watch
out when you're chaining up or I mean, there are situations.
They had a wolf problem last year at one of
the construction sites that the pilot cars had to really
be paying attention to, and so there are risks to
that general it's not an issue, but over the years
(22:02):
there definitely have been stories.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
You know, you mentioned cameras in the trucks and this
reminded me. But is there technology that people are using
out in Alaska that might mitigate some of the like
Alaska specific dangers. Do you have better weather forecasting technology
or do you pay more attention to the forecasts, Like
are there specific things you're doing with tech that might
make it easier for your drivers.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
I would say Facebook groups.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
So Facebook groups is just an example, but tech threads
and the different communication between the drivers that are traveling
it every day. They all have their groups of guys
they know and Hey, I just went through this milepost.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
It was really bad.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
You might as well stay home until tomorrow. It'll get
better by tomorrow. And so their feedback is way quicker
than the weather way, more accurate, and their ability to
get that through the road is uncanny. So I think
that camaraderie between the drivers is really what keeps that
road safer.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
So I take it to our wildfires this summer in Alaska.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
This summer was a beginning of the summer, and there
were a few that were very close to the road.
There's two ways to get from Anchors to Fairbanks, and
so we had to send our trucks the longer route
this summer for about a week because they had so
much activity next to the road and it wasn't a
reliable route to send the trucks to get stuff through.
So we've had to deal with that over the years.
(23:21):
A few years ago south of Anchorage, there was a
lot of them that it was delaying the drivers on
a nightly basis waiting for openings to get through.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
On this topic, is there seasonality in this business in
the sense that some routes are only open at certain
times of the year. So I heard, you know, for instance,
some roads have to be frozen for the trucks to
go over them. And then I also heard that there
are some trucks going over like actual frozen water, so
you have to wait for the water to freeze before
you can actually get to the specific part of the world.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
So the big ones that everyone talks about are the
ice roads up in prue O Bay, and most of
those are not actually frozen lakes or vers that they're crossing.
There are some, but most of it is they're building
up the ice to protect the tundra so that when
the ice does melt, there's no damage to the tundra.
So if you fly over four wheeler trails that in
the summer, you can see where all those vehicles went.
(24:14):
But if you go up to Prudo and fly over
the oil fields, you can see no trace of trucks
because they build those roads up so strong. They do
go out on the ice in certain areas, but it's
very controlled and very measured.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
There was a Netflix movie about that, I think a
few years ago. There was like it was not a
reality show.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
About protecting tundras.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Just about like those like the literal like going over
the frozen water and stuff like that. I forgot about.
It was really stressful.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
They in the shows and the reality shows they obviously.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Dramatic over they overbake it.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
They over bake a little bit, and nobody would go
on them if they were that on st Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, if the movie made it look like there was
a fifty percent chance and time of like.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
Making the volume of trucks that travel on it, and
they're Yeah, they have dedicated crews to just maintain those
roads on a daily basis.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
It's not something that anybody's willing to risk.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
So something I'm curious about is are the tariffs showing
up in any way that you notice in your business?
Have they had an effect on anything, maybe even with
you know, Alaska Canada trade or anything like that.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
We haven't seen significant ones yet in our pricing, other
than we pre ordered a lot of stuff with the
anticipation of tariffs that might not have.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Been When you say preorder stuff, is this like equipment
or parts or something like that.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
Mostly parts, parts that were specifically tire chains. We ordered
a lot of tire chains, a lot of gear that
was related to.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
If you're sitting out, you're still sitting on inventory from
some of this that you've pre ordered.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
We're prepared for winter.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
What's the big constraint on your business now? Like, if
you had to name a single frustration that is stopping
you from growing further, what would it be. Whether it's labor,
I don't know, money available for capital investment, regulation, what
would it be.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
I would say it's probably the availability of work.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
So the more that they open up the oil fields
and allow us to produce on them, I think that's
going to be the biggest factor to growing all of
the businesses in Alaska. They've proven over and over again
that they can continually do it safely and that we're
one of the cleanest producers in the world. And so
as they open those up and responsibly start producing them,
(26:29):
that's what grows the Alaska economy is when we construct
those sites and then produce over the long term. The
oil pipeline since it was built has declined and in
volume that has traveled through it, and for the last
couple of years is the first time it's upticked together.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
So that's a very positive.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
Thing for Alaska because it's kind of the lifeline of
almost all Alaskans is the oil and gas industry. DoD
is not very far behind with the Department of Defense spending,
but for what really drives Alaska, so oil gas developments.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
So you said, DoD, you just then and I noticed
at the airport there was like a military lounge. So
I guess, like military is a big presence here, right,
Like what exactly is going on? I should know this already,
but like, what is happening.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Here looking over the water at the Yeah, I know, I.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Get that, but like, what exactly is here?
Speaker 5 (27:18):
So in Anchorage, which is where we're sitting now, there's
a joint Air Force and Army base that's fairly large.
If you go north the Fairbanks there's an air Force
base and an Army base separated, but also very large
that that Air Force base is used for all the
training for a lot of our allies. They come there
in the summer and you see fighter jets parked all
over and they're doing war games. Outside of Fairbanks, they
(27:42):
have Fort Greeley, which is missile silos in there it's
more of a protection base. And then on the other
side they have clear Air Force Base, which is more
of a identification base where they they're able to monitor
closer to our enemies.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
All right, I'm going to ask you a button question
that I know divides much of the freight community. But
is there a truck driver shortage?
Speaker 5 (28:06):
I don't think there's a truck driver shortage. I think
that there is an industry that has put truck drivers
in positions over the years where maybe some of them
have left the profession or hold their kids not to
join the profession. I think there's a lot of quality
truck drivers out of there. I think there's a lot
of companies who don't treat their truck drivers the way
they should be treated, and so that they have a
(28:26):
shortage of employees, more so to do with their policies
and the requirements of what they expect of their drivers
rather than what they give.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Back to them.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
So a sourrow, We've always tried to treat our drivers
as best as possible. We give them schedules that are
family friendly, and we understand that life happens, and so
I think that's been a huge benefit for us and
not just taking drivers for granted that they just keep
coming through the door to really develop your drivers and
make them the high quality drivers that they can be.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Other hot button question, So you know, families owned, it's
going to be self driving ice trucks in one hundred years.
Your family's had the company about one hundred years. Whether
there be human drivers in one hundred years.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
I have no opinion on that one. I think that
would be a very hard road to do an actual
self driving truck. I think if they came up with
some sort of rail system or something they could they
could potentially do it, but it would require an extreme
amount of investment to set that up. Just because the
train is so extreme, that road does not have lines
on it, the road shoulders change every mile, the snow
(29:34):
how they plow it changes every year. So I think
it would be an extremely extremely hard road to send
a truck driving itself up.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Have you seen any effect yet from labor related policies
yet from this administration that in any ways like affected
the business for better worth?
Speaker 4 (29:50):
No, we have.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Now, if you're in a bar in Fairbanks or wherever
with a bunch of other sourdoors, what do you sourdough people, sourdough, sourdough.
It's sourdoughs and trucking buddies. What's getting you guys riled up?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Like?
Speaker 3 (30:03):
What does the topic of conversation do? Short?
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Most of it goes from stories on the road back
to family camping trips and hunting trips and fishing trips
and what they're doing.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
On their off time.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
The trucking industry in Alaska pays very well, so most
of the drivers have the ability to buy snow machines
and four wheelers and go out and experience what Alaska
actually has to offer beside city life. And most truckers
are very independent and they like that lifestyle. So I
would say it's it's mostly comparing camping stories.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
If there's someone who's just like a young guy looking
for direction in the world, if they come to Alaska
and can they probably find a job of venturely if
they go through the CDL training, et cetera. Like, Yeah,
is this someone in the lower forty eight looking for direction,
looking for maybe some adventure and excitement and decent pay
and that sort of lifestyle, Like is their demand for
it that right now?
Speaker 5 (30:54):
So we've learned over the years that a lot of
people have this dream of Alaska. Yeah, and until they
come here, they don't quite realize what that dream is.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
They just know that it's this.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
Vast place that they want to go and spend time.
So we always recommend people come and visit it not
in the summer but in the winter to make sure
it's a place that they want to be.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
And then we have a lot of very good.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
Truck driving schools, so if they come without a CDL,
in three weeks you can get your CDL. And there
is a lot of opportunity locally in the different cities
to learn to be a truck driver. And so patience
is the biggest one, and people knowing that the first
day they get in that truck, they're not driving the
Hall Road. They're going to be delivering produce to Fred Myers,
or they're going to be delivering lumber to Spinnard Builders
(31:34):
supply it's patients. And then also, like I had mentioned earlier,
the willingness to learn from the experienced drivers who have
done it for years and years, and drivers are very
generous with their knowledge as long as you're willing to
learn it. As soon as you start pushing back most
drivers don't want to teach you anymore because it's not
worth their time. So there's definitely an opportunity to grow
(31:56):
your career and make a life in Alaska.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
You just have to be patient.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
I'm going to ask the flip side of Joe's question,
which is is there anything that people are underestimating about
the Alaskan truck driver experience or something that people might
have misconceptions about when they're starry eyed youthful would be
Alaska truck drivers.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
So if you're talking ice road trucking, which is what
the show is based on, I think that the show
romanticized it in the way that it's kind of this
very fun and entertaining thing. But the road from Fairbanks
to pru is twelve hours long and you're by yourself
the whole time. So I think a lot of people
underestimate how much.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Time they spend alone.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
And you're not sleeping at truck stops, you're not seeing
people in person. You're talking to them on the radio,
but you're not getting that interaction that a lot of
truckers in the States are used to walking in. You
have one spot cold Foot, Alaska to stop and see people.
But I think the lonesomeness of it, and then coming
back to the terminal and going home to a in
(32:56):
the winter, it's very dark. I think the darkness is
what really drives a lot of people back out of Alaska.
The cold is not fun either, but you can turn
the heater on, you can put a jacket on.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Actually, I did have one more question related to this, which,
as you mentioned, it's like you're truly in the middle
of nowhere. There are in gas stations anywhere. If there
is some sort of an accident or something like that,
what are the sort of like state level infrastructure for
like emergency response out there, Like is there a helicopter
that like helicopters?
Speaker 5 (33:24):
Yeah, the state troopers have helicopters that they will fly out.
The problem with helicopters is you got to be able
to land at somewhere, and a lot of the roads
not wide enough or in a position where they can land.
So generally the first responders or other truckers, and a
lot of them have training on what to do with
an injured driver or or something like that. You can
(33:44):
call the different towns on either side of it, but
I mean it could be eight hours before you see
an actual ambulance or something. So a lot of it
is very remote and requires the help of your your
fellow truck driver.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
And weather restricted too, and right if you're in trouble
because there's a storm, then a helicopter is not gonna
be able to get to.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
This year, the road washed out too, but it wasn't
for very long. But they've had years where the road
gets shut down by avalanches and there's a bunch of
drivers stacked up and the road's too small to turn around,
so you're stuck facing the avalanche and it's been a
couple of days. Or they send fuel trucks out to
go fuel the truck so they can continue running and
staying safe and hand out food, but most of the
(34:25):
drivers carry a few day.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Drivers create like a little camp for themselves. I have
this vision in my head of like a group of
like twelve truck drivers just like getting along in the
wilderness while they wait for the avalanche to get cleared.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
I definitely think there's probably a lot of stuff that
they don't feedback to us. I don't know if if
the campfires included.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
But Josh Nora, president and owner of Sourdot Express, thank
you so much. For coming on outlock.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
Yeah, thank you guys for having me.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Tracy. That was a lot of fun. You know, it's
funny thinking about like, you know, obviously Alaska as you know,
a literal gold rush, and then this idea that the
whole state is a big boom bus cycle, right, because
if you start with gold mining and then you're very
levered to the oil industry. Yeah, so it's like trucking
is like truly the tail end of the whip. It
(35:24):
sounds like cyclical square, yeah, cyclical squared.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
The other thing I was thinking about is, you know,
in terms of new technology, Josh mentioned the cameras, but
also you got to imagine something like starlink would have
a big impact on drivers' quality of life. If you're
driving out where there's no cell service, maybe if you
have starlink, you finally have a chance to download a
Netflix movie or download all your favorite podcasts so you
(35:49):
don't feel so lonely on the road. But then, you know,
he mentioned Facebook as just a messaging network for the drivers,
and this is something that I really didn't get until
like two years ago when I got the house in
rural Connecticut, which is like Facebook is essential in rural
parts of the country, Like that is actually the local network,
(36:13):
and that's where when people see a bear coming through,
you know, the neighborhood, that's where people post it. Yeah,
or you know maybe your like neighbor will text you
directly or something. But like all that local info is
going on Facebook.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
It is.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
That is really interesting. Also, like it's not the first
time that trucking specifically is still an industry that runs
on like sort of group chats and WhatsApp pages, WhatsApp channels,
et cetera. Like that, even the message boards for the
message boards, like that technology that power is like clearly
still like deeply embedded into like sort of core industrial
(36:52):
you know, the core. It's core infrastructure for what makes
the economy run well, all of logistics.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Right, it's a then in the port in Europe or whatever.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah, right, right, And yeah, I mean, as you noted,
it really feels like this is a logistics hub. The
listeners can literally hear it while we're doing the episode.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Oh yeah, I mean when you get to the airport,
you can already realize it's a logistics hub. Like I know,
our producer Dash was talking about people carrying fish through
the airport. There's the military lounges in the airport because
you have the big military airbases and when you're coming
in you can see all that infrastructure, so you do
get that sense. Yeah, all right, shall we leave it there.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Let's leave it there.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
This has been another episode of the Oudlots podcast. I'm
Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
And I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.
Next time you're shipping oil industry equipment, call up Josh
at the Sourdough Express. Follow our producers Kerman Rodriguez at
Kerman armand Dash'll Bennett at Dashbot and cal Brooks at
cal Brooks. For more Odd Lots content, go to Bloomberg
dot com slash odd Lots, where we have a daily
newsletter and all of our episodes and you can chat
(37:58):
about these topics twenty four seven in our discord Discord
dot gg slash lots.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
And if you enjoy All Lots, if you like it
when Joe and I go to Alaska, then please leave
us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember,
if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to
all of our episodes absolutely add free. All you need
to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts
and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.
Hosts And Creators
Joe Weisenthal
Tracy Alloway
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