Highways and Byways: The Boss Retires (Part 1 of 2)

By Maik Strosahl

I was recently reminded of meeting my boss at Werner Enterprises. I wrote about it for a column last spring [“Meeting the Boss”], but I always intended to tell the rest of the story at a later date. I suppose there is no better time than the one-year anniversary of that Saturday in Omaha.
    About a week and a half after I met C.L. Werner at a Dollar General in Nebraska, I received a call from my Fleet Manager asking if I would be interested in going to C.L.’s retirement party and go to a minor league baseball game. Normally it is the Million Mile Safe drivers who receive these invitations, but my name had come up because of that chance Saturday encounter. Of course I was interested. They also got me an extra ticket so my son Nick could come with me.
    Nick rode with me on a load that got us into Omaha on Friday night. As we arrived in the terminal parking lot, there were already many Million-Milers there. At 3,000 miles a week, it takes 6 and a half years to do a million miles. You are only credited with being a Million-Miler if you are accident free. Werner celebrates their Million Milers by giving them a specially painted truck with decals on the door telling you how many safe miles they have driven. The drivers of the two tractors pictured in the middle and to the right below are amazing, with 3 and 4 million miles under their belt.

    We stayed overnight in the truck and decided to check out the Werner museum Saturday morning. When we checked their door at the posted opening time, we found it locked. I went to the safety department to see what was up.
    Due to Covid, the museum was only being opened by appointment, but my contact thought it might be a good idea to have it open on the day the founder was retiring, in case people like my son and I arrived early. As a special treat, he met us at the safety department and took us back to a garage in the rear of the safety building to show us a toy of C.L.’s.

    This beast was made as a gift to Mr. Werner. It is not in the museum, but is usually sent around the country for special display. It is a 16-cylinder Detroit Diesel engine—mine for comparison has 6 cylinders—and it is too heavy to be street legal without special permits. It has a layer of dust on it because it sat dormant during 2020 and at least the first half of ’21 due to the pandemic.
    We made it to the museum building as soon as my contact found a key. Inside are the tractors that tell the story of 65 years in trucking.

Clarence “C.L.” Werner was only 19 when he started driving, trading in the family vehicle for this 1956 gasoline-powered Ford truck.

    In 1959, Werner Enterprises was officially born with the purchase of a more efficient diesel-powered tractor.

    The company kept growing from one truck to more to being a nice-sized regional company until the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, which deregulated the trucking industry and allowed Werner to boom.
    Nick and I posed with two of the tractor power units featured in the museum.

    Today,the company has nearly 10,000 trucks on the road. Below are the four different tractors I got to drive while on the road for Werner Blue. They are not on display in the museum, but I am showing them to you and telling you what I named each one:

Granny Freightshaker

Lieutenant Dan

Olaf

Lourdes

    In May of 2021, C.L. turned over the reins of the company—the reason for our trip to Omaha. Nick and I were excited to get ourselves to Werner Park for the festivities, but were leery of the weather reports we were hearing. Perhaps the Storm Chasers would be having a busy evening?

Copyright © 2022 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there.