Throughout the month of February, we’re honoring Black History Month by showcasing Black-owned businesses and Black entrepreneurs in the transportation industry. In this blog, you’ll learn about transportation & logistics entrepreneur Rahmel Wattley, who is the C.E.O. and founder of Truck N’ Hustle, a trucking and logistics podcast/community dedicated to providing education to folks across both industries. Wattley also is the co-founder of Mega Driver Solutions, a leading transportation staffing and solutions company that specializes in helping connect job seekers and employers.
20 Years in Transportation
“I got started in the industry in the early 2000s initially by getting my C.D.L.,” Wattley shared. “I quickly learned that driving a truck wasn’t for me and I got into management. I got an opportunity to work in a dispatcher position with a small mom and pop company named Bond Transfer out of Maryland for about four years. I started off entry level, not knowing anything and I ended up running a multimillion dollar Pepsi account. From there, I went on to work for Ryder in their R.I.L. division working for their CVS account for about six years. In 2015, I started my own business, Ultimate Driver Staffing. We functioned as a temp to hire agency for truck drivers, helping out mid-size to larger trucking companies with their staffing needs. In 2019, I sold U.D.S. and started the Truck N’ Hustle podcast, which is a podcast about entrepreneurship and the opportunities in transportation and logistics. This was a passion project and something I always wanted to do to give back, as I am an avid podcast listener. I started the show around the same time that I started my current staffing business, Mega Driver Solutions.”
About Truck N’ Hustle
“I had been in the industry for quite some time and I didn’t really see a lot of people talking about the opportunities and how to grow a business in transportation and logistics,” Wattley shared. “I wanted to do that and I wanted to add my own spin, so I started out by interviewing somebody who worked with me as a driver at Ryder. That was the first conversation that we actually had on Truck N’ Hustle. It just really grew once we started interviewing people in my network and then reaching out to other people who were influencers and those with really cool stories that we found through LinkedIn and other social platforms. People gravitated towards the stories and started reaching out to us wanting to be interviewed and wanting to share their stories. As of today, we have over 170 episodes and are the number one podcast in transportation and logistics.”
FreightFest and Other Events
“Last year, we started doing events as well,” said Wattley. “We do quarterly in-person meetup events across the country, which we call Reset, which is a reference to when truckers take their 34 hour break. It’s just a time when you can kind of let your hair down and create fellowship with other people in transportation, whether you’re a carrier, shipper or a service provider like a freight broker or insurance agency. It’s an opportunity to bring everyone together, exchange business cards, and have brunch or dinner together. We usually have a speaker, too. The Resets are nice events and there are usually 400 to 500 people in attendance. Last November for the first time we also held a conference called FreightFest in Houston. We had 700 people in attendance with about 40 speakers total, 10 exhibitors and 15 sponsors. We’ll be doing FreightFest again this year in Houston in September of 2023 and we’re on pace to double or nearly triple in size.”
To learn more about Rahmel Wattley and his businesses, visit https://www.trucknhustle.com.
Don’t miss “Celebrating Black History Month: Shay L. Dixon, Co-Founder of SCALE Logistics.”
