In the Driver’s Seat of Success

Fifteen years ago, as a college senior, John “J.D.” Higgins knew exactly what he wanted to do. Setting out to fulfill his dream, he founded Jay D Enterprises in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. Today, he continues to serve as the president of the specialized and heavy haul carrier.

“We now have 50 trucks and 120 trailers,” Higgins related. “We serve oil and gas and coal mine industry customers mainly within 250 miles, but we also haul as far as Texas. Our niche, the bread and butter of our business, is in moving permitted, oversize and overweight loads.”

With a mix of standard tandem- and four-axle heavy haul Kenworth W900 and Peterbilt Model 389 tractors, Jay D Enterprises regularly moves a variety of large construction and mining equipment, along with cranes. The glider kit-built heavy haul tractors are equipped with rebuilt Caterpillar C15 engines rated at 650 horsepower and 2,250 pound-feet of torque, 18-speed Eaton Fuller manual transmissions and 46,000-pound rear axles with 4.10 gearing.

“Some of our biggest customers are rental companies and operators in the off-road articulating crane market,” Higgins said. “They call on us to move very heavy crawler and rough terrain cranes between jobsites, as well as all-terrain and truck cranes when the distance between locations is too far to drive the machine.”

The Jay D Enterprises trailer fleet includes a wide variety of makes and models, including 35-ton stretch to 75-ton multi axle units and four- and five-axle step decks. Included are Fontaine 40- to 55-ton extendable 55MX and Renegade XN20 lowboy models along with 55LCC 55-ton and 60LCC lightweight 60-ton detachable units. Jay D Enterprises also fields XL Specialized 40-ton mini decks, Manac extendable flatbeds and Dorsey Steel Giant CR steel drop decks with beavertails.

“Besides needing equipment that can handle different loads, one thing we spec for many of our trailers are low deck heights,” Higgins related. “In western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and in West Virginia there are a lot of low underpasses, so our Fontaines have 18-inch-high decks and our XL Specialized trailers are spec’ed with 12-inch decks.”

The entire trailer fleet at Jay D Enterprises is supplied by Tri-State Trailers, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based multi-brand dealership that operates four full line facilities offering new and used sales, renting, leasing, parts and service. Tri-State also rents trailers to Jay D Enterprises when the carrier needs extra capacity for specific hauls, supplies the fleet with parts and handles any warranty work that is needed.

“We can’t say enough about the support we receive on a regular basis from Tri-State Trailers,” Higgins said. “They go beyond selling us equipment by working with us to understand our needs and to make sure we’re spec’ing the right equipment.”

Other key players in the ongoing success of Jay D Enterprises, Higgins noted, include the company’s maintenance team and outsourced service providers. In house, the fleet’s technicians handle all maintenance and most repairs except for major component rebuilds for items like transmissions and rear axles.

“Our maintenance staff also responds to road calls if there’s an issue within two or three hours from our facility,” Higgins continued. “In further locations, we rely on a network of providers across our operating area. Most of the companies who we consider a first point of contact are from word-of-mouth references.”

With equipment running in and out of off-road jobsites, particular attention is paid to ensuring tire service needs are met. “We usually carry two or three mounted tires on hauls for faster replacement, in part because the lower height 17.5- and 19.5-inch tires on our trailers are not always readily available,” Higgins said. “For many years, we’ve relied heavily on Briggs Tire Service in Washington, Pennsylvania. They’re available around the clock and their service is always second to none.”

There are several challenges with any specialized trucking service, Higgins noted, but years of experience have led to practices that can address them effectively. For example, across the industry it is difficult to find and retain skilled drivers for heavy hauls.

“Drivers who have experience handling 100,000-pound-plus loads are hard to come by,” Higgins said, “so it’s important to treat them well so they’ll stay. One of the ways we do that is by showing them that we trust their years of experience. For example, we count on their expertise to ensure proper load placement and securement, not only for safety but also because if we have to unload and reload it could cost an entire day.”

Finding qualified escorts for oversize and overweight loads can be a guessing game, Higgins noted. “We do some escorting with our own vehicles but we’re also fortunate to have a good relationship with Patriot’s Contracting in Cambridge, Ohio,” he related. “They’ve been very reliable every time we call on them to provide pilot car services.”

One of the biggest challenges that Jay D Enterprise faces, according to Higgins, is with securing multi-state heavy haul permits. “There’s no uniformity between states and no cooperation between agencies,” he explained. “Even the time frame for getting permits differs from 30 seconds to days so it’s hard to even plan hauls until everything is in place.

“From our side, the heavy haul planning process starts with the customer and that can be a challenge, too, when it comes to getting correct dimensions and weights,” Higgins continued. “We handle nearly all permitting and route planning in house and strive to establish the simplest processes with realistic timelines.”

For Jay D Enterprises, effective planning, the right equipment and drivers and supplier support are what make every specialized heavy haul successful. That lesson, learned through experience, goes hand in hand with playing the long game, a practice that continues to pay off in the end.