Wadena, Minn. – In the year It was in 2010 when Randy Baker decided to tap into his trucking background and add to his newly formed agricultural business.
When shopping for a truck, he found a 1985 Mack Superliner.
“When we bought it, it had been sitting in a shed for about 15 years,” Randy Baker said.
Becker Transport
It was mostly broken up – no seats in the cabin, no windshield, no lights – but it was driveable.
He bought it for a little more than $7,000, painted it from white to red, and “enjoyed putting the puzzle together.”
Becker Transport
A dozen years later, the Baker ’85 Mac is still putting in the miles as Baker Transportation has grown into a regional trucking company, hauling loads of farm machinery, construction materials, gravel and grain to the upper Midwest from its home in north-central Minnesota.
Baker Transportation is now a full-time job for Randy’s wife, Jody, who handles office duties such as scheduling, permits, insurance and payroll.
Jeff Beach/Agweek
That payroll has increased significantly as the company now has about a dozen employees, most of them full-time but with some overtime and seasonal help.
The company has up to seven trucks, all used except one purchased, with a dozer and backhoe for dirt work and excavation, a road grader that works on city roads and its own gravel pit.
But it’s an ’85 Mac that’s still running.
“I am the only one in charge. It’s the oldest in the boat,” Baker said. “I’m partial to that.”
Baker Transport regularly pulls into the Dakotas and into Iowa and as far east as Illinois, sometimes moving farm machinery for sale. Drivers are usually home every night, but the job isn’t done until the car is washed.
Bakers often use high school or college students to wash trucks for drivers back home. Baker’s daughter, Lauren, is 14 and now works at a truck wash, and their 8-year-old son, Luke, helps clean the trucks.
Jeff Beach/Agweek
Randy says one of the original motivations for buying the semi-tractor was to haul his own grain. In the year In 2010, the Bakers were moving from a farm west of the Twin Cities in Wright County to Wadena County. For a time they were engaged in farming in both places, 125 miles apart. And Randy was still making deliveries for other companies in the Twin Cities area.
But in the year 2010 was the year a tornado hit the town of Wadena. Among the damage was the fertilizer plant. Baker Transport was hired to haul compost as part of the cleanup in Wadena and another compost plant in nearby New York Mills.
“It was something to start with,” said Randy Baker, who hauls two loads a day.
In the year He got his first call in 2011 from another farmer, Larry Rach of Verndale, who needed to haul oats when he ran out of gig hauling fertilizer.
“We’re still hauling the grain,” said Randy Baker, who said Reichen hasn’t changed the price to thank him for helping keep the business rolling.
“It takes time to build a customer base,” said Jodi Baker, who grew up in the Wadena area.
Now 75, Rach, a self-proclaimed small farmer, appreciates that Baker Transport continues to gravitate to an operation that some people find too small to handle.
“He said, ‘I always take your stuff to town so don’t worry,'” Rach said of Randy. And Rach wouldn’t have it any other way.
“He keeps his cars clean and I’m proud to have him take my stuff into town because he’s so nice,” Rach said.
Randy comes from a farming family in Wright County and has been hauling milk for decades. But as the dairy industry declined, he began driving trucks in the construction industry at the age of 18.
He says they modeled their careers on Dale and Marlene Scherber. That family runs a dairy farm and hauls sand and gravel with seven trucks.
“When you worked for them, they treated you like extended family,” Randi said.
“You weren’t just a number,” Jodi added.
“So I got a taste of working for a family-owned business,” Randy said.
“At the end of the day, I think it’s better to be small. You have a more personal connection with the men who work with you and their families.
The Bakers are not into dairy farming but have about 900 acres of cropland. And instead of starting the business on the edge of a bustling metro area, the Bakers started in a more rural area. Wadena County has about 14,000 people.
Randy Baker said that they are still of the opinion that we cannot throw away work.
Randy credits the advice of a financial advisor who saw farm families struggling during the 1980s farm crisis to build his own trucking business.
“He said, ‘Diversification is the name of the game,'” Randy said, adding that it’s not just ag trucks, and grain hauling is actually a small part of their business.
He said they have 11 different trailers, but one goal is to add and update the trailer fleet to provide more towing options.
“The drive to get up every day and do it, that’s not hard at all. If you enjoy doing what you do, it’s not a job,” said Randy. I don’t plan on retiring until I stop having fun, but I never see that happening.
