Speaker 1: This is America's Trucking Network with Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2: Welcome Moore, thanks for tuning in on this Friday morning.
Speaker 2: Well ATN is now back on its familiar surroundings. But
Speaker 2: I gotta tell you, leaving that gay Lord opry Land
Speaker 2: Resort and Convention Center area was really tough to do.
Speaker 2: You know. They always say it's great to be back home,
Speaker 2: but honestly, I could have spent a few more days there.
Speaker 2: Our room overlooking the atrium, and that atrium is about
Speaker 2: the size of a football field or more, and it's
Speaker 2: in an oval shape and you look across and you
Speaker 2: can see the other rooms with their balconies overlooking the
Speaker 2: area down below. You saw all these plants, waterfalls, ponds,
Speaker 2: bridges over the different water features and everything. As many
Speaker 2: plants as you can imagine. It was like being in
Speaker 2: a junk well basically an arboretum more or less conservatory
Speaker 2: if you will, some of these spectacular conservatories that are
Speaker 2: around in different cities.
Speaker 1: And just the whole atmosphere.
Speaker 2: With it being around Christmas, with the lights and the
Speaker 2: music that they were playing and listening, you know, opening
Speaker 2: the doors to the balcony and listening to all the
Speaker 2: people having fun everything that you can imagine, I mean
Speaker 2: all the different shops and this was just our atrium.
Speaker 2: There are two other atriums that are just as large.
Speaker 2: And this complex down there was just absolutely massive, and
Speaker 2: from one area to the other, just walking around, the
Speaker 2: beauty of the whole thing was just incredible.
Speaker 1: But again, you know, they say it's good to get home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is good to get home, But like I said,
Speaker 2: I could have hung out there a couple more days.
Speaker 2: We got to use weekly jobless claims fall as seasonally
Speaker 2: volatility persists. The number of Americans filing new applications for
Speaker 2: unemployment benefits fell last week, reversing the prior week's surge
Speaker 2: and suggesting the labor market conditions remained stable in December,
Speaker 2: which is what we were been saying all along, and
Speaker 2: especially with the numbers spiking last week, and we mentioned that, okay,
Speaker 2: all right, it's spiked last week, but went down dramatically
Speaker 2: the previous week, and then when you look at the
Speaker 2: moving average that it only changed like by two thousand jobs.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's not like there's I mean, it's
Speaker 2: kind of like a seesaw, but not anything's you know,
Speaker 2: major variations over the four week period of time. Week
Speaker 2: to week, it jumped a little bit, went down considerably.
Speaker 2: The week before, initial claims for stated unemployment benefits dropped
Speaker 2: thirteen thousand to them seasonally adjusted two hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: four thousand for the weekend in December thirteenth, the Labor
Speaker 2: Department set on Thursday. Economists polled by RUTTERS had forecast
Speaker 2: two hundred and twenty five thousand claims for the week,
Speaker 2: so pretty much, you know, just one thousand off, economists
Speaker 2: say President Donald trump sweeping tariffs have caused an unexpected
Speaker 2: shock for businesses who have responded by pulling back on
Speaker 2: increasing headcounts.
Speaker 1: I get this, all right.
Speaker 2: A survey of five hundred and forty eight chief financial
Speaker 2: officers spanning firms with one to more than one thousand employees,
Speaker 2: conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and Atlanta
Speaker 2: in conjunction with Duke Universities Fuqua School of Business showed
Speaker 2: on Wednesday they continue to cite tariffs as a top concern.
Speaker 2: All right, evidence my question? What evidence are they seeing?
Speaker 2: What can they specifically point to in terms of what
Speaker 2: the tariffs are doing in terms of them holding back
Speaker 2: on their head count Other than maybe they're not so
Speaker 2: sure of their business and they don't have their finger
Speaker 2: as on the pulse that they should, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: The claims data covered the period during which the government
Speaker 2: surveyed businesses and nonfarm payroll components of December employment report.
Speaker 2: Nonfarm payrolls increased by sixty four thousand in November. Bureau
Speaker 2: of Labor Statistics said on Tuesday, December's employment report will
Speaker 2: be released on schedule in January. Now what's interesting here
Speaker 2: is when they get into this. Now, I heard this
Speaker 2: number the other day and I was like, what are
Speaker 2: Because we keep hearing no fire, no hire, no fire policy.
Speaker 2: We are seeing weekly unemployment claims basically within the range
Speaker 2: of what they say is a normal average anywhere from
Speaker 2: two hundred and ten thousand per week up to two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand, and it's all varied within that
Speaker 2: range over these last several months and going even back
Speaker 2: to last year. So in terms of the number of
Speaker 2: people filing from those aren't going up, and so how
Speaker 2: this number came up. And they're saying that although the
Speaker 2: unemployment rate was four point six percent in November, all right,
Speaker 2: four point six percent three months ago was four point
Speaker 2: one percent, then they jumped at the four point two,
Speaker 2: then to four point three, and now they've elevated to
Speaker 2: four point six.
Speaker 1: Based on what what evidence? Where are they seeing? And
Speaker 1: quite honestly, where are they getting their numbers? Now? Get this?
Speaker 1: Although the unemployment.
Speaker 2: Rate was four point six percent in November, the highest
Speaker 2: in September of twenty twenty one, it was distorted by
Speaker 2: technical factors related to the forty three day government shutdown,
Speaker 2: which caused the BLS not to publish the jobs rate
Speaker 2: jobless rate for October, the longest shutdown in history, prevented
Speaker 2: the collection of data from households needed to calculate October's
Speaker 2: unemployment rate. Well, if you don't have the data, if
Speaker 2: you don't have the accurate information, why publish it and
Speaker 2: why put it out there? Back during the previous Trump administration,
Speaker 2: we discovered how many people embedded in government dislike Donald Trump,
Speaker 2: how many of them dislike Republicans in particular, dislike Republicans
Speaker 2: Donald Trump in particular, and how they did their best
Speaker 2: to undermine his presidency. And I got to ask the
Speaker 2: question here with these Bureau of Labor statistics, are the
Speaker 2: right people in there?
Speaker 1: Because if they don't have the data.
Speaker 2: If they say they didn't collect enough data and the
Speaker 2: numbers are not necessarily accurate, why the hell would you
Speaker 2: publish it? Because you know, the spoon fed regurgitators in
Speaker 2: the mainstream media are going to glom on to any
Speaker 2: negative information and push that narrative out there. And I
Speaker 2: got to tell you, America's truck and network has been
Speaker 2: way ahead of the curve on this. I have been
Speaker 2: saying pretty much since Liberation Day, back in April to
Speaker 2: second and maybe even before then.
Speaker 1: I'd have to go back and look.
Speaker 2: But the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream meet us
Speaker 2: since twenty fifteen when Donald Trump came down that escalator
Speaker 2: in Trump Tower, ninety some percent of the coverage of
Speaker 2: him has been negative. When he won the presidency, they
Speaker 2: didn't even think he was going to win, so the
Speaker 2: polling there, the lies that the media told us then
Speaker 2: as far as the rate of their polls and everything
Speaker 2: were wrong. And then all during his presidency, all they
Speaker 2: did negative coverage ninety some percent, and the narrative hasn't
Speaker 2: changed even up to this point. And so with ninety
Speaker 2: some percent negative coverage of not only the individual, of
Speaker 2: his economic policies and so on. No wonder there is
Speaker 2: a bad taste in people's mouth in terms of what's
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 1: As far as the economy.
Speaker 2: We had four years of out of control inflation nine
Speaker 2: point one percent in one year and about four point
Speaker 2: three percent on average through the entire Biden administration. And
Speaker 2: now all of a sudden, people are concerned about affordability.
Speaker 2: People are concerned about inflation when it's half of what
Speaker 2: it was, less than half of what it was during
Speaker 2: the Biden administration. And I've said all along, I think
Speaker 2: the spoon fed regurgitators of mainstream media are trying to
Speaker 2: talk down this economy and create a recession. They are
Speaker 2: trying to manufacture a recession because of their lousy journalistic instincts.
Speaker 2: And so when they publish a number like this, and
Speaker 2: you know, the people in the government, again, I'm not
Speaker 2: so sure how many of these people.
Speaker 1: Are really in faith.
Speaker 2: And if you're and if you're trying to downgrade the economy,
Speaker 2: you got to not particularly like the country, because if
Speaker 2: that's bad, then people are going to suffer. Policymakers at
Speaker 2: Federal Reserve last week US Central Bank overnight rate interest rate,
Speaker 2: they cut it by another twenty five base point. We
Speaker 2: know all about that tap it hiring is causing long
Speaker 2: without touts, routes abouts, I should say, of unemployment. And
Speaker 2: those numbers basically are staying about the same. They're up
Speaker 2: and down a little bit. So this weekly job was claimed,
Speaker 2: it fell, and it's been falling. It's been within a
Speaker 2: relative range. But I wonder where in the hell they're
Speaker 2: coming up with this four point six number. And I
Speaker 2: guarantee you, guarantee you, I'm going to go out on
Speaker 2: land here. I'm going to predict the next one comes
Speaker 2: out that it's closer to four point two four point
Speaker 2: one coming up, we're going to be talking with Mitch.
Speaker 2: Play the interview I had with Mitch Davison. He is
Speaker 2: the head of all of Rush Truck Center's collision centers
Speaker 2: throughout the country. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck in Network
Speaker 2: seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 1: Seven hundred and WLW.
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon as America's struck in Network. I have
Speaker 2: a pleasure of speaking with Mitch Davison. He is the
Speaker 2: director of collision centers for all of truck enterprises. He
Speaker 2: is located out of the New Bronzefelle's location down in Texas,
Speaker 2: and as part of the trade show itself, there was
Speaker 2: a collision competition at one of the local the Nashville
Speaker 2: Body Shop, and so tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2: And of course this being now here in Nashville as
Speaker 2: opposed to being in San Antonio, there was a whole
Speaker 2: lot of logistics involved in getting us here.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so typically this competition takes place in San Antonio
Speaker 3: every year. The original competition was kicked off in Nashville
Speaker 3: back in the end of two thousand and six, so
Speaker 3: we returned here for our twentieth anniversary this year. But yeah,
Speaker 3: like you talked about our body shop competition, so we
Speaker 3: have it's split into two categories. We have a body
Speaker 3: repair section and a paint competition as well. Five of
Speaker 3: our top body guys and five of the top paint
Speaker 3: guys all come to compete, and those guys test for
Speaker 3: full day Saturday or I'm sorry, full day kick. We
Speaker 3: kicked the competition off Sunday morning. They test for a
Speaker 3: full day Sunday and a full day Monday. Like we
Speaker 3: were discussing a little while ago, we kicked competition off
Speaker 3: a little early on our side because customer uptime is
Speaker 3: a huge goal of ours, and we do have to
Speaker 3: take care of that competition over at the body shop because,
Speaker 3: like you said, no, we don't have a hard to
Speaker 3: get a paint booth in your back pocket and move
Speaker 3: it across town to spray.
Speaker 4: Some paint in the middle of a convention center.
Speaker 3: So we shuttle those guys over to the body shop
Speaker 3: and the five of them compete for paint and the
Speaker 3: five four body and we want to give a huge
Speaker 3: shout out to our main support vendors for the collision
Speaker 3: center competition.
Speaker 4: Three M puts on the body repair competition.
Speaker 3: They create the written test that these guys qualify on
Speaker 3: in the middle of the year and then bring in
Speaker 3: a handful of judges and take care of the entire
Speaker 3: body repair competition. And then on the paint side, we
Speaker 3: have our paint manufacturer Exalta. Those guys do the same
Speaker 3: with a written test that the paint guys qualify on
Speaker 3: and come in once again with a handful of judges,
Speaker 3: one judge per competitor over there, because they're watching a
Speaker 3: lot of process procedures, how they're using the products or
Speaker 3: they using the correct products. All that good stuff so
Speaker 3: it's a it's a sight to see. I'm glad you
Speaker 3: were able to get over there a little bit on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a blast on Sunday being able to
Speaker 2: get over there to see that, because again it's well
Speaker 2: my first time and i've i'm not been aware of that,
Speaker 2: but to watch these technicians work through that and to
Speaker 2: see how the competition develops. The competition this year was well,
Speaker 2: one of the fenders they had cracked off the corner
Speaker 2: and the punch two holes in it, and you have
Speaker 2: to repair that and then get it ready for and
Speaker 2: then the final product do they actually painted or is
Speaker 2: it just.
Speaker 3: On the body side. So this year three M put
Speaker 3: together a few different practicing I'm not practicing, but the
Speaker 3: few different different smaller competitions inside the main praetition. So
Speaker 3: they did some plastic repair, they did fiberglass fender repair,
Speaker 3: and like I said, three M gives them a toolbox
Speaker 3: with all of their available products in it and gives
Speaker 3: them free rein, so they're watching that the correct products
Speaker 3: are selected, that those products are used correctly. They're judging
Speaker 3: the final repair on all of those parts and pieces
Speaker 3: that they use. And on our paint side, we had
Speaker 3: two big fiberglass double hump rear drive fenders, and those
Speaker 3: guys this year they changed it up. They were given
Speaker 3: our three remain Rush colors, so they needed to prep
Speaker 3: that fender, and.
Speaker 1: Now prep that they had to do the primer correct.
Speaker 3: They sanded it down, primed it, got it ready in
Speaker 3: good condition to paint, and they were given, like I said,
Speaker 3: given our three Rush colors and free reign creativity.
Speaker 4: Do what you like.
Speaker 2: I heard that end of it when I was there,
Speaker 2: but I had to leave early to come over here
Speaker 2: and set the booth on them.
Speaker 1: And one of the guys came by.
Speaker 2: I think he I think he told me, well, he
Speaker 2: didn't know whether he was in the finals or not.
Speaker 2: But the fender that he did had the Rush logo
Speaker 2: on it and it was I think a reddish it
Speaker 2: was the and it they knowing what the product was
Speaker 2: beforehand and seeing this afterwards is phenomenal.
Speaker 4: Turned out phenomenal. I mean splitting.
Speaker 3: Hairs to to rank these competitors, and I keep mentioning, guys,
Speaker 3: we do have a female who competes in our paint
Speaker 3: competitions too, has.
Speaker 4: Been here to last four years.
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
Speaker 4: She is also not an entry level technician anymore.
Speaker 3: But she came to us very young, and so it's
Speaker 3: awesome that she's made it four years in a row.
Speaker 4: I'm probably gonna keep refer in all of them as
Speaker 4: guys just.
Speaker 1: Right, exactly exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So it's awesome.
Speaker 2: They were yeah that she would be and and you know,
Speaker 2: maybe you can talk to her at some point and
Speaker 2: then maybe down the road, I'd love to talk to
Speaker 2: her on air during the regular regular you know, away
Speaker 2: from the show so on, because I don't think we
Speaker 2: have enough time to get everybody involved here. But I
Speaker 2: was very surprised to see that because that is not
Speaker 2: and we've talked with a number of people in the
Speaker 2: trucking industry. I've talked with a number of people in
Speaker 2: the trucking industry over the years, and this is one
Speaker 2: of the things that that most people that the trucking
Speaker 2: industry is not the normal career path that you would
Speaker 2: in the past was.
Speaker 1: Expected for women.
Speaker 2: But there are more and more and they are thriving
Speaker 2: in this business. So to let people know about that,
Speaker 2: I think is just opens up a whole host of
Speaker 2: abilities or career paths for women.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, the trade is an awesome one to get into.
Speaker 3: I think the trades are making a turn back around again.
Speaker 3: College was pushed, you know for many years, and the
Speaker 3: trades kind of fell off, right. But I think the
Speaker 3: trade there's a lot of people have come to the
Speaker 3: realization that the trades are an awesome place to be.
Speaker 3: I don't have to go to college for four years
Speaker 3: if I don't want to. I can learn on the job.
Speaker 3: I can make good money. But back to your point,
Speaker 3: the women coming into the industry, we are seeing it
Speaker 3: more and more, and we have customers that like that.
Speaker 3: They find them slightly more detail oriented in some situations.
Speaker 3: So it's worked out. It works great for us.
Speaker 1: I'm talking with Mitch Davison.
Speaker 2: He is the director of collision Centers for Rush Rush
Speaker 2: Enterprises out of New Brunsville run run phil Fells, Texas.
Speaker 1: And that is again when I've talked.
Speaker 2: To a lot of people throughout the trade show and
Speaker 2: how many of them are in the business because a
Speaker 2: relative or a frame of a father where it was
Speaker 2: involved in the business. And so this is now a
Speaker 2: situation where you have the females coming in. They are
Speaker 2: the trail blazers, if you will. I'm sure they don't
Speaker 2: like being called that. They just want to be one
Speaker 2: of the boys basically exactly. But the mere fact that
Speaker 2: that's available and people know about that, I think is
Speaker 2: important as well.
Speaker 4: It is, And like I said, you know, it's great.
Speaker 3: We have quite a few women coming into the industry now,
Speaker 3: whether that be service or body shop. So definitely a
Speaker 3: field to keep in the back of your mind. Even
Speaker 3: it's not reserved just to the old guys anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that the guys that you know are leaning over the
Speaker 3: engine bay with cigarette hanging.
Speaker 4: Out of their mouth.
Speaker 3: It's not the old days, it, you know, We've come
Speaker 3: a long way.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, Gar are the days that you can
Speaker 2: sit in the studio, do a show and spoke as cigar.
Speaker 2: For God's sake, I got into this business way too late.
Speaker 4: Now you're going to travel the country and talk to
Speaker 4: guys like me.
Speaker 1: All the time, well, which is a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: So yeah, but uh yeah, the industry has evolved considerably,
Speaker 2: and the fact that the Rush enterprises values their customers
Speaker 2: and values their employees as much to broaden this show
Speaker 2: and the competition to all levels of the company is
Speaker 2: just absolutely incredible. I'd like to pick this up on
Speaker 2: the other side because I want to continue the conversation
Speaker 2: and talk about you, how you got involved in the
Speaker 2: business and basically how you got here.
Speaker 1: Sure, and we'll talk about that coming up.
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon America struck In Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon, America, struck In Network, seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 2: Continue our conversation with Mitch Davison. He is director of
Speaker 2: collision Centers for all of Rush Enterprises out of the
Speaker 2: New Brunfels, Texas location, And we had talked earlier about
Speaker 2: the logistics of getting everything up here. The mere fact
Speaker 2: that not only as we talked about the vendors being here,
Speaker 2: four hundred and forty different vendors who support this show,
Speaker 2: that because of.
Speaker 1: Their relationship with Rush Enterprises.
Speaker 2: The fact that they pay for the event, the event
Speaker 2: is completely covered by them, and that the amount of
Speaker 2: money that they spend getting their vehicles here and all that.
Speaker 3: So it's yeah, so of course I want to give
Speaker 3: a huge shout out and thank you to all of
Speaker 3: our vendors. You know, I know you guys are listening
Speaker 3: to us right now, but me and Kevin are sitting
Speaker 3: here on the trade show floor with dozens and dozens
Speaker 3: and dozens of booths here from all of our vendors.
Speaker 3: Like mentioned, all of these guys sponsored the event to
Speaker 3: cover it. We're going to give away a ton of
Speaker 3: cash and prizes to all of our winning competitors. This
Speaker 3: even at three hundred thousand dollars worth of cashing prizes
Speaker 3: to those guys tonight. So yes, if it wasn't for
Speaker 3: our vendors, this event would not take place. So huge
Speaker 3: thank you to those guys exactly taking care of them.
Speaker 2: Talk about you a little bit here because a couple
Speaker 2: of people have talked about your career path, So I
Speaker 2: want to ask you, how did you come about getting
Speaker 2: into the Did you start off this way?
Speaker 4: Actually?
Speaker 3: Know, I kind of fell into the automotive service side,
Speaker 3: where I made the majority of my career up to
Speaker 3: this point with Toyota. So I come from an automotive
Speaker 3: background and was introduced to Russian prizes and actually by
Speaker 3: my now current boss, Victor Cummings, and we worked together
Speaker 3: for probably a year trying to get me over to
Speaker 3: the company and a position, and.
Speaker 4: I finally was able to make the jump to the company.
Speaker 3: I have moved through a couple of different positions over
Speaker 3: the last few years, which has been fantastic for me.
Speaker 3: I've been able to really grow and apply myself and
Speaker 3: you know, learn a ton. So I did not come
Speaker 3: up in the in the heavy duty industry. I did
Speaker 3: not come up at all in the collision industry. So
Speaker 3: this has been a huge learning experience for me over
Speaker 3: the last ten to eleven months now.
Speaker 4: But it's been great.
Speaker 3: The body shop side is a very tight knit group.
Speaker 3: We still have over three hundred technicians in the collision
Speaker 3: centers across the company. But it doesn't matter what shop
Speaker 3: you walk into, they're all just like you've known them forever.
Speaker 4: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: So it's been great. So yeah, most of my experience
Speaker 3: was from the automotive side.
Speaker 2: That speaks well of rush enterprises. The fact that the
Speaker 2: promoter and I keep hearing this from people over and
Speaker 2: over and over again. The two things I keep hearing
Speaker 2: promotion from within, working from the ground up, everything geared
Speaker 2: towards the customer, making sure that the customer is satisfied,
Speaker 2: that we take care of their needs, like not shutting
Speaker 2: down your body shop on a Monday in order to
Speaker 2: have a competition. You have it on Sunday in order
Speaker 2: for people to get the competition.
Speaker 3: Does give us one last day of downtime. But yeah,
Speaker 3: back to your point of the you know, the team
Speaker 3: we have here. Of course, we want to promote from within.
Speaker 3: We've already got you know, awesome employees in the company.
Speaker 3: So let those guys grow and move to the next
Speaker 3: position and uh, you know, continue developing their career and
Speaker 3: move as far.
Speaker 4: As they want.
Speaker 3: Some guys never want to move off the shop floor,
Speaker 3: and that's yeah, you know, they love what they do,
Speaker 3: they love fixing trucks. And but then you've got a
Speaker 3: lot of guys that want to be in a VP
Speaker 3: position one day too, So definitely want to leave that
Speaker 3: opportunity open to them to to continue to grow and
Speaker 3: finish their career wherever they want it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well the sky's the limit.
Speaker 2: I mean, whatever somebody wants to make out of it,
Speaker 2: they could make out of it.
Speaker 1: Exactly on from there.
Speaker 2: And so again you said you didn't come from this
Speaker 2: from the.
Speaker 1: Original, but here you are now.
Speaker 2: So when you talk to younger people, well, what do
Speaker 2: you or what would you say to them in terms
Speaker 2: of if somebody's out there struggling and they're trying to
Speaker 2: figure out what career path I want to go, what
Speaker 2: would you say.
Speaker 3: So, We do a lot of in house training growing
Speaker 3: entry level technicians. We have an internship program to bring
Speaker 3: those guys in. They can work for us part time
Speaker 3: even while they're in high school if they'd like to
Speaker 3: trade school, get their feet wet in the in the industry,
Speaker 3: in the shop, and kind of shake off those nerves
Speaker 3: because you walk into a shop, it's it can be
Speaker 3: very intimidated. Yeah, we get them in part time and
Speaker 3: let them kind of work their way up the food
Speaker 3: chain and grow and acquire tools and whatever.
Speaker 2: And for me young person's perspective again, we're speaking with
Speaker 2: Mitch Davison. He is the director of Collision and Centers
Speaker 2: for all of Rush Truck centers. The fact that the
Speaker 2: mentorship program, the internship program is there, it actually gives
Speaker 2: somebody an opportunity to try something hands on exactly.
Speaker 4: You know what.
Speaker 1: This isn't necessarily for me, I'm going to go on
Speaker 1: to something else.
Speaker 3: And we would much rather find that out in the beginning.
Speaker 3: It's not going to work out for either one of
Speaker 3: us if you don't want to be here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think a lot of people the older
Speaker 2: they get or they get you know, because in the
Speaker 2: past there used to be kind of like a, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't you have your parents and they have their
Speaker 2: jobs or job and you're surrounding friend their friends and
Speaker 2: so you know about that. And we talked to somebody
Speaker 2: before and they said, well, you know, I always heard
Speaker 2: about doctors, lawyers, that kind of thing. And then whoever,
Speaker 2: I think in terms of uh, collision repair, that's not
Speaker 2: something that's normally on people's radars exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But to have this whole world open to you and
Speaker 2: at a young age try to figure out what you
Speaker 2: like and get into that and thrive.
Speaker 3: So many options nowadays with the internet and social media,
Speaker 3: you know, you have your view is open to anything
Speaker 3: you can imagine at this point, like you said, you're
Speaker 3: not kind of confined to you know, what your your
Speaker 3: parents or your family may have done. So but back
Speaker 3: to the younger generation, what I would tell them, keep
Speaker 3: your mind open, don't let somebody force you to go
Speaker 3: to college, don't let somebody force you to go straight
Speaker 3: to the industry.
Speaker 4: There's options both ways.
Speaker 3: That can that can one hundred percent work out for
Speaker 3: you in a successful career.
Speaker 2: And as we mentioned before, the women, uh, now you
Speaker 2: have a you know at least one of the competitors
Speaker 2: was female.
Speaker 3: Correct, We do have a female competitor on our paint side.
Speaker 3: She has been here for the last four years, if
Speaker 3: I remember correctly, pretty much all four years that she's
Speaker 3: been with the company actually, and I'd mentioned social media
Speaker 3: a little while ago. She likes to use social media
Speaker 3: to show what she does working in the paint department
Speaker 3: and in the collision center.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's.
Speaker 3: Tons of tons of options out there that that may
Speaker 3: not have been the direction somebody would have wanted to
Speaker 3: go in fifteen twenty three years.
Speaker 2: And again, the people that are that are involved in
Speaker 2: the trades that are now thinking or people that weren't
Speaker 2: involved before are thinking in terms of that saying, yes,
Speaker 2: this is something that I could do.
Speaker 1: The career path is good.
Speaker 2: I can make money at it, which is I guess,
Speaker 2: well not, I guess it is. It is very It
Speaker 2: is you know the name of the game, and something
Speaker 2: that you enjoy exactly.
Speaker 3: Some of these guys you talk to them, and you know,
Speaker 3: I love coming to work every now.
Speaker 4: I love working on stuff. I always like being in
Speaker 4: the shop.
Speaker 3: The main reason the instant gratification when I fix something.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just hey, I did that, and uh,
Speaker 3: you know, I always loved that feeling, so just lots
Speaker 3: of But.
Speaker 2: I got to thank you for your hospitality the other
Speaker 2: day of being able to come over and watch everything.
Speaker 4: And see it in person.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of people's return.
Speaker 3: Sure, a lot of people have their ideas of what's
Speaker 3: going on over there, and we try to showcase it
Speaker 3: here once again since we can't be here just due
Speaker 3: to the logistics of needing a paint booth and and
Speaker 3: lots of fiberglass mondo dust.
Speaker 4: Flying everywhere and and all of that.
Speaker 3: So it's a very eye opening experience when you can
Speaker 3: see it, and it's awesome to watch those paints come
Speaker 3: to life and the body repair whatever they're working on
Speaker 3: come back to one full piece.
Speaker 2: There's definitely an art to it, and they are their artists. Again,
Speaker 2: seeing that final piece that that guy put together and
Speaker 2: stopped by the booth and showed me, I was blown away,
Speaker 2: especially in the confined time frame that he had basically
Speaker 2: one day, just amazing. Well, I can't thank you enough
Speaker 2: for stopping by. I certainly appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 2: We'll throughout the year, maybe check in and for sure
Speaker 2: we'll talk a little bit about what's going on in
Speaker 2: the industries, talk about what's going on as far as
Speaker 2: you are concerned, it sounds great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll keep in touch and we'll get you some
Speaker 3: updates throughout the year.
Speaker 1: Fantastic you.
Speaker 2: Mitch Davison, Director of Collision Centers for Rush Truck Centers.
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network, seven hundred W l W.
Speaker 2: This is America's Trucking Network, seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 1: I'm Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2: We got the numbers yesterday or earlier, well, yesterday morning,
Speaker 2: i should say, the consumer price Index, which had been
Speaker 2: delayed the previous month.
Speaker 1: And they released that.
Speaker 2: And again, this is one of those situations where I
Speaker 2: read the headlines, I look at the story. The story
Speaker 2: sometimes doesn't match what the headlines are saying. And I'm
Speaker 2: questioning a lot of the stuff that's being said about
Speaker 2: this consumer price index. Last night, let me see it
Speaker 2: was it would have been what would it have been Wednesday?
Speaker 1: Wednesday night?
Speaker 2: They were well, well, before I went on the air,
Speaker 2: we talked about they were talking about consumer price index
Speaker 2: being at three percent and that this is higher than
Speaker 2: what it had been in the previous month, and and
Speaker 2: it kind of showed that inflation was elevated, and I said,
Speaker 2: where was that, because it's not supposed to be released
Speaker 2: and I looked into that, and it's not supposed to
Speaker 2: be released until Thursday morning. And so they were this
Speaker 2: is what they were saying, the three percent number that
Speaker 2: inflation had gone up. But that was their predictions, and
Speaker 2: that was from these economists that we're talking about, this
Speaker 2: not the actual data. And let Mery remind you the
Speaker 2: saying about economists and economists is an expert who will
Speaker 2: know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.
Speaker 2: And this is exactly the situation here. Consumer price index
Speaker 2: rose at two point seven percent, not three percent, and
Speaker 2: the headline says prices rose at two point seven percent
Speaker 2: rate lower than expected. How many times have we heard
Speaker 2: headlines since the beginning of the year retail sales higher
Speaker 2: than expected, new car sales higher than expected, home prices
Speaker 2: or home sales, new home sales higher than expected, unemployment
Speaker 2: lower than expected. All along we've been hearing this, and
Speaker 2: yet everybody wants to try to downplay and talk down
Speaker 2: the economy. And I'm starting to hear a little bit
Speaker 2: more and more about people saying that, you know what,
Speaker 2: it seems like the spoonfl What they're saying is the
Speaker 2: mainstream media isn't giving us the accurate detail.
Speaker 1: Well, no kidding. Did they give us the accurate information.
Speaker 2: About COVID that not only COVID, but how it spread,
Speaker 2: what it was all about, where it came from. Did
Speaker 2: they tell us the truth about what was going on
Speaker 2: as far as the election was concerned in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Did they tell us the information properly about the polls
Speaker 2: about the twenty sixteen election? Did they tell us about
Speaker 2: Joe Biden's mental capabilities and whether or not he was
Speaker 2: competent to be in office?
Speaker 1: Was that accurate?
Speaker 2: Was the Russian hoax accurate or any of these other
Speaker 2: hoaxes that are going on. As far as the Trump
Speaker 2: administration and Donald Trump, have they been accurate? And yet
Speaker 2: for some reason people still glom on to what the
Speaker 2: hell those people are saying. I don't know why anybody
Speaker 2: believes anything they've said, because again, everything they've talked about,
Speaker 2: who are the predictions about tariffs are going to cause
Speaker 2: a recession that's going to lead to out of control inflation,
Speaker 2: going to lead to a lot of layoffs and yet
Speaker 2: how much of that has come about?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: Some of the headlines that were as a result of
Speaker 2: this stock market Today.
Speaker 1: This is from Yahoo Finance.
Speaker 2: Stock Market Today Dow S and P and Nasdaq rise
Speaker 2: as CPI inflation eases in November. The Wall Street journals
Speaker 2: stock Market Today, Dow S and P five hundred jump
Speaker 2: on soft inflation.
Speaker 1: Readout. Then we get to CNN.
Speaker 2: Inflation cooled in November to two point seven but economists
Speaker 2: say to take it with the entire salt shaker, not
Speaker 2: a grain of salt, but the entire assault shaker.
Speaker 1: How accurate is that? So we'll see.
Speaker 2: Consumer prices were rose less than expected in November, giving
Speaker 2: investors hope that the inflationary pressures may be cooling enough
Speaker 2: for US monetary policy to be eased more than a
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal, The Wall Street anticipates consumer Price Index
Speaker 2: rose at two point seven percent annualized rate last month.
Speaker 2: A delayed report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed
Speaker 2: economists pulled by dal Jones, expected the CPI to have
Speaker 2: risen three point one percent, so they blew it by
Speaker 2: four tenths of a percentage point, which is basically something
Speaker 2: like as like one eighth or one tenth of what
Speaker 2: I missed U by over ten percent. But again, these
Speaker 2: are the economists, remember those people that will tell you
Speaker 2: tomorrow why things they predicted today yesterday didn't happen today.
Speaker 2: It infuriates me because everything is just so. By the
Speaker 2: core CPI, which strips out volatile food and energy prices
Speaker 2: also cooler than anticipated, increasing two point six percent over
Speaker 2: twelve months. It was expected to have risen by three percent.
Speaker 2: So again they were off by four tenths of a
Speaker 2: percentage point. And that's we're talking big numbers there when
Speaker 2: you're looking at that, and especially at the Federal Reserve,
Speaker 2: wants to see inflation down around two percent. Well, when
Speaker 2: the previous month was at two point seven two point
Speaker 2: eight percent and we're now down to actually up to
Speaker 2: right around two point nine percent, and we're down to
Speaker 2: two point six percent, it is heading in the right direction.
Speaker 2: And rather than these knuckleheads actually recognizing that and saying
Speaker 2: that in their reports, they just say they just throw
Speaker 2: the number out there. They say, well, it's lower than expected,
Speaker 2: but they don't get in any context, any behind the
Speaker 2: scenes and saying that, well, the previous month it was this,
Speaker 2: and everybody was expecting it to go up this high,
Speaker 2: but apparently they're wrong. And of course, you know they're
Speaker 2: not going to do it because journalism all the well,
Speaker 2: i don't even call it journalism, spoon fed regurgislators and
Speaker 2: mainstream media. They just pump out this information they get well,
Speaker 2: first of all, they get pumped to them from the
Speaker 2: liberal democratic talking points, and then they just regurgitated to
Speaker 2: everybody else, and then you know, we're left to try
Speaker 2: to guess what's accurate and what's not. Just don't believe them,
Speaker 2: Just pay attention to what the actual numbers are and
Speaker 2: draw your own conclusions. The monthly increase, we're less than
Speaker 2: expected with both of all the items. The course CPI
Speaker 2: gained it two point two percent compared to estimates of
Speaker 2: point three percent, and that's just month over month, that's
Speaker 2: two tenths of a percentage point. This is the first
Speaker 2: report that encompasses the period during which the US government
Speaker 2: was shut down. The stoppage disrupted the data collection process
Speaker 2: in that time. It also led to a cancelation of
Speaker 2: the October CPI release. The data was originally expected to
Speaker 2: be released December the tenth, because the October CPI was canceled.
Speaker 2: Thursday's report did not have all the usual data points,
Speaker 2: and typically a CPI release, BLS was unable to retroactively
Speaker 2: collect the October data, and which I wonder why that
Speaker 2: information was out there it was available. Did you not
Speaker 2: go to it, did you not take the effort to
Speaker 2: go to it and look at it, or did you
Speaker 2: just say, oh, you know, the numbers were compiled, but
Speaker 2: they just went out into the ether somewhere. On a
Speaker 2: twelve month basis, food prices rose two point six percent
Speaker 2: and energy was up four point two which I've got
Speaker 2: to and ask the question when I go to the
Speaker 2: grocery store and I look at these prices reduced and
Speaker 2: they show what the shelf label price was, and then
Speaker 2: when you look at the reduced price, that reduced price
Speaker 2: is somewhere around ten percent, five percent in some cases
Speaker 2: fifteen percent of what it was before. And they advertised
Speaker 2: new low prices, new low prices. So where the food
Speaker 2: prices are going up that much?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: And then when they're talking about as far as energy
Speaker 2: prices are concerned, well, let's take a look at I mean,
Speaker 2: just quickly take a look at energy prices. West Texas
Speaker 2: intermediate crued is down twenty dollars and eighty three cents
Speaker 2: just since the first of the year. That's twenty seven
Speaker 2: percent down. Brent crude down twenty dollars and four cents
Speaker 2: of barrel, that is down twenty five percent since the
Speaker 2: beginning of the year. Now we've seen gas prices are
Speaker 2: now nationwide average at two dollars and ninety cents a gallon,
Speaker 2: when this time last year they were at three to
Speaker 2: zero three, So they're down thirteen cents a gallon, almost
Speaker 2: fourteen cents a gallon. So the energy prices, now, if
Speaker 2: they're talking about energy and electric energy and energy rates,
Speaker 2: those are controlled by the individual states and their regulatory
Speaker 2: commission that allow some of these companies like Duke Energy
Speaker 2: or whoever to raise their rates. So if they're not
Speaker 2: controlling and if they have converted a lot of their
Speaker 2: stuff to more green, new steel type of things in
Speaker 2: terms of getting away from fossil fuels and the normal
Speaker 2: production of energy, and if they're doing that because of
Speaker 2: windmills and because of solar and that's not been effective
Speaker 2: and those prices are actually higher and more expensive, then
Speaker 2: that's where it's coming from. It's not from tariffs. It's
Speaker 2: not from inflation, it's stupidity of the government and the
Speaker 2: state governments that allow that to happen. When they talked
Speaker 2: about that New Jersey governor's race, one of the things,
Speaker 2: one of the big criteria things where energy prices and
Speaker 2: electric prices were out of control, and so you have
Speaker 2: the Democrats in charge, which are controlling those energy costs.
Speaker 2: And so the brilliance of the people in New Jersey said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, we're going to have the Democrats fix that.
Speaker 1: So we're going to elect another Democratic governor.
Speaker 2: These numbers and we'll probably talk a little bit more
Speaker 2: about these on Tuesday. Some of the numbers are rolling
Speaker 2: in in terms of where the numbers were up, where
Speaker 2: the numbers were down.
Speaker 1: Bottom line is just incredible.
Speaker 2: But if you missed any of our previous segments or
Speaker 2: missing any of our shows from this week, which from
Speaker 2: down there in Nashville, hit up that iHeartRadio app Also
Speaker 2: stay tuned for Red Eye Radio Top of the Art.
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck a Network seven hundred WLW